Maldives Diving

Best Scuba Diving In The Maldives

Manta rays, whale sharks, white tip sharks, huge schools of fish – the best scuba diving in the Maldives is all possible to see within the space of one week on a typical Maldives scuba diving liveaboard trip.

While there are unsurprisingly hundreds of world class dive sites in the Maldives, the majority of liveaboards tend to follow a fairly standard 7 day itinerary that departs from and returns to the capital city of Male. This is basically a loop that runs from north to southern Male atoll, makes the crossing to Ari atoll and then swings over to Felidhoo atoll before heading back up to Male atoll and the capital.

Certainly this trip is the most convenient Maldives itinerary to do, and it has several world-class dives within it which makes it perennially popular. I’ve done this trip several times on three different Maldives liveaboards – MV Orion, MV Carpe Vita, and MV Sachika – follow the links for detailed reviews of each boat – and here are what I think are the best Maldives dive sites in a typical seven day trip.

You can see my previous trip report 7 days on Maldives Liveaboard MV Orion, my magazine story Luxury Scuba Diving In The Maldives for Bangkok Airways inflight magazine Fah Thai and Maldives Diving photo gallery January 2011 for more info on how trips actually run.

Note that this list of dive sites doesn’t cover Baa atoll (home of Hanifaru, the annual August and September manta ray and whale shark fest) in the north or the southern Maldives sites south of Ari atoll – that would be another Best Of list in its own right as those sites are not visited so often by Maldives liveaboards due to their relative remoteness.

The best time to go to the Maldives to do the classic Male- Ari – Thud – Male itinerary is April, when the visibility is outstanding, although it’s pretty amazing all year round. June and July are the months to avoid as seas get choppy and wind picks up with the monsoon changeover.

Hafsaa Thila

Usually awash with huge schools of fish, Hafsaa Thila is a shallow, flat-topped pinnacle where marine life congregates. Since the catastrophic coral die off in the 1990s, the Maldives is more a place to creatures rather than coral, and Hafsaa is one of the signature sites for spotting white tip sharks in the blue as well as schoals on the pinnacle.

Manta Rays of Rangali Madivaru, Maldives

Rengali Madivaru

A sun-drenched shallow reef, Rengali Madivaru is also one of the Maldive’s most famous manta ray cleaning stations – there are several stations scattered along the edge of the reef on the cusp of its slope down into the depths. Mantas cruise and wheel around each station, making it possible to move on from one to another if it gets too crowded – it’s unsurprisingly a popular site. See more manta ray photos from Rengali Madivaru in my previous post Maldives Manta Rays: A Spectacular Close Encounter At Rengali Madivaru

Maya Thila

Widely considered as the best night diving spot in the Maldives, Maya Thila is a shallow pinnacle where white-tip sharks, stingrays, turtles and a plethora of other creatures are regularly encountered after dark.

Maamigili

Not a dive site as such, more an area, Maamigili is a stretch of water famous for sightings of whale sharks. It’s possible to go snorkelling with the gentle giants here, although you need to keep your wits about you in the water

Kudarah Thila

Picturesque overhangs and a field of coral fans typify Kundahah, one of the prettiest dive sites on this list. There can be strong currents and a negative descent required, but once on the thila itself, the abundant fish life brought in by the currents makes it a must-see site worth the effort

Dhonkalo

An eighteen metre deep sandy channel in the middle of nowhere, Dhonkalo’s barren reef is distinctly unappetising – except it’s also a stunning manta ray cleaning station. I’ve seen up to 15 here on any one dive, riding in train formation on the sometimes savage currents that can rip through the channel – it’s like an underwater airport. (See more Dhonkalo pix in my previous post Maldives Manta Rays: My Best Picture of 2010).

Kuda Giri Shipwreck

Actually a minor dive site in the Maldives pantheon, this one is a personal favourite of mine. The wreck of the Kuda Giri, a boat deliberately sunk for diving, sits upright on a sandy bottom at 30 metres with the top of the deck around 24 metres. Thickly encrusted with colourful corals and still relatively intact, the wreck provides an atmospheric final dive for most trips. The nearby reef provides some extra scenery for the last, shallow part of the dive.

