Tomorrow we fly back to Trivandrum, India after 6 days in the Maldives. We’ve been singing songs about our dreams dying today – the Maldives is a place that you really don’t want to leave.
Day 1:
We arrived in Male, the most populated city in the Maldives, late Wednesday night. If you have a chance, take the morning flight into the Maldives so you can view over the atolls. Our flight arrived after sunset so it was just darkness for us. From the airport it is a quick 5 minute ferry across to Male city. We stayed at Mookai Suites which was affordable (not much is in the Maldives) and had huge shared living rooms – 1 per every 2 rooms.
Day 2:
The next morning we woke up and went back to the airport to get aboard our seaplane to Kuramathi – a resort island in the Rasdhoo atoll. We had to rearrange our luggage a few times before they would let us board but we eventually got our heavy bags the green light. The plane ride was only 20 minutes. One of the down sides about choosing Rasdhoo was the fact that it was the atoll next to the atoll Male is in so we didn’t get a long flight over the famous Maldives view. We got enough of it though – breathtaking.
When we landed, the plane pulled up to a floating platform and we were met by a smaller boat to take us to the pier. The island was gorgeous. Imagine an island where every inch is covered in soft fine white sand, with lush vegetation in the middle all perfectly landscaped, surrounded by beautiful coral reefs, a lagoon on one side, a wall drop off on the other. The island was perfection. The biggest complaint we heard from those that had been to the Maldives on many occasions was that the island was too big and that some of the smaller ones allowed you to walk around them in 10 minutes. I however, quite liked the fact the island was large and had lots to see and do.

Our room was on stilts above the lagoon. We had some coral right underneath our walk out which was always filled with fish. We could sit outside on the deck and watch as sharks swam by and jump in and find pipefish, puffers, snappers, nudis, parrotfish – all right underneath us. The room was big and the beds were very comfortable. Our shower had a big window that looked out only onto lagoon. We were amazed at the logistics of running such a place. When you think about the fact that you are on a small piece of sand in the middle of nowhere – where everything you consume has to be flown in and everything you create has to be dealt with, it is an amazing feat that they have been able to create a 5 star experience.
We did a dive to get started, at Madivaru (most famous site in Rasdhoo), but the current wasn’t quite right so we didn’t get the full effect (I did a few days later after a hammerhead dive). We found the diving was similar to Palau in that there was lots of fish life and you had huge drop offs into the blue.
Day 3:
Krisin and I both got up at 5:15am to get out to Hammerhead point. As we were doing a feature for The Circumference, the dive center agreed to do a special trip this day for us. We dove down in the blue and it was like flying in space as the water was filled with “fireflies of the sea” – a plankton or something that glowed blue. We swam around for 40 minutes at 25m depth zig zagging back and forth but only saw 1 hammerhead and it was at a depth of 70m or more so we could only see his big body cruising by. Couldn’t make out the head we wanted to see. There was about 10 different liveaboard boats also diving so the site was busy and perhaps too loud for the hammerheads.
After a breakfast buffet (we loved the buffets on the island) we did another dive – scheduled for Manta Block in Rasdhoo. When we got to the site the guides looked around and no current (no current = no mantas) so we did a nearby wall just off the other resort island on Rasdhoo atoll. It was moray central. We’ve never seen so many. Every 5 meters you had another huge moray popping out of the wall. We also saw “mini” mantas (same family but different species), napoleon wrasse, and some black tip sharks.
We took the rest of the day to swim in the lagoon, enjoy our terrace and then attend the nightly Stingray feeding. Stingrays and sharks come in like clockwork at sundown to feed near the pier. A fellow gets in the water and the rays literally climb him to get fed. It’s quite entertaining and we took it in 3 nights out of 4. One night the herons that also get in the action sat on my head twice. I thought it was some weirdo massaging my head at first!
Day 4:
I got up again for the hammerhead dive, this time without Kristin. Again we spotted 1 but he was a bit too deep for me to get a good look. Better than the first day in that I could see his fins and his unique swimming style at a 45 degree angle to the bottom but not good enough to feel that I really saw him. I was getting a bit worried that I wouldn’t see one – as this was a big reason why we chose this island. In all the Maldives this was the spot for hammerheads and we were the only island that was within distance. Everyone else had to come via liveaboard. I confirmed with the dive center that March was the best time of year – yes correct. Apparently in January, everyday they saw the school of 50 or so but since then it has been spotty. They talked about the boat that was busted a few years ago where they found 75 hammerheads on board – fished out. Its strange to hear them talk about it – just hoping that they don’t get fished out in the middle of the night. Lost forever.
