Maldivian Magic
By Cameron Snow

Gray reef shark Scott Michael photo

Way back in March 1996, I experienced the most amazing diving in my diving career. To this day, the Maldives has remained my favorite dive location, with crystal clear water, abundant marine life, unspoiled and remote, and with postcard like scenery.

I had met Scott Michael, while diving in Forester, a small holiday town, located on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Scott was visiting from the States, researching and photographing sharks for future publications, and I had just purchased my first underwater photography equipment and wanted to get some dramatic shark slides.

After spending a week diving together, we struck up a friendship and stayed in touch. Scott with his wife Janine organize annual dive trips around the world, under the banner Reef Impressions, and after diving with them in Fiji, I decided to take the opportunity of diving again with them, this time in the Maldives.

Being from Tasmania, I met up with Scott and other intrepid divers from the States in Singapore, from there we continued onto the Maldives the following day. The flight is relatively short from Singapore, only four hours and Singapore Airlines did a great job as usual.

Map of Maldives

The Maldives is made up of over 1000 atolls, with the highest point only 3 metres above sea level. There are over 70 species of corals in the Maldives, especially Acropora, which take first place as reef builders. Along with these reefs and their perfect location in the Indian Ocean, there is an enormous wealth and variety of marine life, like no other I have seen in the world.

Our home while in the Maldives for the next seven days was aboard the boat Koimala, captained by Roy Smathers (The Freak!) also our divemaster from San Francisco, his friendly crew of locals headed up by first mate Sutara, who was fortunate enough to have a song composed for in his honor by us divers, and of course our cook who's name escapes me, provided us with amazing curries and delicious meals everyday.

Lagoon coral head Janine-Cairns Michael Photo

Our daily existence usually began with an early morning deep dive up to 40 metres, sometimes on reef walls with endless blue horizons, underwater passages flanked with soft corals between atolls and the open ocean, and sometimes upon invertebrate encrusted wrecks made home by scorpion fish. This was followed by a hearty breakfast, a short break to reload film and check over our gear, and then back into the water for our next dive of the day. Lunch would be our next break from this natural aquarium. Between dives we would go ballistic, explaining and describing to each other the amazing sights we had seen on the previous dive.

We spotted and photographed, reef sharks, eagle rays, schools of bannerfish, powder blue tangs, clown triggerfish, nudibranchs, tin snip morays, hard and soft coral formations, green sea turtles, banded coral shrimps - the list was endless.

Back in the water, our dives would become shallower and we would explore the tops of reefs and the shallow protected waters of the atolls. As usual, we were enveloped by abundant and diverse marine life, which provided many opportunities for macro and wide-angle photography. I remember one dive site in particular, the dive site was called Miyaru Kanou, I was diving with Janine (my faithful macro dive buddy), there was macro material everywhere, Janine was photographing a tin snip moray eel, as she set up the shot, another eel hidden in the coral labyrinth took a bite at her framers. She jumped back, surprised by the brazen little eel - I never laughed so much underwater.

Tin snip moray Scott Michael Photo

Everyday would be a new adventure and dive location, as the boat sailed the calm blue waters, past islands of white sand and coconut palms. A few of the islands had resorts, while others where the homes of local villagers, but the majority are uninhabited and untouched, with only about 200 islands inhabited. Some afternoons we would take the opportunity to visit these islands. At one local village we saw the construction of a timber boat called a Dhoni, a traditional design used by local fisherman. Another interesting find was the way housing is constructed on these islands. The main construction material is coral, as there are no other natural materials available.

The local people are friendly but shy probably a reflection of their remoteness and Muslim upbringing. Being a Muslim state, alcohol and nudity are forbidden, except at resort islands where laws are relaxed to accommodate visiting tourists.

On other days we would just relax on the deck and watch the world sail by, cleaning camera equipment, referring to texts to identify the vast marine life we had just seen, or simply have a drink and wonder what exotic dish would be on the menu that coming evening.

The seven days soon passed and we were on our way back to Singapore in no time, before catching our flight we managed some time to visit Male, the capitol and Main Island of the Maldives. It is the only true city of the Maldives, with shopping, restaurants and all the trappings of any small city. It's amazing though, to see high-rise buildings, cars and congestion in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Maldives is an amazing dive location and I look forward to returning some day!