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| Trip Reports - 14-23 March 2011 |
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| 12 noon on March 14th. |
| We did our check dive at Banana Reef. Surprisingly I chose this site because of the time we had almost no current. In addition to zillions of small reef fish species, we saw Hawks Bill Turtles, and giant Green Turtle, Napoleon Wrasse and Dogtooth Tunas and dozens of moray eels of different species. Giant Morays, undulated morays, honeycomb morays and of course black cheek morays. |
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| 4pm dive |
| Rainbow reef. |
| Had moderate incoming current. Brings out clear water from exterior of the atoll. Had 100ft vis. This site boasts with numerous species of multi color soft corals along the rim of the ledges and overhangs makes this site one of the most colorful pinnacle. Great opportunity for shooting wide angle photos. School of big eyed jacks, eagle rays, napoleon wrasse and giant nurse shark is the highlight of this dive. Thousands of anthias, oriental sweet lips, spotted sweet lips, and flag tail snappers, varieties of solider fish and squirrel fish different color of anemones are usual. |
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15 March.
7 am dive.
Kalhi Thila. (pinnacle) |
| Beautiful soft corals school of fusiliers along with dozens of giant trevally, schooling banner fish, oriental sweet lips, big eyed soldier fish, squirrel fish etc. This dive is one of my favorite dive site as far as photography is concerned. You could easily make one complete coffee table book and also fish ID book just from this fish filled colorful pinnacle. |
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10am dive
Cross to South Maale Atoll |
| I don't want to mention every single dive site name because I hate to get published some of my dive sites. Here we saw leaf scorpion fish, caroling ghost pipefish (Halmedia) not very common in Maldives. I have some areas where I find certain rare marine life in and of course I know where to find it and my success is about 99.9%. There is always half of one percent for error, because they all live in natural environment. Hawks bill turtles and other usual Maldivian stuff (USM) also bundled in this dive site. Most interestingly, beautiful healthy hard coral reef top makes this dive worthwhile who loves observe corals. |
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3pm dive
This dive took place exterior of the atoll. |
A Kandu dive. (small opening from exterior reef to interior of the Atoll)
Saw few pelagics, grey reef sharks, white tip reef shark, napoleon wrasse, couple of eagle rays. This site some time back I named honey comb moray city.
You have a chance to see 2-3 morays in one crevice. Best dive to shoot honey comb eels. |
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16th March
7am dive
We made this dive in combination of shallow sea mount with a ship wreck. |
We made this dive in combination of shallow sea mount with a ship wreck.
At 60 ft bow of the ship wreck is home for mantis shrimp, banded pipefish, and glass sweepers. We were lucky to see mantis shrimp crawling on the deck. Saw some banded pipe fish and female one carrying eggs under the side of the belly.
The second leg of the dive we were back to the pinnacle, and saw mother of all dog tooth tuna. He or she was hanging at the current front and while there, we saw great barracuda slightly off the main wall of the pinnacle and again UMS :) |
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10 am dive
Moved to further down south of South Maale Atoll. |
You would be surprised to hear that we had at least 120ft vertical vis this dive.
Right after blue water entry, we heard dolphin singing. After we hang around the reef ledge about 70ft, large school of dolphins cruise right above us close to the surface, because of the gin like clear water, the whole dolphin parade is clearly seen. Some of our guests captured with their camera this unique experience. After gentle drifting along outer reef towards the corner we sighted again second school which passed right in front like an endless parade. This time our sighting is better because the whole parade went about 50 feet below the surface. So we had a wonderful sighting of dolphins with crystal clear visibility. At the end of the dive we stopped in the middle of schooling Giant Trevallies. |
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| 2pm dive |
| We planned to do night dive therefore, we did an orientation dive on a small sea mount. The day dive is quite interesting too. School of bat fish, couple of scorpion fishes, octopus, banded box shrimps, and of course other UMS as well. |
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| 7pm dive (night dive) |
We had at about quarter moon tonight, and perfect moon light penetrates thorough
The water column you could see every object in shallow part of the reef. Beginning of the dive we saw crawling octopus, and after we sighted couple more and the group was kind of split along the reef so each group has their own octopus to shoot. Common night critters there. Morays, varieties of shrimps sleeping parrot fish with cocoon, turtle etc.
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17th March.
7am dive. |
| We were so lucky to have the dolphins back again on this dive in a complete different dive site. Had pretty much the same kind of exciting dive as we did the day before. Eagle rays, grey reef sharks, napoleons etc. I not to mention the UMS, butterflies, angels, anthers, sweet lips. They are almost everywhere. |
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Crossed to South Ari.
