Dive safari - Maldives, Cuba or Palau?

Hi. I would like to go to a safari boat, but i cannot decide the right destination. I have some limitations / conditions:
- I am a beginner (with just 10 dives)
- i prefer destination where are sharks guaranteed and other big fish (mantas)
This conditions determine my possibilities, so for example I must exlude Egypt, where the best sites with sharks are only for advanced divers. I am considering about these destinations:

Maldives
Jardines de la reina, Cuba
Palau (but i am not sure if there are not big currents, which made it not suitable for beginners)

I am thinking about Maldives, but i dont know if it is also for beginners. I also dont know, if i can visit some islands during the safari.

Thank you for every advise

Safari boat???? what is that? Do you mean a liveaboard?

What time of year?

Your profile is blank so I can't really tell you where is best from your home location....... but I can say that if you want to see sharks and do it on beginner type dives from a liveaboard, I would suggest in the Caribbean: Nekton in Bahamas (Apr-Aug only), ExplorerVentures Bahamas or Turks & Caicos (sharks, no mantas), or Aggressor to Turks & Caicos or Caymans (sharks, no mantas).
Another option is the Aggressor in Kona Hawaii - maybe white tips sharks and good chance of seeing mantas.
websites:
www.nektoncruises.com
www.aggressor.com
www.explorerventures.com

As far as Palau on a liveaboard, it is doable as a beginner but your bottom times may be lower and some dives may be much too difficult due to current and deep depths.
Yap is well known for its manta population but no liveaboards there.
Maldives I have heard is all advanced diving. Don't know personally.

I think that Maldives and Palau are not really suitable for beginners, since lots of dives have to be deep and have strong or very strong currents.
In the Carribean, I don't know... but I'll go there in December, so I'll find out !

There are few places in the ocean anything is guaranteed. And locations with strong currents (or other conditions you might consider more advanced) tend to be the very places the sharks hang out in the areas known for them. So finding good shark activity with little current could be tough.

Mantas are a little easier, there are some places where the diving is pretty easy and they're a fairly sure thing. Manta Ray Bay hotel in Yap even has a manta guarantee of sorts, if you dive enough days with them. There's a couple sites in Kona Hawaii where mantas are pretty reliable, but you can go there and get unlucky too. (Some trips to Hawaii we've seen a number of sharks and sometimes none.)

Maldives and Palau can both have strong currents, though not always. It's going to vary with time of year, phase of the moon, where in the area you go exactly, and luck. On a liveaboard in these places you might wind up sitting out some dives if you're not up to them yet. You might have more opportunities for easy dives in those places with land based ops, but also less chance of seeing sharks on those dives. (We dove a couple sites in Palau famous for sharks at a time when there was little current, and the sharks just weren't there.)

It's true there are a few places in the Caribbean with pretty decent shark odds that should be easier diving, like certain areas of the Bahamas. But don't know if the Caribbean makes sense for whereever you are coming from. The diving in places like Cayman or Turks & Caicos is generally relatively easy (though a lot of it still tends to be deeper than you are probably certified for at this point) and you might get lucky and see some sharks over the course of a week, but it's far from guaranteed.


We visited 3 islands while on a Maldives liveaboard, though they were fairly organized visits. Other safari boats seemed to do similar stops. In Palau the only time we stepped on land was to visit Jellyfish lake. (I think most of the islands in Palau are more interesting to look at from the water than be on, with the exception of places there are wartime artifacts for the people that are into that.)


There's something to be said for developing an appreciation for smaller sea life while you get more experience.

I loved Jardines de la reina, Cuba. I dived it immediately after the Galapagos and it seemed pretty benign - not much current and good visibiility. Lots of sharks but no big rays I can remember. My report is here


Alion

I've just got back from doing the Cay Sal bank just north of Cuba with Nekton Cruises on the Pilot, sharks only but easy diving Also did a Mike Ball liveaboard in Queensland a few years back where we had sharks and some of the biggest stingrays I've ever seen

Please reade the Maldives threads on the Accident section of Scubaboard. There are many good reasons to reject the Maldives out of hand.

Hi
Diving in the Maldives is fantastic; but the diving can be challenging; they have strong currents and the majority of liveaboards say you need to have a minimum of 50 logged dives and be AOW.

90% of the dives are drift dives and alot of them are negative entry; so that on entry you go straight down and spend no time on the surface.Spend too long on surface and you can end up going in a different direction to the other divers (learnt the hard way)

Land based diving may be better for a 1st visit as they cater for a mixed level of divers where as the liveaboards tend to attract the diver that is aware of the challenges of diving the Maldives and know the challenges with currents.

It is possible to combine island with l.board and it tends to be min 7 days boat and however many days on island.

We fly out soon for our 8th visit so it's safe to say we love the place. And last yrs visit we were over loaded with mantas; manta soup on most dives with some of those really big spotty things...whale sharks....fantastic!

Have a look on Divenet & Yorkshire forums; there are some good reports on the Maldives.

Have a good one where ever you decide to go.
Vicky

If you've only done 10 dives then you might still get surprised by liking many different things. Sharks are one neat thing, but there are lots of critters big and small that are so different from what we see on land. I've had the experience numerous times where I get introduced by a dive leader to a new-to-me critter underwater, and then all of a sudden I'm delighted to see them frequently.

So one thought is for you to pick a place with easy, cheap, frequent diving with rich underwater life, and get a lot of dives under your belt and maybe work in your AOW course too. Most Caribbean liveaboards fit the bill, but you might also check out Bonaire as well as Ambergris Caye in Belize.