Maldives, July 2004 Part 1: MV Sea Spirit

This was my third trip to the Maldives in seven years. Given the world is pretty big place with plenty to see, I’ve often had difficulty understanding why some people return year after year to the same spot for holidays. I suppose once you find a place that offers the perfect balance of whatever it is you’re looking for, why not return? The Maldives certainly has that for scuba diving holidays.

Another liveaboard

Alice and I learned to dive in the Maldives in 1997, and, like most visitors, stayed on a resort island. This was a great way to start out, but when we returned for the second time in 1999, we decided we wanted a little more adventure, and took our first liveaboard holiday.

This time we decided to include both. Maldives Scuba Tours arranged a split itinerary starting with a seven night cruise on the MV Sea Spirit followed by a week on Komandoo island. The decision to include the liveaboard was easy: you have access to the best diving, can cover a wide area (well beyond what is accessible from a single island base) and can respond to changing weather conditions by adjusting plans as required.

The decision to include the island stay was less easy: it was possible that a degree of boredom might set in, and the diving would probably be less intense. So, to raise the interest levels, we selected Komandoo island. It had good reviews, was warmly recommended by the staff at Maldives Scuba Tours, and best of all was located in an atoll we had not previously visited – Lhaviyani, located around 130km north of Male, capital.

MV Sea Spirit

We flew into Male International Airport on Emirates via Dubai. The direct flight from London takes around ten hours, from memory, and the stop-over adds a couple more. We arrived around 7am on a Monday morning, completed the painless immigration procedures and were met promptly in the arrivals hall by our divemasters for the week ahead, Erika and Jason. Once all the passengers had gathered (12 in total), we transferred by dhoni to the MV Sea Spirit.

Divers are normally keen to maximise dive time, and so, overnight flight notwithstanding, we made our first dive that same afternoon. The excellent qualities of the Maldives as a dive destination were confirmed immediately: reef sharks, mantas and eagle rays. Visibility was not at its best, but still very good (15–20m). The dive site, Lankanfinolhu, is a well-known manta cleaning station. We watched for around 15 minutes as six large rays circled the area, settling occasionally to be cleaned.

We began our second day diving the same site at 7:25 in the morning – the mantas weren’t around, and the current was rather stronger. After breakfast, we motored down into Ari Atoll, to the south west, arriving in time for an afternoon dive, followed by a night dive. The normal regime for the trip was three dives per day, with the precise timing depending on whether or not we needed to make a channel crossing between atolls. The normal routine was a pre-breakfast dive around 7:15am followed by another mid-morning, then an afternoon dive or night dive.

Our first dive in Ari Atoll was at Maaya Thila, a site well-known for night dives, where white tip reef sharks and moray eels can be observed hunting on the top of the thila. (A thila is a flat-topped reef with the surface some 10–15m deep.) I had done the dive before during our last visit in 1999. This time, during the day, it was clear that the reef-top had deteriorated significantly, I suppose as a result of diver damage during the night dives. Erika mentioned that the night dive was restricted from time-to-time nowadays.

Whaleshark

Undoubtedly, the highlight of our visit to Ari Atoll was snorkelling with whalesharks. Erika and Jason had developed a technique reliably to locate the largest fish in the sea as they cruise up and down outside the atoll. Sure enough, a mere 20 minutes or so after commencing our search, we spotted our first specimen. Given the shallow depths at which they are found, and the fact that they can be somewhat shy, the plan was to snorkel rather than dive. Our first sighting disappeared before we could hit the water, causing some disappointment, but it was not long before another (or the same?) had been located.

Erika warned us that we would not realise two facts: a) how fast we were finning just to keep pace, and b) how long we would be swimming for. Our first encounter lasted a full 25 minutes before the shark headed off into deeper water, and of course, Erika was right. The shark was around 5m long, probably a juvenile. It was accompanied by a single tiny pilot fish, which can just be seen in the enlargement of the photo above (which Alice took). We were lucky enough to encounter a second specimen later in the day. This time the shark was slightly larger, probably around 6m in length, and significantly wider around the head. Needless to say, there were some very happy divers by the end of the day.

Other highlights of the trip, included a family of ribbon eels at a site in South Male atoll. We saw males (blue), females (yellow) and juveniles (black) – apparently an uncommon sight. Sadly, the camera did not accompany us on that dive. Kuda Giri, again in South Male atoll, was a great dive. I first did this site in 1997, and despite the bleaching of 1998, has remained in great condition. We spotted a pair of pipefish (Corythoichthys insularis?) on the port bows of the wreck, and two inquisitive mantis shrimp under ledges at around 8m on the west side of the giri. Sadly, I was neither fast nor patient enough with the camera to get a decent shot…

We completed 17 dives and 3 snorkelling sessions during our week onboard. The food, accommodation and organisation was excellent throughout. If there weren’t so many other places to visit, we’d be back. We may still be yet.

Stephen · Saturday, February 19, 2005, 14:10 · Permalink

Next report: Maldives, July 2004 Part 2: Komandoo