Maldives 2025 trip report

MALDIVES - September 18-28, 2025 and September 29 - October 8

(Click here to see some pictures from this trip plus links to the SmugMug slideshow.)

MALDIVES 2025 TRIP REPORT COMPLETE (BOTH TRIPS AND AN OVERVIEW)

I’m trying something new with this trip report. Instead of writing the entire thing after the trip ended as I usually do, I kept a daily journal during the entire three weeks (both trips) and made those musings the trip report. So what I’ll start with here is an overview and then we’ll get into the meat-and-potatoes of what happened.

This is the first time we’ve ever done back-to-back trips in the Maldives. So, for the eight people who did both 9-day trips, we were there for a bit over three weeks including travel time and a day off between trips. I’m undecided at the moment as to whether we’ll do this again this way. It was interesting for a number of reasons but it felt like a long time – at least for me – to be away from life in Los Angeles.

This was our sixth (and seventh) Maldives trip. We’ve done them all with our good friends on the Manthiri, the first true liveaboard in the Maldives, having started diving in 1996 (which was also the first time I visited). 2026 marks their 30^th anniversary.,

The Manthiri is similar to a large California dive boat, 85 feet long and 25 feet wide, cabins down below, the main deck houses the salon, galley, and camera area (as well as crew quarters), and the wheelhouse and sundeck are on the upper deck. One thing that I like about Manthiri is that there are only 6 passenger cabins (each with head en suite) so that limits us to 12 divers total. The boat is certainly nothing fancy but has a charm and homey feel to it that I really like and our divers seem to appreciate as well.

For our first trip, those 12 divers (we had a last-minute cancellation so there were only 11 initially) were Don Banas, Laurie Powers, Henry Gittler & Lisette Lieberman, Laura Kozel & Kenny Donahue, Glenn Suhd, Tony Mischel, Cecilia & Donna Groman, and me (Ken Kurtis). For the second trip, we lost Laurie/Donna/Cecilia, and gained Liz Koziel, Dawn Marie Godin, Michelle Leonard, and Patti Wey. Don/Henry/Lisette/Laura/Kenny/Glenn/Tony/Ken all did both trips.

The Manthiri crew of 11 is led by head dive guide and cruise director Moosa Hassan, second guide Ali, Manthiri captain Donbe (who is also Moosa’s brother), and eight others. They took amazingly good care of us with a number of people commenting it was the most attentive crew they’d ever experienced.

A unique feature of diving the Maldives is that every dive boat has a smaller support vessel known as a dhoni which serves as your dive platform. (This is not just Manthiri but all Maldives liveaboards) The dhonies are more maneuverable than the larger boat. All of your dive gear stays on the dhoni, which is fully-equipped with compressors as well. So when a dive is over, you get back on the dhoni, return to the Manthiri, get back on the main boat, and the dhoni pulls away to fill tanks and follow the big boat whenever we were doing a move. Once that’s completed, the dhoni comes back to the Manthiri and ties up alongside. Both boats move at the same speed, about 8mph, so the dhoni’s never far away even when we’d move to another dive site. The Manthiri’s dhoni is named Vasantha, which is a 54-foot long single-deck vessel.

Whenever it was time to dive, Moosa rang a ship’s bell in the salon (same bell was used to signal meals), we’d gather for a detailed briefing, and then we’d exit the salon, climb down a 3-step ladder onto to the dhoni, go to our dive station, and off we’d go. Each diver is assigned their own personal dive station so you leave tank/reg/BC hooked up and there’s a large plastic crate below the seat for fins/masks/booties and other smaller gear.

There are four exit points on the dhoni so getting everyone in at a dive site is fairly quick with three or four divers at every exit point. Everyone would fully suit up just before we got to the dive site, and when we were in position, Moosa would shout “Okey-dokey!!” and off we’d go.

They’ve also got a great ladder to get back on the boat, long enough (about six wide steps) so you can easily be standing on the ladder to take off your fins and then climb back on board. For those with back issues, you could also take your rank off in the water and pass it up to a crew member. There’s a head, showers, rinse buckets (the crew rinses your BC and booties after EVERY dive), fresh towels, and bottled drinking water on the dhoni as well.

The general schedule each day was optional light breakfast at 6AM (coffee, tea, fruit or breads), 6:30AM dive briefing, 7AM #1 dive, 8:30AM full breakfast, 10:30 or 11AM #2 dive briefing, lunch around 12:30PM, dive briefing #3 around 3PM, wrapping up the final dive around 5PM, dinner at 6:30PM. Mostly we did 3-dive days but on the days when we did four dives, we’d do an 11AM dive and a 2:30PM dive to have time for the fourth dive around 5:30PM.

