2000 Chapbook

These 7000 low-lying coral islands in a 1200-mile chain southeast of India will be the first to disappear if global warming raises sea levels significantly. About 200 of the islands are inhabited (although visitors have very little interaction with the 175,000 predominantly-Muslim residents), and several are devoted entirely to small resorts that offer average to excellent tropical reef diving with big fish action if the resort has a knowledgeable staff that knows where and when to find it. However, the Maldives are best dived from live-aboards.... Given its large influx of European divers, this could be one of the most dived regions of the world.... Dive rules are strict for this part of the world.... Expect year-round daily temperatures of roughly 85 degrees and abundant rainfall, which is distributed evenly from May through December....

For full reviews of the following Maldives live-aboards, see:
" Aboard the Barutheela, Manthiri", August 1998
"The Maldives aboard the Manthiri", May, 2001

Discovery I,April 1999, Robert "Doc" Adelman, Gurnee, IL. Vis: 40-80 ft. Water: 85 degrees. Bleaching, but algae attracted "fishies," fishies attracted bigger fish, etc. Lots of fish! Big fish! Accustomed to Euro divers but busted their butts to do it "USA Style." Couldn't cook anything. Nice boat, but just a huge cabin cruiser with marginal A/C. Lots of wasted space and not much room for briefings. Divemaster attentive but his English was marginal (Austrian). Knew the sites well. Dive operation was aboard to covered "Dohni" that tagged along behind. Attentive and capable crew. Safety sausage required! Diving not for inattentive, trouble readily available (depth, current, etc.). Pilot whales, turtles, all flavors of sharks, rays, wrecks, clowns and lions and B.C. shrimp everywhere. Great last day in Male, fabulous shopping in Dubai duty-free stores. 19 hours in the air from Chicago.

Kamana/Ocean Pro, November 1998, Max Herndon, Pismo Beach, CA. Vis: 40-60 ft. Water: 80 degrees. Nice boat, clean and well maintained. Eight roomy cabins with ample storage, individual AC and three heads for 14 divers. Crew of six did a great job; food healthy and plentiful though breakfast was weak. Beer, soda and bottled water were extra. Bring your own munchies and sweets, not much available between meals. Made a couple of trips/week at night to a resort where you could make calls, buy munchies and hang at the bar. Two weeks diving N. Male and S. Male atolls. Boat will also dive Ari, Feliclhoo and Rashaloo weather permitting. Diving from the dhoni where the gear and tanks are stored. Wide beam with easy entry/exit with plenty of room for the 12 divers in our group. Caters mainly to Swiss. Swiss divemasters give excellent briefings and have superb knowledge of the sites, always able to predict the strength and direction of the currents that run at warp speed. Not for beginners. Almost all were experienced divers and treated as such. Rules; stay with your buddy, 120' max, no decompression. Boat lacks adequate camera space and rinse tank, I rinsed my housing in the shower or from a hose on the deck. Pelagics abundant. Sharks on most dives, usually white-tips, some grays. Multiple mantas on six dives! Lots of turtles, eagle rays, tuna, Napoleon wrasse, scorpion fish and prolific fish on most every dive. Couple of good wrecks. El Niño currents warmed the water to 92'F that killed much of the hard coral. Reefs that on previous trips that were a kaleidoscope of color are now disappointingly gray. Diving still great. In November the seas were choppy with 40'-60' vis. January through April is the best. Seas are smooth as glass with 80' to 150' vis.

Madivaru 7,January 1999, Dr. F. Thomas Wilson (tomjowilson@msn.com), Princeton, NJ. 21 previous live-aboards. The Maldives gave us more of some things than we had before. How about turtles? I approached and photographed or videoed more hawksbills and greens than ever before. Half our dives involved riding the currents in channels out of the atoll lagoons: sharks, flotillas of eagle rays, schools of hundreds of barracudas or jacks, curious Napoleon wrasses. Swam into schools of smaller fish. Saw a stunning leopard shark resting on a ledge. He allowed us to approach and photograph from all angles. Spotted an octopus looking out from a crevice. He came out and changed colors and patterns. A second octopus was caressed by the first one. Disappointment: 85% of the hard coral was bleached, a victim of El Niño. Healthy reef fish life though. Maldives cover almost five hundred miles north to south. 1200 islands, mostly small, and none over 10 feet high. We covered 250 miles on our ten day trip, and dove at three of 26 atolls. 11 Americans and two from the British Isles. They are used to two dives a day that are deep (120-150 ft.) and short (20-30 minutes). A culture shock for our Italian divemaster, Salvo, to adjust to our demands of four dives/day with more time on the shallower reefs and less time finning vigorously in the currents. Salvo doesn't like night diving, and we only did it once. The Madivaru 7is a fine dive boat. Spacious. The ceiling in our cabin was 10 feet high! Lounge is comfortable. The deck space allows plenty of room. Ample camera table. 110 and 220 plug-ins for recharging. Diving from two "dhonis," forty feet long, double ended, traditional Maldivian boats. Each had crew of three. Most gear stayed on the dhonis, leaving the Madivaruuncluttered. Service good. Fresh water plentiful. Food monotonous: fish, rice, and pasta most meals. Breakfasts the best. Visited villages on remote islands. People are friendly, many speak English. Male is unique; 70,000 people on a less than one square mile island, more than a quarter of the population of the country. Lots of new high-rise buildings. Visit the fish market and the beautiful golden domed mosque. Had lunch and a beer (no alcohol on Male) on a resort island a couple of miles from Male. A short flight in a sea plane gave us great views of islands and atolls and the turquoise water. (Ph: 011-39-39-329338, Fax: 011-39-39-328946, e-mail: seafari_maldives@iol.it, Website: divetravel.net/seafari-adventures)

