Maldives

Prologue

Zurich airport. Check-in counter. Silke and Padi, packed and ready to fly.

After handing our passports to the Edelweiss lady:

"You have the entry form?" - "What entry form?" - "The one you had to fill out 96 hours before arrival to the Maldives. I cannot let you check in without it."

....

"Do you at least have the hotel reservation confirmation?" - "No, we will live on a ship, here's the payment confirmation" to which she responds: "That's not enough." ....

Silke looks at me. I look at Silke. We both already partly mentally checked out thinking: Ok, so we've got some alpine paragliding ahead of us, instead of a diving holiday"

But no. This can't be.

So we insist. And the lady calls her supervisor. Who finally tells her, that we still have time to fill out the form until the flight leaves since the form needs to be filled WITHIN not UNTIL 96 hours before the flight.

Entering paradise

A merely nine hours later, we set foot on a densely populated island city called Male.

From the airport we directly jump on a ship which is our "Dhoni". It's unique to the Maldives that diving ships don't have the diving gear/station onboard but on a secondary wessel called Dhoni which rides along the main ship.

We have six days of diving ahead of us. Our ship is called Emperor Leo and we're 21 guests and 12 crew and the trip is "Best Of Maldives". It's off season / monsun season so we are very lucky to have a full sunny week ahead of us with great diving conditions.

Also the group setup is promising: Demographically greatly mixed and culturally diverse: Except for the italian fraction, there are no more than 2,3 people from the same country which makes a wonderful opportunity to mingle. The community was exceptional and made the trip all the more interesting and fun. Of course, the Emperor crew was excellent. Jules and his team made our stay all around unforgettable!

One thing I can say is that what Maldives lack in (macro) biodiversity it makes up for in pelagic quantity:

We saw a huge amount of sharks, jacks, trevallies, mantas and a few eagle rays. Macro is a bit more limited: Some day octos, froggies and stonefish hang out but Nudibranch fans might get disappointed. There seem to be next to no special ones around.

We were lucky to also do two beach bbq visits with night snorkelling opportunities to find (baby) octos and sharks.

Learnings

Health

• We were right to bring anti ear-infection (Ehm's drops): Other guests did suffer from ear infections and had to sit out dives.

Company

• Great people make a liveaboard amazing: Ok, maybe not a "learning" but something to highlight, anyway!
• The Birthday Paradox holds on ships too: In a room of 23 people, it's a coinflip that two share a birthday. More lucky was, that it happend with the very first two people that said theirs (Silke & Luka)!

Ammenities

• The Kraken phone housings are a real pita regarding focus. Most of my videos ended up blurry
• We are too tired at night to use the onboard Jacuzzi

Sea Life

• Seances to summon Mantas work: Placing a few lamps at dusk below the ship to attract plankton brought us 4 or 5 resident from small to huge!
• There are mosquitos on islands: Yes, yes, d'uh, but the pain was half as bad because I found a Mosquito magnet buddy in Mael
• There's always more sharks in the Maldives: Not in front of you? Not left/right/top/bottom? Check behind you. Yes, there it is! Could be anything between a baby white tip to full grown grey reefer.

• There is always someone on the back of the boat (when the light's on): We were visited by Dolphins, Sharks, Mantas, Squid families (who got scared when I ran to get my camera).

• You CAN get bitten by a moray eel while photographing a froggy: This was Silkes (and my) first time we got attacked by something under water (Trigger Fish don't count. Those are always out for blood). The bite went through the 5mm wetsuit and into the skin. Fortunately without an infection!

Highlights

Getting Swarmed

The feeling of being one, completely surrounded, with a swarm of Blue Striped Snappers touched me in the core. Also a school of Jacks decided to do a close Tornado spin around me. That was a first for me.

Pekaboo

Getting surprised by clumsy huge nurse sharks. They have that in common with turtles. Not the best of navigators, to be honest but it's fun seing them bump into one another.

Mystical Manta Seances

Jules and his team set up a few lamps fixed onto rods and placed them into the rocky sand under the boat. We all kneeled in a circle on the sand around with our lamps on. This felt like we'd want to summon some kind of deity! It felt sombre and mystical. And then they arrived. First one, two and then four or more Mantas. Snatching the accumulating plankton atop of the lamps. Swooshing by barely Millimeters above our heads/lamps and doing beautiful barrel rolls. We will never forget this.

1x Cleaning please... and what's that? Divers? Uuuh, let's check them out!

We visited three Manta Cleaning stations but only on the last did we get a really memorable action. After stopping by the Cleaning station and the cleaning wrasses closing in like magnets, the Mantas were very inquisitive and swam all around us.

Octos are always awesome

Even though Maldivian Octos are mostly Day ones and definitely more on the shy side, it was still a huge pleasure playing with them

Eagle Ray paradise

I felt overjoyed especially for Silke that we saw so many, from babies to huge Eagle Rays playing/dancing around, quite fast, too!

Cherry on top: Fireworks in Male

When we arrived back to Male, we were greeted with a great Drone Show and a big Fireworks. What a wonderful end for a great week in the Maldives!

Thank you!

We are immensely thankful to everyone who helped make this an unforgettable experience! See you next time! :-)