Over the two trips we did 51 dives (25 on #1 and 26 on #2) which included two dusk/night dives on each trip (dinner was delayed and followed the dive). Some people wanted more night dives but three dives a day was tiring people out. Each dive is roughly an hour long (shorter if you ran low on air or no-deco time), max dive depth is 100 feet (but most dives maxed out at 70-80 feet), and dive time included a safety stop of 3-5 minutes at 15 feet. (I always do 5 minutes now but my timer kicks in around 20 feet deep.)

Visibility was less than we’d gotten before with a LOT of white particulate in the water for trip #1 to the north, but not as bad on trip #2 to the south. Viz generally averaged 40-60 feet, although our last dives on trip #2 was easily 100+ feet. Water temps were a consistent 84-86 degrees on my gauge. Current were generally mild to occasionally strong (requiring reef hooks – explained later) but some of that may be because Moosa was choosing more current-less sites.

Everyone dove nitrox (extra $185 for the 9 days). Tanks are aluminum 80cf, although you could request a 100cf at no extra charge. Fills were consistently 2900-3150psi, and the nitrox analyzed around 31.5%. I think the lowest I saw on my tanks was 30.5% and the highest I saw was 32.3%. (They use a membrane system.) One of the crew members comes around with an analyzer that attaches to your BC LP hose, you get the reading, log it on their nitrox sheet, and you’re good to go.

We always ate right after the first dive (breakfast) and second dive (lunch), and shortly after the third dive (dinner). Diving certainly builds up an appetite so quality and quantity of the food becomes a factor that can enhance or diminish your enjoyment of the trip. The food on the Manthiri was regularly tasty and plentiful and even inventive. There was a lot of variety for each meal and dishes had a Maldivian flair to them. No one left the table hungry and most people felt they ate too much. Kudos to the chef and the kitchen staff.

Meals are served family-style at two large round tables Moosa and Ali always ate with us as well. There were always a variety offerings at each meal, a couple of entrees/protein, vegetables, rice or noodles (sometimes both), soup with lunch, desserts after lunch and dinner (lots of ice cream). The incredible thing is that they’re doing all of this fabulous cooking out of a fairly tiny kitchen and making just about everything from scratch. The volume and quality of the food presented to us was quite amazing. We can’t say enough good things about the meals. I’m scared to step on my scale when I get home.

The boat doesn’t have Wi-Fi but I used my AT&T International Day Pass to set up a hotspot ($12/day for each day used). We were able to access the internet quite regularly on both trips because we were almost always near some small island with cell service. If you followed us on FaceBook, that’s how I posted the Top 10 Daily Pix every day we were away. By the same token, I only get 1GB of data/month with my regular plan and we ate through that pretty quickly. I got my bill after the first trip and it was $340 whereas it’s usually around $40.

A better idea, and what Laura and Kenny did for trip #2, was to get some sort of local card. Their phone couldn’t take an e-sim (very popular in the Maldives) so they ended up getting a dongle, which is essentially a portable drive hotspot with an e-sim built in, about the size of a credit card. They got a 100GB plan, good for 30 days, for $80. Much better deal than what I did and something you should look into if you go.

I think that pretty much gives you the lay of the land. You know about the boat, you know about the dhoni, you know about the food. So let me tell you about the diving for both trip #1 and trip #2. Settle back because, as you like likely know, I write rather long and detailed reports. Enjoy.

Executive Summary: We all had a really good time.

MALDIVES 2025 JOURNAL – TRIP #1

September 16-18
It’s an arduous trip to get here. We left LAX late evening on September 16, flew 16+ hours to Singapore, two hour layover in Singapore, and then 4 hours to the Maldives. The Maldives has become a huge tourist destination, welcoming over 2 million visitors in 2024, so their airport is big and modern. Easy-peasy through Immigration and Customs and our hotel (H78Veli) was waiting to pick us up for our overnight stay.

We’ve stayed with them before and really like the place. H78Veli is actually their new (for us) second property and it’s as nice as the original H78. They took very good care of us which included allowing us to check in early, served a great breakfast in the morning (included), plus they provided all the transfers.

Friday, September 19
H78Veli dropped us at the public ferry dock at 9:00AM and DM and tour guide Moosa Hassan was there to greet us. The crew loaded all of our bags on their dhoni, which then taxied us to the Manthiri, our home-away from-home for the trip, and off we went.

