MALDIVES
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The Maldavian republic lies some 450 miles S.W. of Sri Lanka in the Indian
ocean. It is made up of 1,500 islands of which only 400 are inhabited.
In this, the first of several reports on the Maldives, Jason gives us a
tongue-in-cheek account of his trials and tribulations, before he could get to
see the wonders that lie in the ocean, surrounding the Maldives.
The Maldive islands in the Indian ocean, consist of hundreds of small coral
atolls, that go to make a veritable divers paradise.
The diving is very special no matter which of the islands or atolls you stay
at, although the diving can vary in flavour between the major atolls.
I guess you could say I was really lucky to get to go and visit the Maldives,
and I guess that you’d probably be right, but its not without its drawbacks, the
first of which was having to get married in order to qualify to go there !
Its Ok! - the missus will never surf this part of the net surely?
The second drawback is being a lanky string of fruit bat's urine.
All you vertically challenged people out there, are probably feeling very smug
about this aren’t you?
I’m the guy that has to drink out of a straw from the side of my mouth, when
they come and serve the tea, because I can't move any limbs!
While sitting in sardine class on a Britannia Airways Boeing 767 for 12
hours, the cabin staff try and persuade you to buy their duty free, which is
pretty dumb, since you stop off in the United Arab Emirates, who have one of the
cheapest duty frees in the world.
Two free Cokes later, they jemmy me out of my seat, and throw me onto the tarmac
at Male, feeling like Quasi Modo, and looking even worse.
Male is the capital of the
Maldives and is in the North atoll, so for many of us arriving that day, we
were faced with the choice, of up to a 4 hour transfer by speed boat, or a
35 minute helicopter ride to our final destination.
That’s all very well, but what the
brochure doesn't tell you, is what sort of helicopter it is. It turned out
to be a Russian Mil 8 helicopter, that had seen better days. In fact in its
better days, it would probably have been flying around the Afghan desert
getting shot at by rebels.
Now I know a thing or two about this kind
of thing, so after a lengthy prayer, and posting off my will to my
solicitor, I kicked the tyres, looked for any signs of rust, and I got on
board with my rosary beads, telling myself that at least we were avoiding a
long boat transfer.
What the brochure does say, is that it's a great way to get an excellent view
of the Maldives, but you have to have your eyes open for that to be true. Well
actually, I did peep once or twice, but when I saw the pilot with his eyes
closed too, I thought better of it!
We soon arrived at Ari Beach, one of the larger islands in the Ari atoll, in
the south of the Maldives.
I think that after missing his first approach due to very strong winds, the
pilot turned to his co-pilot, and said something like, 'Ooh its running a bit
here isn’t it', or an aviation version of it in Hungarian, or Russian or
something. Terra firma had never felt so good once we bounced down, and I got
off sprinting for the tree line shouting - "I’m alive! I’m alive!"
Ari Beach is actually an Island, about a mile long, and no more than 100
yards wide at its widest point, and wow what an island. It is one of the larger
islands with good facilities, and has managed to retain a flavour of natural un
spoilt paradise.
As soon as you arrive the staff take over. They do get their priorities
straight. Cocktail in left hand, and in the right, the arrival form to be filled
in. Then you are off to your room or chalet, accompanied by your room boy and 2
porters, or in my case 3, since my unfeasably large and heavy dive bag had to
come as well.
Just like the manuals say, normal A. B. C. priorities apply :- Alcohol,
Baggage, Cash (Tip).
But I guess they really earned it for carting all my stuff, the porters are so
small, I was worried about getting arrested for abuse of child labour.
So, on with the serious stuff. What about the diving.
It seems most of the resorts have PADI schools on them, and ours was no
exception.
We signed up for the next
day's dive, to be told that the checkout dive was scheduled for 2 pm.
'CHECKOUT DIVE', I spluttered! What an
outrage! What a waste of a dive! Did I pay large wads of cash to get checked
out by... by... I can hardly bring myself to say it ... a PADI instructor !
Ye gods what is the world coming to!
It was hilarious.
5m of water on a sandy bottom, doing buoyancy checks, air sharing drills and
mask clearing. While I waited for the others, I blew bubble rings to pass the
time of day, and tried not to fall asleep underwater.