Maldives Manta Rays – A Spectacular Close Encounter At Rangali Madivaru, Maldives

The Maldives is famous for manta ray encounters, and there’s few places better than Rangali Madivaru to see these spectacular creatures group together en masse in crystal clear water

April may be the cruelest month for T.S. Eliot, but for Maldives scuba diving it’s absolute bliss – while conditions are good almost all year round, in April there’s a certain quality of light and a certain clarity to the water that makes it particularly special. The Maldives is famous as one of the few places in the world where you can have almost guaranteed encounters with manta rays, and South Ari atoll’s Rangali reef is one of the most spectacular manta hotspots.

But there’s little to prepare you for four mantas swooping in and circling around their cleaning station at Rangali Madivaru, wholly unbothered by a couple of divers flattening themselves on the rocks below them to be as unobstrusive as possible and so only a few inches from being touched by the tips of a manta’s wing.

Rangali Madivaru is an almost-certain stop on any Maldives liveaboard trip as it’s a reknown manta cleaning station, located in relatively shallow water at 8 to 20 metres. There are several cleaning stations along the long, steep sloped reef, and it’s possible to move between two or three stations in a single dive to stay ahead of other divers if you’re feeling fit.

On this dive, circumstances conspired to be perfect. My dive buddy Jez and I slipped into the water a few minutes before everyone else on our dhoni from the MV Carpe Vita was ready – the shallow reef stretched out beneath us with no current and astounding visibility of 40 metres, drenched in light from the mid-morning sun.

We’d both been here before and knew what a popular spot it is for Maldives liveaboards and resorts alike (like the uber-luxury Conrad Rengali)- to be on the reef alone was beautiful, especially as it wasn’t long before the first, very large, manta ray came gliding in to greet us. Around 3 metres from wingtip to wingtip, this manta showed no fear – actually, no interest at all – in two divers skulking around his territory.

Instead he lazily took up circling very slowly around the cleaning station, and was soon joined by another, and another… and another. To have four manta rays, each the size of a small car, passing inches over your head and momentarily blocking out the sun before swooping back out into a holding pattern around the station, is not something you forget easily. Some of the mantas got so close to me I couldn’t fit them in the camera viewfinder – and I was using a lens that makes things seem further away…

Thanks to the relatively shallow depth – around 10 metres at the top of the reef – we were able to stay with the mantas for a good half hour, and they remained in place even as several boatloads more divers arrived on the scene. By that point Jez and I had drifted down the reef to another cleaning station, and a couple of the mantas seemingly followed us a few minutes later. I’ve seen mantas in Thailand, Indonesia, Palau and the Philippines, but the Maldives provides the perfect conditions for not only seeing them but spending time watching their amazing presence in the water.

MV Carpe Vita – Maldives Liveaboard Review

Carpe Vita is latest luxury Maldives liveaboard to take to the waters, launching in March 2011. Here’s my detailed rundown of Carpe Vita’s operation after spending a week on the boat

Carpe Vita is a brand new luxury Maldives liveaboard which launched in March 2011. The sister ship to the already established Carpe Diem liveaboard, Carpe Vita is purpose-built for scuba diving. The boat basically aims to take the best elements of Carpe Diem and make it even bigger and better. Carpe Vita is targetted at the luxury end of the dive market and runs 7 day Maldives diving trips departing and returning to Male.

Executive Summary
If you can’t be bothered to read all of the info below, the executive summary is that Carpe Vita is an excellent boat, very efficiently set up and operated, and is certainly raising the already high bar of what to expect from luxury Maldives liveaboards. It compares favourably with the two other luxury Maldives liveaboards I’ve been on previously – MV Orion and Sachika. View Carpe Vita liveaboard’s current schedule and pricing for Maldives trips.