We spent much of the first part of the day getting an orientation to the boat as well as doing some waivers and other paperwork. Plus we ran about four hours (30 miles) away from Male for our first checkout dive which was pleasant but not spectacular. But it’s also where we introduced the group to the concept of seeing UMS: Usual Maldives Stuff. If that’s all you ever saw, you’d have a good trip. This is an incredibly diverse and rich place to dive and there are lots of fish and other critters that you don’t see in other parts of the world. (Remember this is the Indian Ocean, not the western Pacific.)

Saturday, September 20
Our first full dive day. It starts pretty early: briefing at 6:30AM and we’re off diving by 6:45, in the water by 7AM. Breakfast around 8:30, extended surface interval to allow for a move, next briefing and dive around 10:30, lunch a bit after 12-noon, mid-afternoon dive around 3PM, dinner at 6:30PM, and everyone’s been crashing no later than 9PM. Rinse and repeat.

We headed north for trip #1. That means we’re in Manta territory and hoping to run into the massive annual Manta Aggregation, where hundreds and hundreds of mantas converge on the areas around Raa and Baa atolls to feast on plankton and maybe go through some social ordering and perhaps even mating. So we were quite happy to see a manta flying by on our first dive. And we saw plenty of UMS: Anemonefish, snappers, Red-Toothed Triggerfish by the thousands, and more. The conditions weren’t ideal with about 40-foot viz and a lot of particulate and schmutz in the water.

But we were able to catch part of the Aggregation and it’s fun to hear how excited the crew gets as they chatter amongst themselves in Dhivehi, the native tongue of the Maldives. Conditions weren’t ideal for photos with lots of particulate in the water but that’s what attracts the mantas. Much of that is food for them so they’re zooming around with mouths agape and funneling whatever they can through their gaping maw, swallowing some and filtering the rest out.

We estimate we had 20-30 mantas in the general area with us. You do this as a snorkel. The boats drops you as close as possible – the mantas are near enough to the surface that their wings break out of the water – and then you kick like crazy to keep up. If you’ve got a camera, there are plenty of photo opportunities. The mantas are zooming all around and seem aware of where we are because they peel off before they collide with you. We spent about half an hour in the water with them and it was wonderful. You’ll find videos of these encounters on the Reef Seekers website.

Sunday, September 21
A special treat today was at the end of the first dive when we ran into a large school of Spadefish. What’s really neat about this, and this group in particular, is that they seem to like to socialize with divers. They more or less surrounded us, came through the group, would loop around and come back again, and stuff like that. They also seem to enjoy swimming through our exhaust bubbles. This is similar to Bubbles at the Aquarium of the Pacific who not only loves swimming through our exhaust bubbles, but will nip you on the head if you haven’t exhaled to his satisfaction. This group wasn’t quite that demanding, but they certainly seemed to enjoy a bubble bath from us.

This was also the day when we had what’s probably the #1 dive so far on the trip at a manta cleaning station. There were SEVEN mantas at the station and they all stayed with us throughout the entirety of our 80-minute dive. Conditions weren’t great as there’s still lot of particulate in the water. Also at this spot, there was a pretty good current along with some surge. But we all used reef hooks to hold our position and were able to observe.

The mantas were probably 12-15 feet across although there was one we thought was closer to 18 feet or so. (It’s really hard to determine size underwater since they’re always moving and it’s not like we have a tape measure in our BC pockets.) But it was fascinating to watch them glide in and out and maneuver amongst themselves. On top of that, they’re definitely aware that we’re there – and seemingly unperturbed by our presence – as each of them individually would glide by the group and take a peek. You definitely could feel them checking you out when you looked them in the eye. Wonderful experience.

It’s also nice when you have a group that gets along and shares their impressions of the dives afterwards. When you’re on a liveaboard like we are, the interpersonal relationship of the divers can really enhance your trip, especially when it’s a smaller group. It’s a lot of fun to hear other people’s reactions to the experience.

Monday, September 22
We started at a spot called “Anemone City” but we might as well have called it “Mantas Sneak In City” as we ended up with an unexpected pair of them at the end of the dive. In fact, we realized when we got back on the dhoni that, with the exception of the checkout dive, we saw at least one manta – and usually more – on every dive. And it was easy at times to take this all for granted, “Oh yeah, another manta. What else do you have?”

We retuned today to the same cleaning station we visited the day before. What a difference a day makes!!! There was less current, a bit more particulate, no surge, slightly less visibility, but there were still mantas at the station (four this time), and they behaved in the same manner as the ones the day before.