Madivaru 7,February 1999, Jean & Bob Kirkpatrick (bojean@logantele.com), Russellville, KY. Vis: 40-120 ft. Water: 84 degrees. Beautiful and comfortable boat. Cabins have double bed with bunk over, good storage space, AC, and en suite baths. Crew was nice and kept boat spotless. Food OK, tho repetitive. Diving great, strenuous, tough currents. Divemasters Salvo & Keith were knowledgeable and took us to the best spots at the best times, tho judging currents is difficult. Fish were like confetti, many sharks and turtles, mating octopi! Hard corals look dead. (They told us they would recover). Soft corals gorgeous. In these currents we (who Never touch coral) were hanging onto coral and crawling over it, everyone was. The islands and seas are spectacular and the Muslim culture is interesting. Our last day was spent in Male, the capital city. No alcohol allowed in country, except resorts and dive boats, available only by bottle and expensive. Glad we went on this long tough trip.

Manthiri,September 1998, Mark Batchelor (mbatchelor@atthits.com), Honolulu, HI. Vis: 60-80 ft. Water: 85 degrees. Weather: sunny, rainy. Water: choppy, currents. No diving below 130 ft. Crew great in assisting video set-up, guided UWPs to subject matter. Unfortunately, this stubborn (read: dumb) photographer didn't follow the guide close enough at times, and missed some phenomenal video shots (which the dive guide Moosa showed me on his video!) Manthiriis one of the finest live-aboards in the world. Staff was fantastic and the food was great. The Maldive Islands are one of the few places in the world where the wildlife is completely unafraid (sort of an underwater Galapagos!). Hawksbill turtles, mantas and ever sort of fish imaginable (and some that aren't!). El Niño caused a huge hard coral die-off (up to 95% in some spots). Soft corals unaffected. (Ph: 011-960-325634 or 011-960-320323, Fax: 011-960-325633, e-mail: seansee@dhivehinet.net.mv, Website: manthiri.com)

Manthiri,March 1999, Alex Stuart. Diving done on a leisurely schedule that only allowed time for two morning dives and one afternoon dive. Second morning dive often started after noon, afternoon dive sometimes started as late as 4:00 PM. Did eight night dives, but most were mediocre. Twice, our night dive was the third dive of the day, so we only got 33 dives in nine days. Began trip diving on the west side of the North Male, Baa and Raa Atolls. On our return to Male, we did more of our diving on the east side of the atolls. El Niño's damage to hard corals extensive; many reefs seemed to lack almost any color, but did see some reefs that seemed to have no damage. Large schools of fish, but number of pelagics was below my expectations. Visibility averaged 80 feet. Trip to northern atolls to get away from other operators who dive the southern atolls in March. Single dive tender or dhoni created problems as the serious photographers tended to extend the length of their dives significantly beyond the nominal 60 minute limit requested by Manik, the divemaster. It got worse on night dives (always scheduled before dinner) when they asked us to limit our dives to 40-45 minutes. Some non photographers became incensed about sitting in the dhoni for 30 to 40 minutes after the dive before returning to the Manthirifor dinner. We eventually negotiated an agreement that the non photographers would extend their dive times fifteen minutes and the photographers would shorten theirs fifteen minutes. Large number of octopi including mating pairs. Large number of Napoleon Wrasse. Giant trevally and black trevally swam within inches on some dives. Large titan triggerfish unusually mellow. Fire gobies, elegant and two-tone dartfish were easy to approach. Dogtooth tuna, even large southern blue-fin tuna. No schools of bigeye jacks or barracuda, but solitary great barracudas. A few white tip reef sharks and 11-14 foot tawny nurse sharks. Spotted eagle rays, approachable turtles, giant, spotted, yellow-lined and honeycomb morays, schooling bannerfish and pennantfish. Worst part of the trip was the food. The only breakfast meat was boiled hotdogs. Eggs came as a thin crepe. Usually, dessert consisted of canned fruit cocktail or vanilla, strawberry, chocolate or Neapolitan ice milk. Only baked goods were canned cookies. We requested native cuisine and eventually, they cooked interesting, spicy meals. Western-style food disappointing. Six double staterooms were large and comfortable with individual ac and thermostats and large full bathrooms. Beds side by side on raised platforms. The boat was quiet with space for twelve divers in the lounge or on the sundeck. Space for working on cameras barely adequate; seven of twelve divers had cameras. Plenty of 220 and 110 volt outlets for charging batteries and voltage converters were unnecessary. Reliable E-6 processing on board by divemaster (Moosa) with a 24-hour turnaround. Maldives pretty tame diving area when it comes to exotic animals when you compare it with any of the better diving areas in Southeast Asia, Micronesia or the South Pacific. My preference would be to go to Fiji, Palau, PNG, the Solomons, the Coral Sea or Indonesia before returning to the Maldives. Maldives reminded me of Great Barrier Reef diving which I also found rather tame and overrated.