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Dive Review of Carpe Diem LLC/Dhigali resort, Carpe Vita Liveaboa in
Maldives

Carpe Diem LLC/Dhigali resort, Carpe Vita Liveaboa: "Maldives on land and sea", Mar, 2018,

by Jim Willoughby, OR, US (Contributor Contributor 13 reports with 10 Helpful votes). Report 10162 has 1 Helpful vote.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 5 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 5 stars
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving N/A
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments This trip has been in the works for 17 months. We charted the entire Carpe Vita boat as well as spent 4 days at the Dhigali resort. Originally we were supposed to stay at the new Carpe Diem resort but it was not ready yet so Explorer Ventures put us in Dhigali. The Dhigali resort is beautiful. Very upscale. The service was excellent, food was excellent. The rooms were very big and clean. However this resort is not built for divers. Every where you go on this resort requires a fairly long walk so getting from our rooms to the restaurant in the morning and then back to the dive dock was rushed and a lot of exercise. Otherwise the resort was fine. Because the Explorer Ventures people had to put us in a different resort than the Carpe Diem resort, they also had to charter a dive boat for the 4 days we were landside. The boat was big, spacious and clean but they only had 1 tank on board per diver so between every dive we had to wait for the tanks to be filled with an onboard compressor. It took all day to do 3 dives. The Carpe Vita Liveaboard was very nice. Great food, excellent service, big rooms. The airco worked very well. I would recommend this boat for the sake of the boat. Now to the diving. The diving in my opinion was disappointing. The vis was bad to poor on all but about 4 dives. Most of the reefs were dead or in very poor shape. There was a significant amount of small to medium reef fish but not a lot in the way of large stuff, although we did have two very nice Manta dives. The second Manta dive was like going to Disney land. There were so many dive boats on the site that it was crowded and uncomfortable. My biggest complaint about the Malives is that with all of the islands and Atolls to dive on, it seems that every dive op in the Maldives uses the same few dive sits so there were frequently many other boats on the same site. On the one day that we looked for Whale sharks there were 22 liveaboards at the same site.

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience Over 1000 dives
Where else diving Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Indonesia, most of the Caribbean, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Raja Ampat, Maldives.
Closest Airport MLE Getting There USA to Singapore to MLE

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, dry Seas calm, currents
Water Temp 83-84°F / 28-29°C Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility 20-60 Ft/ 6-18 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions 60 minute bottom time. 99ft depth limit enforced.
Liveaboard? yes Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas Squadrons
Dolphins Schools Whale Sharks None
Turtles 1 or 2 Whales None
Corals 1 stars Tropical Fish 5 stars
Small Critters 3 stars Large Fish 3 stars
Large Pelagics 3 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 5 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 5 stars Shore Facilities 1 stars
UW Photo Comments The boat was set up very nicely for photographers both the dive Dhoni and the mother boat had a place for the cameras and the crew took excellent care of camaras. The vis was so poor that it dropped the over all rating for subect matter.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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