The third dive was a bit of a bust. (Of course, in the Maldives, even a bad dive trumps a lot of dives in other places.) We had done a second aggregation snorkel and had the bright idea that we could go on scuba and view them from underneath. Not a good plan. You couldn’t really see what was going on and they weren’t always around. So you had to work to find some things along the rubbly bottom, but there were still things to see if you took time to look.

Tuesday, September 23
There’s a running joke with Moosa about “UMS” (“Usual Maldives Stuff”). But there’s some truth to that as there are some critters you’ll see on every dive, almost no matter where you are. And even if all you got were UMS for the entire trip, it would still represent good diving. What’s gotten me down on this trip is the white-ish particulate in the water. This is a hindrance strictly from a photo standpoint and it makes it hard if not impossible to get a good shot since the schmutz in the water shows up as significant backscatter in my photos. And when I color correct, those white dots tend to turn red. First-world problems, I know, but aggravating nonetheless.

Our third dive this day was at a place called Muthafushi Thila. (“Thila” means “pinnacle.”) This place has more fish than you’ve ever seen in your life, mostly small baitfish-types which include silversides, sweepers, and more. The schools move in unison and almost seem to throb with the pulsating currents. On top of that, there’s some significant surge. You really notice that on top of the thila, where there are dozens and dozens of anemones, because the anemone tentacles sway back and forth as the surge surges. It was a magnificent dive but a LOT of work because we had to kick against the current to get to the front of the thila where the majority of the action was. So this dive really kicked our butts. And the plan is to do it again as the first dive in the morning.

Wednesday, September 24
Again . . . What a difference a day makes!!!

We plopped into the water shortly before 7AM. Same site as the end of the previous day. Not a hint of current. But all the fish where still there and the various schools were doing their thing. We started by going a bit deeper than the previous day to check out a huge school of Yellow Snappers. Magnificent. The Silversides were thumping, the Sweepers were sweeping, predator fish prowled at the margins, the anemones were still waving back and forth, and there were dozens and dozens of fish getting cleaned. We saw much of the same stuff that we saw the previous day but with much less work involved. Whew!!!

And that underscores diving in general and the Maldives specifically: You can expect the unexpected. That point is driven home in spades when we were about to leave the Manthiri on the dhoni for a dusk/night dive when cries of “WHALE SHARK!!!” filled the air. There was one swimming by the back of the boat near the surface so, instead of putting on our scuba gear, a number of us quickly grabbed mask/fins/snorkel (and a GoPro for me) and hopped in in hot pursuit. I was able to stay over the big fish for a minute or so and shot some video that documents the encounter. It’s up on my FaceBook page as well as on our website. Although I’ve seen plenty of Whale Sharks before (see the Isla Mujeres trip reports), this was still fun.

Thursday, September 25
Another lovely day of diving and a lot of it comes from the group dynamics. I think a lot of times people don’t realize how important that can be, especially if you’re on a liveaboard.

For us, it’s maybe even more critical because there are only 12 people in our group so if someone’s a jerk or simply not getting along with others, it can really stand out and have an effect. I can’t say that I actively curate the groups when people are booking but it seems that, over the years, certain people have gravitated towards us and others have gravitated away. But we generally seem to end up with pretty good and interesting people, and everyone seems to get along.

On a larger boat – most liveaboards nowadays are taking 24-35 people – you might have a better chance of encountering someone who could negatively affect your enjoyment of the trip. By the same token, with that many people, it might also be easier to simply avoid people not to your liking. In both instances, it’s somewhat of a crapshoot but the other thing to factor in is whether the boat is chartered by a single group (probably a better chance of everyone getting along) or if it’s simply a ragtag group and there’s no common thread as to why people chose this particular trip.

Anyhow, just things to ponder when you’re deciding where to go and with who (or whom).

Friday, September 26
Sometimes you have a dive plan and then have to change it on the fly underwater. And that’s what happened to us on the first dive when the current wasn’t exactly what we thought it was. No worries as you just – literally – go with the flow. And it turned out OK as we saw a lobster and a number of very colorful Parrotfish.

But the highlight dive was #2. This was at Gamaru Crevices which is a long wall-like reef that has a fairly large crevice that pretty much runs the length of the site. It was probably 10-20 feet wide, depending on where you were, and a good 10-15 feet tall. It was a very nice swim-through with a lot of cool critters along the way.

Saturday, September 27
This was the last dive day for trip #1 so it’s only planned as a 2-dive day and there were lessons learned on each dive. Both were at Shark Tank, which is an area just outside the Male Harbor breakwater where a tuna-processing plant drops fish carcasses, and that attracts sharks and rays and all kinds of fish looking for a free meal. But it’s also deep as the bottom is generally around 100+ so you do the dive hanging mid-water around 80-85 feet.