12:30 pm dive |
This time I decided to change the taste little bit. Because the group really love to see valleys of hard corals. Here this site is all about different colonies of hard coral.
But still excellent fish life there as well. |
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| 4pm dive |
| Back to southern border of Ari, where we have highest possibility to see whale shark. We do. Not have the best tide that time of the day so we did a general dive. Still very exciting, sighted some mobile rays, turtles, napoleons, few white tips, scorpion fishes etc... |
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18th, March
7am dive |
| We dove outside of Holiday Island Resort. We were hoping to the big beast passing by. The chances of sighting whale shark about 50-50. But again the tide and ocean current was not the best so we had no sighting this time. But we enjoyed sighting other cool stuff on this dive as well. Modula rays, eagle rays, hawksbill turtles, schools of chevron barracudas, blue striped yellow snappers, and again I spotted a pair of Halmedia ghost pipe fish as well. |
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| 11am dive |
We spent some time to cruise along the reef looking for whale shark. But to-day appeared one of those no sighting day. We hit this time on a manta point.
Fairly shallow dive. We saw mantas cleaning on this dive maximum of three at a time and spend whole 60 minute with mantas. |
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| 2pm dive |
| My customers want to do this dive again. Unfortunately, current turned to the other direction right after the first 15 minute of the dive. So we had completely new sightings. Dogtooth tunas, napoleon wrasse, white tip reef sharks, and blue fin trevallies and tons of morays. At last, we found leaf scorpion fish as well. |
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| 5pm dive |
| Most of the time, at twilight marine life gets very active. This is one of those dives that we saw all the fish life in very active mood. Tunas and napoleons, turtles, oriental sweet lips, snappers, reef sharks |
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19th, March
7 am dive. |
| We were still in the same area where we had great manta sightings. Because of some other dive boat around the area, we decided to be in the water half hour later than original schedule. We were in the water at around 07:30. After we made our entry, we made our descent on the mantas that they are already settled on the cleaning station. We hang around mid water close to the reef top, half circling, leaving free way to more mantas to come. Started with 3, and then 5, and one manta pass by right behind the divers, I was filming with small digital point and shoot camera the manta behind my divers modeling my other dive guide behind getting some scale, I found Hasaan raised his right head pointing straight up and here we go, the Gentle Giant (whale shark) is heading right towards us, I rushed to hitting my tank banger as hardest as I could to get my divers attention. They all turned right after they heard and caught up with it. I managed to take 8 minute video clip swimming along and our group leader Mark Potter got some nice still shots as well. We were back to mantas again, spent the rest of the dive with mantas. Very exciting dive. |
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| 11am dive |
We pulled our anchor out and started to heading to north of Ari.
This dive again we hit a seamount where we had abundance of marine life, including school of neon fusiliers, yellow back fusiliers, red snappers, dogtooth tunas
Massive sea fans, Soft corals and hard corals. This is dive anyone wants to repeat. |
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| 4pm dive. |
We were back to the same dive again. This time we had some current. Makes even more interesting, soft corals looks denser as it blooms with the current. Fish schooling was more organized. We had equally same stuff but we found ghost pipe fish on this dive a well.
We end up the day with three dives. We were prepared to go to land as we had beach dinner under the full moon. We had this historical night as I heard the moon is closest to the planet earth. We could see that. The moon looks brighter, and the "white rabbit" is clearly seen. |
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20th March,
7 am dive |
| This dive consisting of various features. Overhangs, clips, wall, and shallow forty foot reef top. Soft corals, hard corals, sea fan and black corals are the main attraction of the dive. However, different cleaning station all around the dive. Fusiliers, soldier fish, squirrel fish, oriental sweet lips and thousand of orange baslets are abundant throughout the dive. |
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| 10am dive. |
We moved to further north. Now in mid Ari.
Large pinnacle dive, big variety. We saw almost everything on this dive.
In addition to soft corals, general fish life and pelagics are presence in here. Large school of flag tail snappers, blue striped yellow snappers, along the wall grey reef and white tip reef sharks. Napoleons wrasse, marble sting rays, groupers and at the end we ran on to a manta ray. |
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| 1pm dive. |
We were again in a dive site called Deep Manta Point.
