This island nation in the Indian Ocean, with over a thousand islands, is famous in part for its quintessential tropical appearance - tiny dots of palm-covered land surrounded by coral rings, white sands & turquoise waters.  Luscious.

Now, for most divers, the Maldives conjures up images of swimming & flirting with swarms of great Manta Rays.  But diving in the Maldives is definitely more than that. 

For starters, rising from the atoll floor, usually in the middle of channels, are ‘thilas’ or submerged reefs, which can be as shallow as 8-10 meters below the surface. Thilas make great dive sites as they are often small enough to swim around during one dive and have their own compact ecosystems, such as caves, overhangs, steep walls or cracks and crevices. Many are pinnacle formations.

Do note that Maldives diving is more about abundant life than about colorful corals, but in most of the channels you'll find caves, caverns & overhangs with lovely soft corals, colorful sponges, invertebrates & gorgonian fans. 

These areas also host cleaning stations where you'll observe the fascinating process of the small-fries cleaning large ocean species.  Groupers, snappers, surgeonfish, eels, parrotfish, even Giant Napoleon Wrasse will install themselves in a quiet corner, while armies of wrasse, shrimp & other assorted cleaners pick at debris in their open gills & gaping mouths.

FAR NORTH

Although there are only a few of the liveaboards which venture to the atolls of the Far North, this region offers tranquil surroundings and virtually guaranteed encounters with large numbers of sharks - white tip & black tip reef sharks, leopard sharks . . . and for the icing-on-the-cake . . . in the right season,  hammerheads.

And true to Maldives fashion, there are plenty of  the mysterious, other-worldly & ever sought-after Manta Rays.

You'll love the drift-dive rides, the great visibility and the surprising abundance of hard & soft corals, along with swirling schools of fusiliers & other colorful fish, plus lurking morays, lobsters and nudibranchs.  There are also opportunities for cave and wreck diving.

So the far north offers something for everyone, is particularly attractive to the more experienced divers and those who wish to stay away from the crowds.

The excellent liveaboards, MV Sea Queen and MV Sea Spirit, explore these waters during the Maldivian summer months of March and April, particularly the atolls of Haa Alif and Haa Dhaal which are located roughly 240 miles north of the capital of Male. 

NORTHERN ATOLLS

Baa Atoll, a submerged pinnacle, is exceptional for its incredible overhangs covered with splendid coral gardens with scintillating colors.  You will swim directly beneath this amazing ceiling of glowing coral life.

And, when you’ve had enough of corals, you can move on to Baa Atoll’s other attraction, the Manta Rays, as this is one of the best sites in the Maldives for viewing these magnificent beauties.

Lhaviyani Atoll is a vertical wall dive which arrives at a sandy bottom.  As with many of the wall dives in the Maldives, you have you tons of smaller species of marine life - shrimps, gobies, nudis and the like - inhabiting the holes & hiding places along the wall while schools of medium-sized fish swirl or graze along and out in the nearby open waters you’ll probably catch a glimpse of Napoleon wrasse, sting rays, eagle rays, devil rays, barracuda and tuna.

The central section of the Maldives, not far from the capitol, Male, is where most of the diving has traditionally been done.  Without going far from your arrival point, you have excellent dive sites . . . . . to the north, south, east and west.  

Aggressor & Dancer Fleet both still concentrate heavily on these areas, so you can guess that there's some pretty good diving at hand.  The most popular areas include North Male (Kaafu), South Male (Dhaalu), and Ari (Alifu) & Felidhoo Atolls.  

North Male Atoll has some great channels, beautiful ‘thilas’, (submerged reefs), massive coral tables, nice drop-offs, gentle waters and plenty of fish action.  A Manta Ray cleaning station adds extra excitement.   

South Male Atoll has long been considered one of the finest diving areas in the Maldives.  Dive sites in this area  are graced with channels & caves & drop-offs & reefs - plus a great variety of marine life.

There can be pretty strong currents here, which translates to nutrient rich waters attracting Mantas, Spotted Eagle Rays & Grey Nurse Sharks, plus masses of fish, including the pervasive snappers & jacks, batfish, fusiliers & sail-fin tangs for starters.  Well-known for giant anemones also, this area is popular with photographers who love those colorful shots of the anemones and their little guards, the anemone fish.

Ari Atoll is certainly one of the popular dives for serious divers.  With multiple  thilas both inside and outside the lagoons,  this area lures loads of pelagics. Manta Rays, plus a variety of sharks,  including whale sharks & hammerheads, are regular visitors here and there are several of the ever popular cleaning stations.

Maaya Thila, a favorite for many divers, is located at Ari Atoll.  This pinnacle offers a marvelous assortment of life.  Get your camera ready for brightly colored nudibranchs, giant frogfish, turtles & even the elusive guitar shark!

Felidhoo Atoll is home to a site known as a photographers’ paradise, where soft and hard coral overhangs shelter schools of sweetlips and you'll also get a variety of sharks and Titan Triggerfish, too. 

At Mulaku Kandu (channel), when the currents are strong, the diving is great. Giant Trevally, Great Barracuda, White-tip and Black-tip Reef Sharks plus  turtles come here to munch.

More and more boats are running trips to the Far South, to the remote & unspoiled atolls of Huvadhoo, Gan and other smaller atolls. In fact, since the opening of the international airport at Gan, one of our favorites, the Sea Queen, has been based in Huvadhoo, giving her access to all the sites in the Far South but allowing her to cruise to other regions based on diving seasons.

Huvadhoo, just 13 miles north of the equator, has lots of channels leading into it from the ocean.  Some of the sites offer great shark encounters and the Sea Queen crew even reports recent sightings of both juvenile & adult tiger sharks!

The coral in Huvadhoo and Gan atolls is outstanding, particularly the hard coral, and the reefs support a wonderful variety of life. In addition, Laamu and Huvadhoo offer superb opportunities for sighting rays, giant schools of tuna and mackerel.  To top it all off, the enormous schools of dolphins are awesome.

Because Huvadhoo is so close to the equator, the currents don't seem to be very affected by the monsoons, you'll find great year-round visibility.  While you don't get the great schools of fish that you find in the central and northern regions of the Maldives, if you love pelagic action this is a great area for you to explore.

And, if you love wrecks, the wreck of the coral encrusted British Loyalty, torpedoed by the Japanese in 1944,  lies inside the atoll in the Hithadhoo region, is an excellent wreck dive.  She brings plenty of pelagics in from the blue - hammerheads, mantas, grey reef sharks, eagle rays and loads of turtles.

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