SO......I have just arrived back from this trip - Not only did we get to dive with multiple large Mantas, got lucky snorkelling with a 10m whale shark, on our last leg of the tour we spotted schooling Eagle Rays and Hammerheads! Even saw dolphins for the first time from underwater. Grey Reef Sharks, White Tips aplenty. Add to that the endless array of corals and tropical fish life from the smallest to the largest fish on earth. What more could one ask?
Most of the diving is in strong currents up to 4 knots, its certainly not for the faint hearted or inexperienced. The currents do promote some pretty awesome visibility we usually had 30-40m average on most dives. Water was 27 C all around the many atolls. Many dives are conducted around the channel openings and depend on inflow or outflow currents for dive plans. Some of the dives are also around ‘Thilas’ or pinnacles. Diving is usually within the group with the whole dive site to yourself which is what I enjoyed most. Goodbye to those popularist supermarket sites where all you see is a wall of bubbles and dive groups. We were a small group of 6 divers out of the boat's 14 pax. So with 2 very good DMs on most dives ratio was 1:3. The boat is very clean and comfortable, particularly the lounge. AC works well and the crew friendly and efficient. They also took us to an uninhabited island where we got to spend dinner over candlelight under a starry night.
I didn’t see any signs of commercial fish boats, in fact most of the atolls are marine sanctuaries. Sometimes you would see some of the effects of 1998’s El nino which had bleached out many corals, but there are are healthy signs of recovery and there have been many a coral garden filled with colourful, table tops, gorgonians, brain, elkhorn and many thilas littered with colourful telesto soft coral.
Dive Site highlights include Marivadu (Hammerhead Point) at Rashdoo Atoll, Kudara Thila, Five Rocks (Sth Ari Atoll) Maaya Thila (North Ari) Night Dive, and the mysterious site only known to Eagle Ray where we got 50 private minutes with 3 Mantas.
Thanks to Manik for providing a great and memorable trip along with some excellent company of divers to share the memories. Here are some shots I managed to get out of my compact.
