Diving the Maldives

The Maldives has to be one of those dream destinations: small sandy tropical isles dotted with a few palm trees swaying in the breeze; luxurious bungalows built out over the calm shallow water under a bright sunny sky the extends down in to the sea on all sides. It seems like an idyllic place for a honeymoon, but that’s not why I’m here.

I’ve come to the Maldives for what’s under the water’s surface: some of the best diving in the world. There are over 1,000 islands perched on 26 different atolls. That’s a lot of reefs worth diving. Our dive guide reckons that you could spend a year diving three different dive sites every day, and not see them all. But I only have a week.

My home for the week is the MV Sea Spirit (see my separate review of the Sea Spirit), with its companion dive boat the Niumath. We set out from Male, the capital of the Maldives, on a bright sunny Sunday morning. First, we head just a short way north of Male to do our check-out dive at Langkhan reef in the afternoon. It proves to be not the best check-out dive you can have. A wicked surge has come up, making it a bit like diving in giant washing machine. It’s not a great start to the trip, but it turns out we’ll be back here for another dive, which will be better, much better.

The next day we sail to South Male atoll to dive Kuda Giri, a very nice wreck dive, with a couple of spectacular lion fish on the prowl. Next up was a site called the "Manta Spa" because it was a cleaning station favored by mantas. We settled on the sandy bottom near the station, but didn’t see any mantas. I ended up trying to sneak up on a patch of garden eels to get a good picture. I skipped the last dive of the day. The sun and the sea were getting a bit much for me.

I was feeling much better the next day when we arrived in Ari Atoll, and was definitely up for the next dive at Kidi Maa, which was another wreck dive. This time, the ship was sunk on purpose to provide a fantastic diving opportunity for a dive resort on the nearby island. There were plenty of friendly batfish as well as a cab full of glassfish in the deck crane. Large holes had been cut in the sides of the ship, making an easy swim through the hold. Next we went hunting for whale sharks along the outer reef, but there were none to be seen, so we dived on a site I’ve logged as "Diva Reef". This was a long sloping reef on the outside of the atoll. The last dive of the day was Angaga Thili, which was another great dive site. We saw a few turtle on this dive. One juvenile seemed to bury his head in the reef when we first came alone, but then seemed to swim along with the group once he saw we weren’t going to do him any harm.

The next morning started out with my 50th dive, on a site called Dega Thila. It’s been just a few weeks over one year since I did my open water dives, and it’s hard to believe I’ve managed so many dives in such a short time. We were greeted on the bottom by a school of batfish, followed by assorted angels and butterflyfish on the reef. The mid-day dive was on a site the guide called Fish Head reef, and the last on Maaya Thila, where we saw schools of unicornfish, as well as bright yellow-striped sea perch.

Incredible Reefs of the Maldives

Makaro Thila the next morning was definitely one of the best dives of the trip. The broad flat top of the pinnacle was covered with several large table corals, under which were sheltering juvenile white-tip reef sharks, flower groupers, and assorted other fish. This was followed by a roller-coaster of a drift dive through Congchi Pass. This was one of those dives where I eventually just had to turn off the camera and enjoy the ride. We got to take it easy on the last dive on Madivaru Finolhu at the northern edge of Ari Atoll.

We’d now worked our way through South Male Atoll, up through Ari Atoll and on to the small Rasdhoo Atoll. The next day we made our first dive on Raschoo Madivaru, on the west side of Rasdhoo, then headed back to North Male Atoll. We reached Bodufinolhu Thila on the west side of North Male just before mid-day for our second dive. After lunch, the boat sailed across the atoll for our next dive, Trixie’s Cave. The ‘cave’ is really just a deep overhang, but the most interesting aspect of this site is the profusion of soft corals. The entire rim of the cave is lines with a profusion of small Dendronephthya soft corals in a variety of pastel colors. It was a refreshingly different dive site, and got even more interesting after dark, since we also had the option of doing a night dive on this same site. The color of the corals got even brighter, and the cave was visited by several other interesting creatures as well, such as a few morays out of their holes and on the prowl.

Mantas Being Cleaned in the Maldives

The next day, we could only do one dive, since the following day would be the end of our cruise, and some people had noon flights that day. There was a bit of a groan when it was announced that our last dive would be on Langkhan, the same place where we had a rather disappointing first dive. But, the dive guide hastened to point out, we came back here because the Sea Spirits sister boat had seen mantas on the site the night before. So, we somewhat skeptically got ready for the dive. This time, we weren’t disappointed. The mantas were on the cleaning station when we got there. Our guide had briefed us well and was quick to show us exactly where to settle on the bottom for the best view. There were two groups of mantas about. As soon as the one group of three moved off, a pair came to take their place. They switched back and forth for almost an hour, after which we had to surface. It was a fantastic end to a fantastic week of diving.

Getting to the Maldives

The only way to get to the Maldives, really, is to fly. Male International Airport is served by the major carriers of South and Southeast Asia, like Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Air System, Sri Lankan Airlines; as well as several carriers from the Gulf and Europe.

Dive Operators

There are several dive operators working the Maldives. Most dive sites are reached by live-aboards, although there are a few dive-oriented resorts. The Sea Spirit is operated by Maldives Scuba Tours.