Of the two dives, the first dive was the high voltage one. As we jumped in from the dhoni at 7AM, we were surrounded by dozens and dozens of stingrays who likely were reacting to the fact that we were the first boat on site and they wanted to see what we had to offer. There were also dozens of sharks patrolling, an enormous school of Golden Trevallies working the bottom, and some huge Marble Rays coming in as well.

I’d love to show you the pictures I took expect this where lesson #1 comes in: Check your camera before you jump in to make sure your SD card is properly seated. I didn’t check, mine wasn’t seated, and that meant I couldn’t shoot anything. Nothing like doing an exciting dive with a dead camera in your hands.

Dive #2 was much less frantic since the sharks were gone and the rays were all resting on the bottom. But the lesson here is that you need to know what your group looks like. One of our divers paid too much attention to his camera and got separated from us. When he realized that, he swam in what he thought was the correct direction, found a group he thought was ours, and merged with them. Only it wasn’t our group.

Meantime, we realized he was missing and started looking towards the bottom to make sure he wasn’t lying motionless there. It all turned out OK as our diver surfaced with the other group, realized his mistake, and came over to our dhoni. Of course, we didn’t know that while still underwater so it was little concerning on our safety stop but once we confirmed he was on-board and OK, the tension was relieved, and all well that ends well.

FINAL THOUGHTS
It was a really nice trip overall and a very good group who all got along. That’s key because 8 of the 11 of them are staying with us for trip #2. We’re planning on a southern itinerary for that one and it will be interesting to see how that differs from what we’ve already done. In the meantime, we’ll have a final night on the Manthiri, get off in the morning, spend the day in Hulhumale, overnight again at H78Veli, and then begin the second adventure on Monday, September 29.

MALDIVES 2025 JOURNAL – TRIP #2

Let the adventure continue . . .

September 28
Out with the old and in with the new. Three divers left us (Laurie, Donna, Cecilia), eight divers are carry-overs from trip #1, and four new divers joined (Liz, Dawn Marie, Patti, and Michelle). Once again, we overnighted at H78Veli.

September 29
We left Male Harbor a little after 9AM and headed towards South Male Atoll where we did our first dive. Whereas trip #1 was a northern route, trip #2 was designed to be a southern route and part of the idea is to discover what the differences are between the two directions.

Even though 2/3 of the boat has already done 24 dives, we still do the first dive as a checkout dive. And again, lessons learned. Some gear wasn’t configured as divers would like, it takes a while to get weights adjusted, and we had one wrist computer that wouldn’t pair with the transmitter so that diver had to sit out the dive. (We were able to get it fixed post-dive on the boat but required pulling the battery out of the transmitter and re-seating the battery and then re-sealing the transmitter unit.)

The dive itself was so-so – to be expected – but we did see a small Blacktip Shark, some small schools of Silversides, and some other UMS. Everyone’s looking forward to tomorrow, our first “full” diving day for trip #2.

September 30
It was definitely worth the wait. We had three different and great dives today in South Male Atoll. The first was on a small wreck called the Kashimo which is covered with fish and where we found the first of almost a dozen juvy Emperor Angels today. We got pretty excited about the first one, not knowing we’d be seeing so many others.

And that’s one of the allures of diving overall, not just in the Maldives: You never know what you’re going to get and the next time you dive the same site, it may be totally different. The Shark Tank dive on our first trip was a great example of that. It was amazing dive at 7AM with all kinds of fish activity going on but when we went back four hours later, it was pretty ho-hum. But as I’ve always said: You never know if you don’t go take a look.

The other two dives today yielded Black Ribbon Eels, a Nurse Shark, some interesting Anthias, a bunch of other eels (including one with a broken or dislocated jaw – so sad!!!), and all kinds of good stuff. Much as we enjoyed the northern route, where we had mantas on 20 of our 24 dives, our southern route is starting off with a bang even though we didn’t have any mantas today (although we did have two distant Whitetipped Sharks). Time will tell.

October 1
I sometimes forget how much my impression/opinion of a dive is affected by how easy or difficult it was for me to either photo or video. Today was a good example as we planned a dive at a manta cleaning station so I grabbed my GoPro, intending to shoot video. But there were no mantas. Damn!!! So now I had a video camera set for wide-angle shots (I can’t change that once the cam’s in the housing) and we were about to drift down a reef with a lot of little creatures. Everyone else thought it was a really pleasant dive but I found it to be a struggle because I couldn’t really find stuff to shoot. I called the dive “At Least We Get Lunch.”

