Male, Maldives SCUBA diving

[islandwoman]

I have a cruise booked on the Ocean Princess that will make a one day (9AM-6PM) port call in Male, Maldives in April, 2012. There are no ship's dive excursions available. Can someone recommend a dive operation whose location and schedule might work for cruise ship passengers?

 

[nirmd01]

Hi

I think you will have difficulty finding any operator working out of Male as most diving operators are sited on the resort islands. Male is a small island, extremely built up & is not geared towards tourism. You could try e-mailing one of the dive centres on one of the nearest islands to see if they can accomodate you. diving@fihalhohi.com.mv is situated on Club Faru. kurumba@euro-divers.com are on Kurumba. Usually they are going out on the first dive of the day at about 9 am but you may get lucky. Both islands are no more than a 20 min speedboat ride away. If you have no luck, it is just as good to go snorkeling here, if your ship offers a snorkeling trip. Any snorkeling here is many times better than anywhere in the Caribbean. I have been to the Maldives several times & have been lucky enough to swim with mantas & had many blacktip reef shark sitings. You will not be able to go to Male & snorkel from the shore- there are no beaches as such & there is too much water traffic around the whole island. Club Faru has no house reef but Kurumba has a decent one.

Les

[islandwoman]

Thank you for your response, Les. I was beginning to think I wouldn't get any replies. I'll follow up on your suggestions.

[nirmd01]

It's a pleasure. We love going to the Maldives as the snorkeling is so good. We have stayed on islands (Club Faru 3 times & Biyadhoo once) & also did a 14 day cruise on a live-aboard dive boat (even though we don't dive) where we were the only passengers. That was brilliant. You must at least go snorkeling somewhere here- it is fantastic in places. The last time we were on Club Faru, we snorkeled Kurumba's reef & had 30+ reef shark sitings- at one stage, there were 7 swimming under us. Full Moon (which is only a little further than Club Faru) has a lot of stingrays & once had 40+ mantas feeding (they were there for 3 days)- unforgettable!! So if your ship is doing snorkeling off Full Moon or Kurumba, you should do it.

[naxos]

I am looking for a day snorkel trip. Our ship will arrive @ 4pm on day and depart 4pm the next day so we are looking to arrange a morning trip. Just checking to see if anyone has been able to make arrangements in advance.

 

Thanks