When eventually we hauled ourselves back onto the boat, to go off and find a
decent dive site, our English instructor and ex-school teacher from hell, PRUDIE,
gabbled on.
We dived in a big party, and had to suffer Prudie’s shark impression, every
time we saw a dogfish.
On surfacing with 50 bar, I was given a lecture on how to improve my air
consumption by skip breathing! I responded that I thought 15 litres per minute,
was a pretty good first dive, as I only started with 150 bar, but Prudie was
obviously going for the PADI 'teach granny to suck eggs' specialist course. This
was not going well!
Fortunately my mate Prudie was not to be a regular guide for these 2 weeks.
She was put to work in the dive school, doing what up-tight PADI divers do best!
Spamming tourists.
As for the rest of the instructors, they were all polite, friendly and relaxed,
and respectful of my BSAC instructor status, which was a relief after the first
day. Its not like there’s another school around the corner!
Diving here is very safe!
They only have 10 litre aluminium cylinders, which do require careful air
management, and turn into mini flotation devices below about 80 bar. They
also limit your maximum depth to 30 metres, and no decompression is allowed.
Everybody must wear a dive computer, so if
you don’t have one, then its the PADI 'Ker-ching' from the rental cash till!
Your maximum time on any dive is 60 minutes, which is pretty damn good going
on a 10 litre cylinder, never filled to above 200 bar.
All this is designed to thwart Joe 'occasional' diver, from getting
themselves into a mess, but can make the diving for the more experienced, a
bit......... well.........CONTROLLED!
However the currents are quite strong, and you are not allowed to touch any
coral or fish, so gloves are banned to encourage this. Not that some of our
continental friends seemed to be too bothered though.
We quickly sussed out, that the afternoon dives were somewhat disappointing,
and opted for a regimen of early starts to get in the morning dives! This soon
turned out to be a good move.
While we were there, the weather had not settled down, and so the occasional
squall and rainstorm occurred every few days, which prevented the viz from
settling very much, but 30 metre visibility cannot be scoffed at.
After a few dives, we dived a channel between a reef and an island, called
Maamgili Channel, and it was like Christmas come early.
If you’d have taken a checklist of what you wanted to see, you wouldn’t have
had many misses.
As well as the usual plethora of fish, of all shapes and sizes, we saw Moray
eels, Turtles, White tip, Black tip and Grey reef Sharks, Napoleon fish, big
Groupers, Lion fish, Scorpion fish, and to cap it all, a huge Whale Shark,
swimming gently up the centre of the channel.
Wow, what a sight! Now you don’t see that in Stony Bloody Cove!
Throughout our 2 weeks
there, we did some fairly spectacular diving, although it can get very
limited if the sea is rough, there are no wrecks, or no hammerheads in the
area.
We saw a few manta rays, but the thila
diving in this area is excellent. A thila is a submerged rock, or reef
formation that come close to the surface, in otherwise deep water, and is
the closest thing to diving in fish soup I’ll ever experience.
Our last dive was in Maamgili Channel again, and while trying to get a photo
of some spiny lobsters in the back of a cave, I saw a shadow fall across me, and
turned around to see another huge Whale Shark just a few yards from the cave.
Two others in the cave with me, not only heard me, but understood me, as I
said loudly into my mouthpiece 'My god! Will you look at the size of that'.
Not bad underwater communication, I thought, especially since one of them was
Dutch.
So Prudie never got to see those Whale Sharks. What a shame. I’m sure she
enjoyed her various exercises on the sandy lagoon bottom though !
One thing is for sure. The diving is special here. If we’d been able to get
the weather to go out onto some of the other Thila’s, then I can imagine how
awesome some of those dives would have been, based on the Thila dives we did do.
I think that the way to do
it, would be from a live-aboard for the first week, maybe up on the North
Atoll, searching for some serious Hammerhead action. Or doing the wrecks
like the Male Victory.
And then to come down to the South Atoll
and unwind on a paradise island, getting seriously inebriated at night, on
Divers Delight cocktails, while drifting easily along the channels looking
for gentle Whale sharks during the day.
We will definitely be going back at some point. Maybe when the season is
better for diving.
And next time !! WE TAKE THE SEAPLANE!
Jason
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