But next dive – also a drift – was at a lovely reef that was festooned with colorful soft corals. At the end we saw half a dozen large Green Turtles. One nice thing about the Maldives is that the dives rarely disappoint. There’s always something to see and all of the dives always have what Moosa’s “UMS” which consists of Anthias, Red-Toothed Triggerfish (yes, their teeth really are red), Silversides, and more. The Maldives definitely seems to have more biomass of fish and critters than most places you can dive. While we don’t see many spectacular coral reefs like you might find in Indonesia or Fiji, the dives are pleasant nonetheless.

October 2
You’d think when diving that your eyes would be the most critical things to make the dive enjoyable since if you can’t see things, what’s to enjoy? But don’t forget about your ears as well.

One of our divers came on the trip on the tail end of a cold and toughed it out for the checkout dive but wasn’t able to dive the second day or the third day. She got in today and while her ears squeaked a little bit, she seems OK.

I usually also have sensitive ears so I pay very close attention to the ease or difficulty of clearing them. And I’m a big believer in “Clear Early & Often.” On our first dive today, a leisurely drift in a channel, I was bouncing up and down a bit. That’s a recipe for your Eustachian tubes to close down and to have difficulty clearing. And sure enough, about 35 minutes in, spending most of the dive bouncing up and down from 40 feet to 80 feet, I went up shallower to shoot a small school of fish and . . . uh-oh . . . my ears wouldn’t clear to go back down. So, rather than force the issue, I decided just to stay shallow for a while and then further decided that a 42-minute dive was fine. I did my 5-minute safety stop and went up. As I’m writing this, it’s been about 3.5 hours since I surfaced and my ears are clearing easily and fine. Part of the trick in avoiding ear problems is not to push things. So especially on a long liveaboard trip like this, don’t take chances with your ears and pay close attention to how easily they clear (or don’t) throughout the dive.

As I mentioned, the first dive today was a gentle drift down a channel where we had a large school of Barracuda, schooling Humpback Snappers, and all the UMS. We also got a couple of fish that I’ve yet to ID (I think they’re wrasses) but that also brings up one of the other joys of a trip like this at least for me, and that’s seeing if you can find things you’ve never seen (or photo’d) before.

OCTOBER 3
Today was another good example of how you may have a plan but when things go awry, you come up with something else on the fly. The old phrase might be “Plan your dive and dive your plan” but that doesn’t always work.

Our first dive was at Lily Rock which is also known as Manta Rock because it’s a cleaning station. Two years ago, we had a phenomenal dive here as we had five mantas getting cleaned and gliding in & out of our group. So our hopes were high.

Because it’s a manta dive, I put my 18-35mm lens on my D750 DSLR since I was assuming we’d get big animals. It’s a decent lens but not my fav because it’s best for larger animals. Anything else looks like a guppy given the wide field-of-view of the lens. As we descended towards the cleaning station, I could see the viz was decent but that there was nary a manta in sight. Damn!!!

As we settled in, I also realized that I was in the middle of a field of Garden Eels. They typically withdraw when you initially approach but once you settle and they realize there’s no danger, they come back out, stretch up in the current, and continue trying to catch whatever morsel might be floating by. And sure enough, these eels reacted exactly that way once I settled in.

Time to change the dive plan. I decided that if we were manta-less, I’d see if I could make the Garden Eels my subject. And I think the results, a few of which you will see if the SmugMug slide show, came out pretty good. I was able eventually to get within a few inches of some of the eels and they made willing subjects as long as I didn’t move around too much. And the results gave me some new insight and thoughts on how to better use that lens.

On our second dive of that day, we FINALLY got our first manta sightings on this trip and three of them came flying by – mating behavior where the males are chasing the female – and then came back on by a few minutes later for a second pass. It was a fleeting glimpse but a glimpse nonetheless.

It also highlighted one of the big differences between trip #1 and #2: We had dozens of mantas on the first trip and very few on the second. The absence of mantas in the south was also puzzling because while we were on trip #1, two of our other regular customers were doing a different Maldives boat and they were south, diving many of the same areas we were on trip #2. They said they had mantas on almost every dive while we did not. And it just goes to show that, with regards to diving, the phrase “You should have been here last week” certainly has some validity.

Our third dive was at a spot called Fish Head and it will remain in my human head as a most-memorable-dive-ever.

