Depth in the Maldives?

Hi guys, my wife and I are newly certified OW divers. We have an additional 6 dives that we have done on our own in addition to OW, but of course we are far from being experienced divers.

We have a trip planned for the Maldives in the last week of November and have about 10 dives planned (North Male Atoll off a local island). We are debating doing our AOW in expense of some of those dives or just doing the 10 as planned and staying above 60ft/18m. Our dive operator won't take us below 60 ft without AOW.

We know that most diving is best above 60 ft anyways, but how is this in the Maldives? We really want to see some sharks/manta rays; will we see those at the 60 ft depth? I would rather not do the AOW and enjoy our vacation if we can get some good diving at that depth, I just feel that we would miss out on some deeper dives that are really worthwhile - It's not everyday you can book a trip to the Maldives! The other problem with depth of course is air consumption...I am not the best at conserving my air at this point, and I will blow through a tank in very little time. I would rather spend more time shallower than do a 10 minute deep dive.

The other reason I was debating the AOW is it would help us improve our skills before doing our vacation dives (especially learning how to properly drift dive).

Thoughts/Advice?

A typical dive at the Maldives atols will take you down to 75 to even 120 or 150 ft. The sharks are down there!.Another aspect of Maldive diving is the currents.. When the water flows in to or out of the atols there can be quite a lot of current. I'm not trying to scare you, but I've been there on several occasions and sometimes you feel like you're in a washing machine. On the good side: the whale sharks and manta's are to be seen at 30 ft most often.
I would get some more experienced and AOW is a good way to enjoy the diving more over there.
I had some of my best dives ever at the Maldives.
If you are an air hog, get a bigger tank... I'm not into American sizes, but normally you get an 11 L (80 cuft?)tank, so be sure they get you a 15 Liter one. I use more air than my SO, so I use a bigger tank too. I try to be more conservative, but after 45 years of diving, I guess it won't get any better anymore
Hope you'll enjoy the Maldives as much as we did. Are you going on a liveaboard (which I like best out there) or to a resort?

sphyrnidus:

A typical dive at the Maldives atols will take you down to 75 to even 120 or 150 ft. The sharks are down there!.Another aspect of Maldive diving is the currents.. When the water flows in to or out of the atols there can be quite a lot of current. I'm not trying to scare you, but I've been there on several occasions and sometimes you feel like you're in a washing machine. On the good side: the whale sharks and manta's are to be seen at 30 ft most often.
I would get some more experienced and AOW is a good way to enjoy the diving more over there.
I had some of my best dives ever at the Maldives.
If you are an air hog, get a bigger tank... I'm not into American sizes, but normally you get an 11 L (80 cuft?)tank, so be sure they get you a 15 Liter one. I use more air than my SO, so I use a bigger tank too. I try to be more conservative, but after 45 years of diving, I guess it won't get any better anymore
Hope you'll enjoy the Maldives as much as we did. Are you going on a liveaboard (which I like best out there) or to a resort?

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I am actually staying at a local island and doing the dives through their dive shop! I heard about the liveaboards but I am not sure how they would be with my motion sickness, and because we only are there 5 days I had trouble finding one that matched our itinerary. But thanks for the tips about the sharks...that (and the extra experience) is the biggest reason we want to go for AOW.

By Maldives law, there is a depth limit of 30 meters maximum(98 ft.) and 21 meters if not advanced certified.

After spending more than 5 years in the Maldives I can comfortably say that you can see sharks in as little as a few feet of water.

It depends on the area you are going to and time of year for things like mantas.

Just came back from a 10 day Maldives liveaboard - fantastic!

We saw many Mantas...almost all were in the ~30-40 foot range on top of pinnacle cleaning stations. Sharks - certainly saw them at all depths...both shallow (30-40) and deep. We had about 15-20 sharks on a night dive at 40-50 feet.

We had one Whale Shark encounter...he/she was as shallow as about 35 feet before going deeper.

Of course...it's a big ocean and what you see will vary on any given day. We had the luxury on being on a liveaboard for 9.5 days of diving (33 dives) across multiple atolls.

Hope you have a great trip.

I have been to the Maldives twice and can say that the local guides rather strictly enforce the 30-metre depth rule most of the time. On one occasion I got down to 33m to get a closer view of a large stingray and had the divemaster wagging his finger at me even though he knew that I was certified and insured for 40m.

As for sharks, we saw plenty - and I mean plenty - even as shallow as 8m; certainly a lot between 30m and above. The only thing is that the currents - part of diving in the Maldives - are often stronger in the shallows and so harder to get good photos.