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Giravaru, North Male Atoll, Maldives
(by David Cumber) I was based on the island of Giravaru on the North Male atoll. The Maldives is a 26 atoll chain consisting of 1200 islands. The Noth Male atoll, holds the island of Male where the airport is, and Giravaru is only 25 mins by speedboat from the airport. So a nice quick transfer after what can be a long flight. The accomadation and food were fine, and there were over 40 dives sites on offer by the dive operation on the island (very similar to the same set up on Medhufinolhu which I have visted before and you can find a review and more information on the maldives through the link. This is also on the North Male atoll but much further north). I must add that the dive operation was very professional and full of enthusiasm for diving. Generally, the water temperature is 28-29C. Visibilty was from 15 to 25M. I visited in March which is the best time to visit the Maldives.So to the dive sites I visited: Giravaru House Reef The house reef on the island, starts as a gentle slope that begins in two meters of water. The entry point to the site is from steps on the jetty on the east side of the island, to a bouy and descent line down to 12M. So no boat trip required. This dive site is used a lot for training dives, and the dive operation requests that the first dive you do with them is on this site, just to get you used to the conditions and your equipment. Not a bad idea really, and the dive operation is really accomadating on scheduling for house reef dives. The slope continues down from the descent line to a sandy bottom at 20+ meters. The slope is in reasonable condition, although the coral is as damaged as almost everywhere else in the indian ocean. There is signs of some of the hard corals coming back, but there are numerous anenomes with there anenome fish to generate interest. The slope does turn almost into a wall in places as you head to south east. Two small barges have been sunk on the reef, to provide a home for some of the reef life. A school of glass fish have made one of them home, together with some green moray eels, banded shrimps and some lionfish. There can be a current here and you have to be careful where you surface due to boat traffic, but you will allways have a dive guide with you to control this. The fish life is extensive, with hundreds of red tooth triggerfish hanging around, schools of fusiliers swimming around in the blue and some very large jacks again coming in from the blue. I also saw boxfish, flutemouths, bannerfish, morrish idols and numerous butterfly fish. Giravaru Corner
Velassaru Caves Boduhiti Thila B
Rasfari Manta Point Black Coral Reef This set of dives is the best I have done, in my limited experience of the maldives. I would say that this was the best dive site I have visited. Although, I had seen some cools things (i.e the leaf fish, mantas), this I feel was the best overall site. This site is based round an Island called Baros. A wall starting from 3-4M down to 20-25M, broken up with the odd bit of slope, this site was in excellent condtion. The wall was virbrant with colour, with hard and soft corals. The slope parts, that are obviously run off points, were less colourful but short in distance. I did not see any real signs of bleaching, and maybe the strong current that was running on the site while we were diving it helps flush any hot water away. On the descent on the wall we were surround by hundreds of bannerfish, a really awesome sight. We had some small tunas coming in from the blue and a napolean wrasse we came across a couple of times. A highlight of the dive was a very narrow vertical swim through of about 4M. It was very narrow, but our whole group got through it. I was one of the last, so the vis had dropped quite a lot as I went through, take a torch. The other highlight, was a massive gregorian fan is pristine condtion. About 2M across and pink, it was beautiful.
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On
the west side of the island reef, this slope is quite steep in places
with two large overhangs which form two very open caves. One of the caves
is huge; about 12-15M across, 5-6M deep and 10M high. I think you could
spend a whole dive in this cave alone. There were tens of different soft
corals, sea fans, sea whips. There was the most amazing luminous yellow
soft coral. A large school of soldier fish were inside, with some spotted
sweetlips, large clams and a couple of large wrasses. I also spotted
quite a few varities of nudibranches. You need a really good torch and
about 40 mins to really have a good look round this cave. The other cave
is a lot smaller, although you can still swim into it. Both caves were
around the 20M mark and vis was 15-20M. Along the slope there was clown
triggerfish, fusiliers and jacks in the blue. We finished the
dive by swimming up the side of the huge cave, and round the top, quite
a view. This was a really good site, see the photos below.
This
dive site is actually on the South Male atoll, and is the first dive I
had done on another atoll. A series of five caves, between 20-28M, all
big enough to swim in and investigate. The caves have wall like fronts,
with areas of broken slope in between. One of the caves has a large swim-through,
which you can see in the photo. On the roofs of the walls was amazing
bright blue soft corals, covering almost all the roof. The coral on the
wall parts of the dive was in quite good condtion, but on the slope areas
it was mostly dead and broken coral. The fish life was numerous with lionfish,
clown trigger fish, spotted butterfly fish, emperor angelfish and
various types of blennies. In the blue I saw a spotted eagle ray,
but the best thing I spotted was a leaf fish, sitting quite openly
on a hard coral. Fantastic. I spent a couple of mins swimming into a current
to get a good look at it. The current was quite gentle, but still hard
work to swim into. Like Giravaru corner a very good dive site.
efore
I went on this dive, I believed it was a site I had dived before on a
previous trip. But, this was not the case. It seems that Thila, the local
word for sea mount, is used quite frequently on different sites. So this
sea mount off the island of Boduhiti, could be one of many. It certainly
was a lot better than the previous dive I had done on the site with the
same name. The main reef was between 5-7M, with a large flat area, sloping
down to a sandy bottom on all side at 20M. The top of the reef had a few
interesting soft corals and the odd brain coral, but was mostly hard rock.
So not the best site for coral, but I must have seen five different whitetip
sharks and two hawksbill turtles (who were right next to each
other). There were a few small bombies at the bottom of the reef, which
had lionfish under the overhangs and I spotted a couple of lobsters. It
was said that we may see mantas as we were only 10 mins from a site called
Rasfari manta point. As we had arrived at the dive site we could see three
mantas on the shallow reef, but before we could get in they were gone.
Well I had to wait an hour on the dive before I got to see one under the
water. We were cruising to our safety stop on the top of the reef, when
my buddy grabbed hold of my fin and pointed behind me. As I looked round
a 3M manta was swimming right by the side of us. He was so close
I could have touched him, he cruised on by, we surfaced telling everyone
else already on the boat, that we had seen a manta. Everyone was jealous
for about 10 mins, because by then the boat had made the small trip to
Rasfari manta point. 
Well
some dive sites really live up to there name. We arrived to see 4 mantas
on the shallow part of the reef. This area was one huge cleaning station.
The mantas were forming an orderly queue around the top of the reef, taking
there turns to swim in for a clean. This dive lasted an hour and we only
went to 4M max, We just sat there and let the maginicant creatures swim
round us. I believe at one point there may have been six mantas on the
top of the reef. What can I say. I have some video footage on the