Fish Head is appropriately named as there are schools of fish everywhere. It's a happening place with lots of cleaning and even some predation going on. You could spend a week diving this spot and not get bored. During all of this, Moosa came to get me to show me a rather large octopus who was simply out and about, not hiding in a hole like most octos do. As we came upon him, others in our group were gathered around him but a respectable distance away and I joined in the gawking herd.

The octo kept moving slowly around the reef, totally exposed. Eventually others in our group left to explore other parts of the site. I stayed with the octo. Shortly later, he settled on a rock and stretched himself upward, as if he was gauging the surroundings. He seemed to accept that I was there with him so I crept a little closer. No problem. So I decided to go for broke and see if he wanted to make physical contact. I slowly wiggled my finger and slowly stretched out my arm towards him, stopping about half an inch sway from a tentacle. He eyed me but didn't budge. But then . . . one of his suckers found my finger. Then another sucker attached and then another. He started "examining" my hand. Pretty soon his full tentacle was exploring my hand and then he made a slow move and simply sat on top of my hand, feeling and examining the entire time.

Eventually, my index finger was free so I started stroking his skin lightly and basically slid my finger up beneath and between his eyes, much as you would when petting a dog or cat soothingly. The octo let me do this for what seemed like five minutes. At that point, he slid off my hand, went over a small rock, gave me one last look, and then slid down into a hole. Really special encounter that I'll remember for a long time.

But the day wasn’t over as we scheduled a dusk/night dive where we hoped to get mantas feeding on krill in the gloom. What we didn’t count on was that the visibility would be MAYBE 5-10 feet due to the krill and a large ray who kept going around stirring up the sand by flapping his wings. So you ended up searching through the haze when all of a sudden, this 2,000-pound animal with mouth agape would suddenly appear, often heading right towards you, and just when you thought a collision was inevitable, the manta would sense you, adjust his glide, and miss you by inches. Somewhat unnerving at times but also memorable nonetheless. There’s a video of this dive on the website.

So this was a busy day full of interesting photo opportunities and, more importantly, great dive experiences.

October 4
I have carried a reef hook in my BC pocket for probably 20 years or more. In case you don’t know, it’s a line attached to your BC with a non-barbed hook at the end. You find a dead place on the reef, plant the hook, back up and play out the line until taut, put a little air in your BC, and now you’re “hooked” into the reef, facing into the current and slightly buoyant. And you no longer have to kick to hold position. That’s what the reef hook is for. And since you generally get the most action on a reef at the head of the current, it’s a very useful tool to use to observe animal behavior almost anywhere in the world. (I even use them occasionally in California.)

So it was nice to deploy my reef hook this morning on the Fesdhoo Thila at the end of the dive. But we had started with a “surprise” on that dive as there’s a small wreck just off the reef around 90 feet deep so we started our exploration there. Lots of small fish on the wreck which actually made it hard to shoot because there was often tiny schools of fish in the way. I guess it’s sort of a wonderful problem to have. (“I couldn’t get a shot of the _____ because there was a school of ____ in the way.”)

We did our second dive at White Wall, not to be confused with the dive site in Fiji (Taveuni) but similar in that the wall of the reef is loaded with pale purple soft corals that bloom in the current. We had a mild-to-absent current when we started but once we rounded a corner we hit a stronger current so it was interesting to see the difference in these soft corals. Basically when there’s a current, they’re able to absorb the water and pump up which make them bigger and makes it easier for them to catch food as it drifts by. You’ll see pix of this in the SmugMug slide show.

You also sometimes forget how tired diving (and maybe advancing age) can make you. Yesterday, four dives pretty much wore everyone out. So we “only” did three dives today and had dinner around 6:15. As I’m writing this at 7:30PM, half the boat has already toddled off to bed. But that will make them well-rested to be up around 5:30AM for the 6:30 briefing and the pre-7AM dive tomorrow.

October 5
Today is Michelle Leonard’s 150^th dive. The Manthiri loves to celebrate milestones. When Michelle first came here with us in 2023, she had all of 4 dives under her belt. To add another 146 dives to that total in two years is impressive. Unfortunately, she chose to sit out the first dive and that turned put out be “The Dive of the Day.”

I always say, “You never know if you don’t look.” And sometimes, you’re just in the right place at the right time. Today was one of those days. We repeated a dive we did yesterday afternoon as our first dive this morning, fully expecting to get a big school of Yellow Snappers as well as schools of Humpback Snappers. We also assumed that, with the current picking up a bit in the morning, we’d also get some sharks. And sure enough, there were Whitetips and a few Gray Reef sharks milling about.