Somewhat quite different to the Manta dive we did before. We had great manta sighting, three mantas stayed right through the whole dive. They have shown no fear of the divers. We could fill our fish eye lens from corner to corner sometimes too close that we had to back off to fit them in the frame.
This site also we saw Blue Ribbon Eels as well. Hard to concentrate on anything, when you are surrounded by this gentle UFO! |
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| 4pm dive. |
After days average three deep profile dives we decided to do a shallow dive.
Beautiful hard corals from 60feet deep to all the way to the top of the reef.
Very good fish life, different kinds of butterfly fishes, damsels, and juvenile wrasses. |
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21st March
7am dive. |
| This is one of the most beautiful soft coral sites you would probably see. Multiple ledges running from 30 foot reef top to hundred feet sea bed decorated with layers of dense soft corals along the ceiling of the overhangs, sea fans, black coral bushes. Fish life you could make fish ID book they were abundant, in varieties. |
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| 10am dive |
| This pinnacle is described as pelagic gallery. Grey reef sharks S, dozens of dogtooth tunas, school of big eyed trevallies, school of crescent tail big eyes, school of bat fish, millions of big eye scads swirling on the top of the pinnacle, makes this dive worth to do at least twice. Other marine life including grandly turtles, colorful anemones, octopuses are residents of this site. |
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| 3pm dive. |
We had similar small pinnacle dive consists of all the fish that live-s in Maldives.
School of chevron barracudas, bat fish, dozens of white tip reef sharks, school of blue fin trevallies, and fusiliers are abundant. Stone fish, scorpion fish. Octopuses are residents of this site. |
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| 7pm dive (night dive) |
| We decided to go back to pelagic gallery site as we did this noon. Just see what there after the sun goes down. Believe it or not, every square feet of this pinnacle top after the dark filled with hunting action. Free swimming giant morays, white tip reef sharks hunting on fusiliers, marbled sting rays constantly feeding on the pinnacle. This is a must dive for every night dive lovers. |
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22nd, March,
07 am dive. |
Majority of my divers want to dive once more at the pelagic gallery.
Early morning dive is my favorite time to dive. For many reasons, fish life is more active than the mid day. We saw the same stuff but more action going on this time of the day. In every five minute interval pelagic hunting on fusiliers and scads are worth watching simply hanging around outer rim of the pinnacle. Unfortunately we have to move as our way back to the port is getting closer. |
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| 10am dive. |
Move to the outer reef of eastern side of the atoll.
This interesting seamount shape like a submerge ridge, boasts with large school of batfish, could count easily hundred or more, schooling banner fish, giant napoleon wrasse, giant trevallies, leaf scorpion fish, tomato anemones. Very healthy hard corals. |
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| 3pm dive. |
Cruise to Rasdhoo atoll.
We dove at Rasdhoo Madivaru, I name this dive Rasdhoo Ridge. The topography and physical structure of this reef is very different to the other dive sites. The face of the ridge open to the ocean side brings pelagic action. Every cubic feet of seawater in this dive would probably consists of several reef fish species. grey reef sharks, napoleon wrasse, giant trevallies, groupers, patrolling dogtooth tunas, school of big eye trevallies, long nose emperors, eagle rays, stings rays. The garden eel valley and shrimp-goby city is also part of this unique dive site.
We were off to Rasdhoo Island to see the Maldivian culture. |
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23rd, March
07 am dive |
We repeat the dive of yesterday afternoon. Surprisingly, we have crystal clear water this morning. Combining with all that great stuff with blue water makes some-what much better than the dive we did yesterday.
We cruise back to North Maale Atoll as today is our last day of diving.
Expecting a great ending of the trip so I chose one of the pinnacles that combining of large three coral blocks. This unique formation of this pinnacle made a home for different species of fish life and still life. Soft coral, hard coral, sea fans, black coral bushes, are some of the few feature among it'-s unique topography of this reef. Dog tooth tunas, several napoleon wrasse, white tip reef sharks, beautifully organized oriental sweet lips, schooling banner fish, and blue striped yellow snapper are in circle of 30 minute swim around. |
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| Summery |
Overall our 10 day dive trip was spectacular, the amount of fish we saw, mantas, whale sharks. Visibility, weather condition, glossy calm seas, never felt that we are on a boat because it's so flat.
"Through-out the whole nine day of diving is one of the best diving I have ever done in my life" by Mark Potter, President, Massdiving.com
" I have never seen so many fish in per cubic feet of sea water" by Mark potter.
massdiving.com
For trip photos, please visit www.massdiving.com
Thank you for reading. |
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