Maldives?

Four of us are considering spending a couple of weeks in the Maldives next February. One week on a live-a-board and one week at a land based resort. A friend who's been there said he wouldn't go back because all his dives from a live-a-board were quite deep with strong currents. We are all photographers and my experience is that the deeper you go the less there is to photograph and it's hard to photograph in strong currents. At least I tend to suck a lot of air past 70-80'. We've been to Indonesia, Bali, Komodo, Lembah Strait and Suluwesi; how do the Maldives compare. Comments, suggestions? We've done drift diving at Cozumel; how does it compare? One concern is that one resort supplies you with reef hooks. That tells me the current can be fierce. Thanks.

I can't compare against the other places you list. But our dives there from a liveaboard weren't typically all that deep and often included plenty of time in shallower areas. Many did have strong, occasionally insane currents. We didn't use reef hooks there but would have been an excellent idea. (We used reef hooks in Palau with not nearly as much current.)

My husband is into photography and found plenty of occasion to take pictures. Not to mention plenty of things to take pictures of. Not all dives were in too strong current for that and even on dives with current you might spend part of it in a lee or holding on someplace.

The typical dive is drop down outside edge to about 30 meters, hang on and watch the pelagics cruise past, then let go and drift progressively shallower up the wall and into a channel, finish dive inside. The coral is endless and pristine, the vis amazing, best diving I have ever done. There are currents but you are not fighting them, and the guides should know when to dive relative to the tide so that it is the most relaxing diving available. Since you don't have to kick at all, air consumption is amazing, easily get a hour out of a 12 liter tank. I must say I didn't do a liveaboard, where the guides might not have in depth local knowledge of the site, but land based the guides knew exactly where to dive depending on the current. Only had one problem dive, and that was at Kuredu Express, the name says it all, DM got in a tiz and aborted the dive. It is the place I most look forward to visiting again, but keep trying to find "the best" dive, nothing has come close so far. Next month will try Indonesia! Don't miss this one.

I took thousands of shot on the liveaboard and resort combined last I was there. The deeper you go you have a chance to photograph reef, grey and hammerhead sharks. Otherwise there are always eagle rays, mantas galore, whalesharks and endless species of tropical reef fish of many varieties.

I'm here in the Maldives right now on the Ark Royal liveaboard, and will attest most of the dives are deep (100 ft plus) and currents are the norm.

Read about our adventure and the diving by clicking here!

well you dive as deep as you wish. most reefs (thilas) and walls start shallow. agree with JB that if you know what your doing the currents are not a major issue on most dives. you go deep and drift up along the current. if your fighting it your doing something wrong. its more about timing than swimming. there are also plenty of easy shallow dives. lots of good manta cleaning stations are shallow. we had a great time in less than 5m of water at Boduhithi Thila with about 10 mantas. Some of the best sites with big pelagic action do have strong currents since the best time to dive them is on an incoming tide. but the currents bring the big fish. i have not had problem with photography in the Maldives, except for a couple of dives when i decided not to take the camera. with 200+ dives you should be ok. time of year also affects currents. generally Dec/Jan and have strong currents and they ease up into Feb and become much less in March. then pick up towards April.

as far as comparisons go I have not dived the location you mention but Maldives has been one of the best places for pelagics compared to places like Phils, Sipadan and Thailand. Reef sharks and mantas become common occurrences there!

Have a look at Kuredu. Its one of the busier islands, so not necessarily the hideaway paradise often associated with the maldives, but it does have the mv monsoon liveaboard which operates from it. The land based diving is also decent, with a house reef that can be dived independantly at any time, usual reef fish suspects and a small wreck, with a max of about 22 metres if I remember rightly. At the back of the island the is the caves dive site, which is almost turtle guaranteed, and dive sites such as the manta cleaning station at fushivaru thila are a short boat trip away. Have a look at the prodivers website and try contacting Raymond, who is photo crazy, and full of good advice.
Mike