I tried for Manta Block again, but again no current. Same dive as the day before – moray city. I got a bit crazy playing with the Morays – some of video footage shows my camera getting nudged by one and almost bitten by another!
In the afternoon Kristin and I went for a nice walk along the sand outcrop – walking until the beach finally ran out. We did a bit of snorkelling as well then took in the nightly Stingray feeding. Most days late afternoon we’d do a some work online, have dinner and then get to bed fairly early.
Day 5:
I’ll call this the best diving day of my life thus far. In the morning I got up once again at 5:15am for Hammerhead point. I was hoping for 3rd time lucky. My guide on this day told me his theory that when the sharks are hard to find that he thinks its best to stick near the reef. I said sounds good – and that’s what we did. After about 20 minute of searching, I look behind me to my right and there is a big one maybe 10 meters away following us! As soon as I turned to look at him he did a 180 and started heading the other way. My dive group was swimming on, away from him. I tried to bang my tank but couldn’t make a noise and so just took in the view for the few seconds he was right there. I got a good look at him, and could see him completely. Before I could alert the others who were swimming away they spotting another one and so I rushed over to see the second hammerhead. Again a great view – the head clearly visible and the unique hammerhead swimming style. He dove down to 50 meters and was gone within 5 seconds. We kept searching and a few minutes later found #3 for the day – again a clear view. I chased him down to 30 meters and tried to get some footage as the first shark I was too surprised to shoot and the second my camera jammed and I didn’t get a thing. He dove to 50m and was moving fast so the footage was a wash but the view was great. Since we’d seen 3, we now went on to survey the rest of Madivaru. As there was very little current we could really swim along the ridge and move across the site. I felt it to be a mini Blue Corner – a place where you could sit and look into the blue and watch sharks but also find fields of garden eels, eagle rays (saw one on this dive) and corals and fish galore. I could dive that site every day.
Elated from such a great hammerhead experience, I went back and got Kristin and we headed out on a North Ari Atoll dive safari. Again the dive school arranged this just for us as they normally do it later in the week but we would have been gone. They were awesome! Our first dive was at Hafza Thila (near the famous Maaya Thila) and the highlight was a school of big dogtooth Tuna (maybe 10-15) which we got in the middle of. As we surfaced, a school of dolphins was swimming by the Thila just a few meters away – we almost came up into them! Our second dive was at Manta Point. After trying twice in the week for Mantas we were really hoping. Our dive guides searched by snorkel for 45 minutes – waiting for the current to change and start pulling out of the atoll. They timed it perfectly because as soon as we got down on the bottom we found five huge manta rays. As one of the guys on the boat said, it was like being on mars on a sand landing strip and having flying saucers coming in and hovering over your head. These Mantas were fearless. They came in and pretty much sat right on top of us. We were bent over backwards just trying to lie flat enough that they wouldn’t touch us. Our experience a few weeks ago in Palau was so fantastic we didn’t think it could be bested but this experience was even more magical.
Satisfied, on our boat ride home we did our nitrox lessons and then wrote the exam. We both passed and are now Nitrox certified. Diving nitrox, while a bit more to plan for, certainly makes you feel better at the end of the day and I really wish I’d done it earlier in the trip. Better late than never though. It really came in handy on the hammerhead dives.
Day 6:
Check out day. We were both sad and looking for places to handcuff ourselves to. I went snorkelling while Kristin went to check out the infinity pool. Snorkelling was amazing – best snorkelling I’ve ever done, as good as a “great” dive. Countless sharks, Napoleans, schools of sweetlips, half beaks, snappers, butterflies – stunning. It took the first couple sharks to get used to snorkelling with them. Up until now I was used to seeing them only when decked out with scuba gear.
We spent the last few hours on our terrace overlooking the lagoon and by 3:30 we were back in Male and looking for food. I wouldn’t want to spend much time in Male. Its very crowded – hundreds of thousands of people living on an island only 1.5 miles long. It’s also very expensive for everything. If you come to the Maldives, try your best to avoid having to overnight in Male. The best is definitely on the resort islands.