Maldives Chapter 2

We were woken at 6am, dive brief was at 6:30. We were told we would only have to start this early if we had to, thank goodness for that. After the brief we transferred to the Dhoni and set our kit up, it will stay there until the last day.

Our first dive was Lankan Faru on the North Male Atoll, an easy check out dive that was supposed to have a Manta Ray cleaning station on it. We never saw the cleaning station or any Mantas. There was quite a bit of current during the dive which we just 'went with'. There was quite a range of marine life though, Clown Fish in Anemones, Parrot Fish, Titan Trigger Fish, one White Tip Reef Shark and three Turtles. Everyone enjoyed the dive. We were then taken back to Sting Ray for breakfast.

The boat moved to our next dive site as we relaxed and chatted. It wasn't long before it was moving again. It was a little windy so we had to change dive site around south Male. I wasn't unhappy as they had chosen a small pinnacle with a wreck next to it, the Kudagiri wreck. I had asked when we arrived if there were any wrecks worth diving. The Kudagiri was sunk on purpose as an artificial reef, we were told it was not that interesting, life hadn't taken hold yet. We entered the water on one side of the pinnacle and swam around to the wreck. The bow stood almost upright, looming out of the blue as we approached. The deepest part was around 36m with the shallowest around 16m. It was covered in encrusting sponges and some small corals. Lion fish, a Leaf Fish, Glass Fish all proved there was life around it. We entered the front cargo hold, swam through the second and exited from a room above the second hold. One side of the bridge was full of fallen cables so we avoided that. The engine room hatch was open so we had a quick look around the top of the engine with it's large rockers in place, there didn't appear to be anywhere to go from here. It wasn't long before we needed to be shallower, so we headed back to the pinnacle. There were quite a few fish, as expected, and a large free swimming Giant Morey Eel to finish off the dive. If I had twin tanks and nitrox I'd probably have stayed on the wreck the whole dive. Nitrox was available as were 15L tanks, we stayed on air with 12L tanks the whole week.

 Our last dive of day one was going to be a 'channel dive' at Guraidhoo Kandu, again on the South Male Atoll. A dive between two pinnacles that would have some strong currents, we were to hang around at the mouth of the channel keeping our eye out for anything big coming past. It was long before we say a Blotched Ray, followed by a couple of White Tip Reef Sharks, a group of five Eagle Rays followed by two more Sharks, they just took their turn coming. After nearly twenty five minutes hanging close to thirty metres it was time to let the drift take us up the channel. We passed some more rays that were settled in the sandy bottom, then swam or should I say drifted along the reef.