But after about 25 minutes, we noticed that a bunch (like 20-30) Gray Reef sharks had joined the fray. We also noticed that they were moving around somewhat excitedly. And then, all of a sudden, they spooked and split. And that’s when we saw it. “It” was an enormous – we think 10-12 feet long and quite girthy – Great Hammerhead shark. WOW!!!! Their high dorsal fin is what makes them distinctive and easily ID’d. I’ve never seen one before. He was only with us for about 15 seconds but what a quarter-minute it was. Moosa was going nuts, signaling/clanging his tank with his metal pointer stick and screaming through his regulator. Don Banas and Patti Wey were in the best/closest position and each had their GoPros to document this. I managed to squeeze off one shot which isn’t very good, sort of “proof-of-life” quality. But what an experience!!! You can see a short video that has my shot plus Don and Patti’s shots on the Reef Seeker website. You’ll also hear Moosa screaming if you listen closely.

Our second dive (which now was Michelle’s 150^th) was also a re-visit to a manta cleaning station where’d we’d seen the only mantas (outside of the manta night dive) on this trip. And we got three more but it took 30 minutes of nothing going on until they came by and even then, only one of them stayed for about four minutes to be cleaned. Dive #3 was a re-visit to Fish Head and that place was hopping plus I found my octopus from the other day who again let me pet him and hang with him for about 30 minutes. Mucho fun. And we wrapped up with a dusk/night dive that had plenty of Giant Trevallies and Whitetip Sharks hunting for a snack and using our lights to see what was available. A busy, full day.

October 6
The next-to-the-last day always seems a little weird to me. Photographically, I’m now starting to really dial in to look for anything I think I should have shot but didn’t get or didn’t get a good enough one. And you obviously start thinking about the end of the trip. So it’s natural to start asking some questions about tips, packing, getting to the airport, etc.

But I’ve had a “rule” for years which is that I won’t answer any post-trip questions until we’ve finished the last dive. This comes out of a group I had many years ago and as soon as we got on the boat on Day 1, they were talking about going home. I kept telling them, “Enjoy your vacation before you think about ending it.” So I’ve been somewhat of a stickler about this, although a lot of these questions were already answered in the pre-trip “Tips & Tricks” that I always send out.

We got in three dives on this day and got sharks, a large school of Barracuda, and a couple of fish I still need to ID. We also got a good look at some Clark’s Anemonefish. They’re everywhere but what made these guys special was that they live in a red bubble anemone that you rarely see. (There was a fluorescent pink anemone too, also featured in the SmugMug collection.)

October 7
Nothing like saving the best for last.

As with trip #1, the final day is a 2-dive day. We did both dives in Rasdhoo Atoll at Rasdhoo Peninsula, which has a ridge-like peak that separates the deep ocean from a sandy shallower bay.

Our first dive there was a bit difficult. We had to fight the current to move along to the high-spot of the ridge but there was plenty of action going on, starting with a large school of Bigeye Jacks that was closely followed by a school of Blackfin Barracuda. There were plenty of sharks moving to and fro off the deep side of the ridge and I spotted my first Blacksaddle Coral Grouper of the trip (who posed nicely for me).

But the second dive was even better than the first. The current has dissipated so that changed the tenor of the dive. We started in the sandy area where we encountered a large pelagic ray nosing through the sand bottom (might have been a Tahitian Stingray) with some jacks accompanying him. As we moved up onto the ridge, there were numerous sharks circling, including one with a lure and line caught on his mouth (very sad to see). But the topper was when four Eagle Rays came gliding by to give us a proper send-off. Wow!!! We even had one come back as we headed to the safety stop as if to say “Come back again.” Lots of stuff going on and another reason you want put the Maldives on your “must-dive” list.

IN CONCLUSION
I think the Maldives offers a great diving opportunity. Part of that is due to our relationship with the Manthiri and their crew, who take good care of us from the moment we step aboard until our final goodbyes at the airport. The fish life is plentiful and varied, we hit some really good weather weeks this year, and – except for a somewhat bouncy ride back to Male at the end of trip #2 – water conditions were very good. Viz was so-so (although 100+ feet on our final dives), water temps again ran 84-86 degrees, the dhoni serves as a great dive platform, and we ate like kings. I’m not sure if we’ll do back-to-back trips again, but I can assure you that we’ll be back to have the Maldives give us everything they’ve got. And maybe you’ll think about joining us. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoyed sharing our experiences vicariously.

See the pix on the SmugMug photo page:
https://kenkurtis.smugmug.com/DIVE-TRIP-PHOTOS-ALL/2025-DIVE-TRIPS/MALDIVES-2025