Big And Beautiful
Carpe Vita’s topside and interior was designed and built by Dutch partner Agnes Van Linden and her father Fop Van Linden in Innamadho shipyard in Raa Atoll during 2010, the first thing that’s noticable about Carpe Vita is the sheer amount of space. The liveaboard has a maximum of 20 guests, 10 rooms and there is plenty of room to accommodate all of them. The saloon is huge with a snack area and three separate tables and fitted cushioned seating and windows running around the full length of the room which keeps it light and airy.

Eating usually happens on the open air upper deck at the back of the boat, where meals are served up buffet style and there are more moulded seats for reclining. The sundeck at the top of the boat also has a jacuzzi and a good size shade over more seating and sunbeds to accommodate around 10 people at any one time. My favourite area of the boat was at the front on the upper deck where more comfortable seats await – one of the nice things about Carpe Vita is that it feels there are plenty of spaces where you can spend time alone as well as the main communal areas.

Carpe Vita Liveaboard’s Cabins
Each of the bedrooms is big enough to fit a full king size double bed and a single bed together – good for friends and family who need separate beds – and also has a spacious ensuite shower, sink and toilet. Apart from MSY Damai in Indonesia, these are the biggest rooms I’ve seen on a liveaboard anywhere. The bedrooms also have a single desk for photo editing, several power outlets (standard British 3 pin plug sockets) with power adapters thoughtfully provided, and a flat screen TV to which a media centre can be attached to play back lots of movies.

The room has powerful aircon that can be quite arctic if you require it to be so, while the shower has strong water pressure, a good size shower head and dependable hot water. My room had a slight whiff of diesel to it but it was barely noticable after the first night.

The Food And Booze
Carpe Vita follows the classic liveaboard pattern of providing generous quantities of food at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with pre-breakfast snacks available before the first dive and snacks late afternoon. There’s a barbeque dinner on a typically picture postcard perfect Maldivian island one night (complete with whale sharks carved in the sand) and a sit down dinner where four courses are served to you on the boat another night. Otherwise, it’s a buffet setup and you help yourself. The food is in general good, although being a bit fussy/overly fond of food I would have liked to have seen a couple more choices of main course. It’s very nice to be able to eat outside each time, and the captain is diligent about positioning the boat so the deck is in the shade. That said, with a full compliment of guests, it does get a bit crowded for moving around the table during mealtimes.

Carpe Vita has a very impressive policy of not only providing unlimited free drinking water (important to check this is included when booking Maldives boats) but also two complimentary beers or glasses of wine for each guest each night. As this is often all most guests want with their dinner, this is a nice bonus – especially as alcohol in the Maldives is not cheap. For those who wish to indulge a little more, there’s a good selection of wine available priced at a reasonable $25 and up, and bottles of spirits (e.g. Stolichnaya Vodka) start at $65 a bottle. The dedicated bar staff are very good at promptly attending to drink orders. You sign for your drinks at the end of each day.

The Dive Setup
As with other Maldives liveaboards, all diving on Carpe Vita takes place from an auxiliary boat, or dhoni, that follows the Carpe Vita behind. Dhonis are traditional Maldivian boats and so usually quite basic – the Carpe Vita dhoni however is really quite posh, with lots of space (again) for each guest to gear up, two large rinse tanks for cameras, and a large, spacious toilet and shower too, which is a real luxury. (Peculiarly though there doesn’t appear to be a drinking water dispenser on board – this is apparently being rectified very soon).

Dive briefs take place in the saloon and there’s a whiteboard in the main lobby area which shows the dive times for each day. A loud bell is rung to indicate a dive briefing is about to take place – if you don’t come to the saloon, it’s assumed you want to skip the dive. There are four dives scheduled each day with the first briefing at around 0630. When there’s no suitable night dive spot there will be a late afternoon dive at around 1630. The dive guides are excellent, both above and below water – they all speak fluent English and also are a friendly bunch – easy to get on with and receptive to any requirements you need.

