Gan Atoll/ Southern Maldives liveaboard

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Walkman

Registered
Messages
16
Reaction score
1
Location
Malaysia
# of dives
200 - 499
Greetings,
Just want to know more info on diving with live aboard on Gan Atoll and its neighboring atolls? Which boats? Best season? Marine life compares to Male/S. Male/Ari Atolls. Thanks.

George Chew
 
Greetings,
John, thx for the prompt reply. I need serious diving in Maldives. I ve been there already 4 times. It is getting very crowded now in the main atolls.

George
 
Best season?
The best season is usually the dry season starting from January- as you've been here before you'll understand. Yesterday and today is sweeeeet weather for diving. Flat, sunny etc. A week ago it was strong winds and threatened rain which eventually didn't fall.

Marine life compares to Male/S. Male/Ari Atolls

I've been diving Laamu Atoll for the last month or so. Comparing to Ari Atoll my initial findings....
There is less plankton in the water.
There is less biodiversity on a given divesite.
The viz is much better.
The coral is in better shape.
Mantas can be seen in very good viz :)
The coral formations are very interesting- unique in fact.
Some of the best spots on certain deep reefs are below 25m
Turtles are everywhere- especially Green Turtles.
There are very few scorpionfish and stonefish- leaf fish are more common.
There are very few channels in Laamu Atoll- one very nice one is Maabaidhoo Kandu which is very shallow at the lip- approx 12m
There is one resort and one local island-based Dive center in the whole atoll- overcrowding on dive sites is not a concern.
Inside the atoll the current is almost nil.
In the first month of the SW Monsoon, the fish life is subtly different.
Stingrays outnumber the sharks

blue mountain edit small.jpgelephant edit small.jpgmobula edit small.jpgManta edit small.jpg
 
Last edited:
Greetings,
John, thx for the prompt reply. I need serious diving in Maldives. I ve been there already 4 times. It is getting very crowded now in the main atolls.

George


That is mainly so if you move with the pack and book a 1 week trip. 90% of the boats have 1 week trips starting and ending on sunday.
If you book 9, 10 or 14days (not 2x7) you can escape the mass, not much operators organising these though, but we do ;-).
Below one of our secret places where the other boats dont come and we have a nightly manta ballet

[video=youtube_share;-8_wjz3Z0Dc]http://youtu.be/-8_wjz3Z0Dc[/video]
 
By wanting to get away from the crowd means sailing further away from the few central atolls. Do you do southern atolls trip?
 
At the moment we don't do these deep South trips.
We're not convinced that the diving is really better there, the corals are better but the variation in marine life is less and as we sail out of sync with the rest anyway there is no need to go there.
A deep south trip also makes everything a lot more expensive as you burn a lot of fuel which is passed on to the clients.

The furthest we go at the moment is the Felidhoo Atoll (Hammerheads), from there we move to the South Ari Atoll (Whalesharks).
 
Having recently done a 10-day liveaboard trip that started in Male and ended in Laamu, I'll have to agree with Supergaijin ... I thought Laamu was the best diving of the trip, particularly Maabaidhoo Kandu. We did two dives at that site. Here's what I wrote in my dive log for those two dives ...

Steep and deep … best channel dive of the trip so far. Sharks, eagle rays, turtles, bumpheads … all of it.

Shallower version of the previous dive … even more magnificent with three flights of eagle rays passing overhead. Lots of sharks as well.

Of the 33 dives I did on six atolls, these were two of my favorite dives. The more central locales were OK ... particularly the two wrecks we dived ... but every time we spotted a manta or whale shark it quickly turned into a mob scene ... which is not my idea of a good time in the water. I'll take a less populated place with nicer corals anytime ... especially when sharks and eagle rays are plentiful ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added May 16th, 2012 at 08:20 AM ----------

By the way ... this is the route we took on the Cape Vita Explorer in late January/early February. I don't know where Gaan Atoll is relative to any of these, but I can definitely say that the further south we went, the better I liked the diving ...

001-Map.jpg


... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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