Dive Photography Setup
For photographers with big rigs, the setup is adequate but not ideal. There are rinse tanks on the dhoni and on the back deck of the Carpe Vita itself, along with a table for cameras and a charging station for batteries et al.

I would have liked a dedicated area on the dhoni for large cameras to be placed out of the way. The boat staff were very helpful but not quite familiar with how to handle camera gear. The biggest problem is big cameras being left in the rinse tank and other cameras being dropped into the rinse tank on top of the dome of another camera below. If the boat staff could give big cameras a quick rinse and then store them for the journey home it would avoid any unfortunate accidents.

Conclusion
The main thought that kept occurring to me during my week on Carpe Vita was that , to coin a phrase, “everything just works”. From the hot showers to the dive briefings to the spacious dhoni, a lot of thought has gone into the details of how the liveaboard should work, clearly inspired by experience learnt whilst managing sister liveaboard Carpe Diem. It’s obviously the beginning of Carpe Vita’s career and stuff on boats always breaks, but the planning that has gone into the boat, and the ongoing revisions to subtly improve their processes over time, means that I’d be surprised if the Carpe Vita’s high standards slip anytime soon. The initial feedback from Carpe Vita’s first guests, mainly American, has been very positive. I would have to agree – if you want to maximise your diving in the Maldives and also want a luxury boat experience with plenty of space, Carpe Vita should definitely be on your shortlist.

Maldives Liveaboard MV Orion Review

Newly launched in the Maldives, MV Orion provides a serious contender for those wanting luxury Maldives liveaboard scuba diving and island cruising

I recently went to the Maldives to see the newly built MV Orion in its second week of operation. The boat already has an impressive setup, and with its final improvements due to be complete by the end of October 2009 (free Nitrox, free unlimited drinking water, personal entertainment systems in each room) it will be even better. The following is a rundown of the practicalities of being on the MV Orion. I’ve also published a separate trip report about the scuba diving on MV Orion – the boat follows a 7 day schedule around Male, Baa and Ari atolls.

For MV Orion’s current departure schedule, availability and pricing, see MV Orion on LiveaboardDiving.net

Included below are some of my world famous quick videos shot around the boat – there’s zero production values as it’s just me wandering around with my Canon IXUS. However, they hopefully give a good idea of what the bedrooms and bathrooms really look like. The first video shows the boat exterior, while the second and third show the Junior Suite and Standard Double Room. There is also a collection of photos below showing the outdoor bar area, the Executive Suite jacuzzi at the front of the boat, and the huge sundeck up top.

MV Orion is built around the cruising in comfort concept, where the boat is appealing to divers and non divers alike. Scuba is a big part of the boat’s itinerary with three dives a day — four if there’s a night dive – but it’s also a great boat on which to relax, sunbathe, enjoy the spa, sauna and jacuzzi and watch the Maldives seascape go by as the boat cruises during the day. Cabins are very spacious and well-appointed, while the dining room, bar area and sundeck are also designed to provide plenty of room.

Accommodation
MV Orion can accommodate up to 22 guests. It has an Executive Suite, Junior Suite and several double rooms. All rooms are ensuite with hot power shower, spacious and well-appointed. There is a vanity unit in each room which is good for setting up a laptop and camera gear if required. Each room also has its own flatscreen TV and will apparently have a personal media player in the near future. The air con was a bit hit and miss during our trip, but this is apparently being ironed out in the near future.

Dining And Drinking
MV Orion has a very large, comfortable air conditioned dining room where pre-dive breakfast, big breakfast, lunch, 5pm snack and dinner are served. Meals are served buffet style and there is always a choice of 3 or 4 different dishes. Fresh fruit e.g. watermelon or papaya is the standard dessert. Tea and coffee is available free all day.

There is a water machine due to be installed on the boat which will provide unlimited free drinking water to all guests during their trip. Some boats charge for bottled water beyond an initial two litre per day allowance.

There is a full bar on board serving beer and spirits – draught Heineken is around $4 a glass, and spirits around $5 a shot.

Sundeck and other amenities
The sundeck on MV Orion is massive, with a covered area for those who want some shade. There is also an outdoor bar at the back of the boat which is perfect for sundowners. There is a jacuzzi located in the outdoor bar too, as well as a private jacuzzi at the front of the boat for the use of guests who are in the Executive Suite. There is a spa and sauna also located near the outside bar, and a Thai massage service is available on board too.

Diving
MV Orion does not stick to a rigid schedule of trying to fit in a maximum number of dives per day. Three dives a day is the norm.

Daily Dive Routine – most days begin early at 6am for 6.30 am dive briefing. All dives are conducted from a smaller boat, known as a dhoni, which follows the MV Orion. The dhoni has a fair bit of room for gearing up and storage boxes underneath each seat. All dive gear can be left on the dhoni between dives. Most sites are no more than 10 to 15 minutes from the MV Orion. Remember to bring water, sunblock and sunglasses for each dive. A towel is provided for each guest in their room to bring on the dhoni.

Because all diving in the Maldives is tidal, guests should be aware that briefings can change while on the dhoni if the current is not behaving as expected. The dive guide will check the current before guests enter the water.

Entry into the water is by giant stride, with a fairly tall ladder to climb back up at the end of the dive.

Stepping onto the dhoni from the Orion can be a little bit tricky, so take care to watch your footing and let the staff help you.

Dive guides – there are two dive guides, Hassan and Alex. They are the co-directors of MV Orion’s business. Hassan is a veteran Maldivian divemaster with over 15000 dives. Alex also runs a large dive operation in Singapore. There will a third Cruise Director joining the boat in November 2009 who will also act as a guide.

Free Nitrox – Nitrox will be provided as standard on MV Orion. It wasn’t available when I was on the boat as it was only the second week of operation – send an enquiry using the form below to check if it’s available for your preferred dates.

Camera Gear – there is a large flat platform on the dhoni which is a good place for putting cameras – a rinse tank is also available on the boat. There are charging stations for cameras in the dining room, but they are only really suitable for smaller cameras as they are cubby holes built into sideboard areas. There are several plug outlets in each room. The plugs use 3 pin British style plug sockets. Bring an adapter and surge protector if you use other types of plugs. The electricity voltage is 230 Volts AC / 50 Hz.

Getting There
Fly into Male Airport (the Maldives’ capital city) for pickup and transfer by speedboat direct to MV Orion. The ride takes about 10 minutes. Find the cheapest flights to Male on Skyscanner.

Booking with MV Orion
For MV Orion’s current departure schedule, availability and pricing, see MV Orion on LiveaboardDiving.net

Hanifaru – Where Manta Rays And Whale Sharks Meet

This has to be the most incredible underwater footage of manta rays and whale sharks I’ve ever seen – scores of them in a feeding frenzy at Hanifaru in the Maldives

This video clip from National Geographic is absolutely insane. Scores of manta rays and several whale sharks duking it out to see who can eat the most microscropic plankton in Hanifaru in the Maldives. Hanifaru Bay lies in the Baa Atoll, and this gathering of manta rays and whale sharks – sometimes scores of mantas and several whale sharks, which are usually solitary and very rare – occurs occasionally between May to November.

I am heading out to Hanifaru on the Orion liveaboard next month, and so I’m crossing everything that we might get to witness some of this incredible action. If I saw only a tenth of what goes on in these videos, I’d be a happy man. It might even surpass the best dive of my life…

Also check out this stunning Hanifaru photoset on Flickr taken by Christian Loader – thanks to UW photographer Matthew Oldfield for sending me the link.

Here’s another Hanifaru clip from Aqua Dreams Imaging:

There’s more info about Hanifaru on this page of the excellent DivePhotoGuide.com and Bruce Barcott’sfull Hanifaru National Geographic article, complete with more photos, is also online – definitely worth a read.