lords of the deep
to day we got up at the crack of dawn to a pouring rain that apparently started around 2am. it's funny how different this visit to the maldives is in comparison to last year - unpredictible weatther, more difficult diving conditions. certainly a contrast from last year's placid and easy experience.
the rain cleared up around 6 and we left the boat at around 6:30 for madhivaru kandu or "hammerhead point". viewing hammerheads is apparently best just after dawn when they are at shallower depths (~30 m) in order to feed. and we were not disappointed at all. in total i think we saw 7 or 8 of them somewhere between 25 - 30 m down. conditions were dark and murky - not at all ideal conditions for pictures so you'll just have to trust me. one huge one came within 10 meters of us... massive. i missed out on seeing the signature shape of the head but they were still unmistakable by the position of the eyes right at the tip of the head. the water was filled with these tiny bioluminescent thingys that glowed a bright neon blue. i had no idea what they were at first but they were floating everywhere. reach out your hand to try to touch one and it would flicker off and dart away. remarkable.
i'm slowly learning everyone's names... eis is ken's wife, mavis is vincent's wife, and our captain's name is baari. i'm determined to learn everyone's name before i leave this boat.
at about 10am we left for our 2nd dive in rasdhoo at a place called north channel which is also called "manta point" for reasons we were soon to discover. we saw a couple of beautiful moray eels, a huge marble ray, and then at the end of the dive, this amazing medium-sized manta just flew in from out of nowhere and glided slowly past us as if inviting us to take it's picture. which of course we all did.
after a quick lunch we headed over to kuramathi to visit the dive shop there and check things out. the weather had completely cleared up and we were now in the maldives that i remembered, sweet-smelling, hot, a touch of humidity.... bliss. i, of course, was completely excited at the prospect of visiting there than anyone else for obvious reasons. not much has changed there in 9 months. a couple new fences, some new dive boats but overall the place was exactly as i remembered it to be. getting around was easy, i recognized some of the staff, and most important to me was that my diving instructors all remembered who i was - always nice to know that you left a positive impression on people - especially those that were so instrumental in your rebirth.
upon return to the boat we immediately set out for madhivaru again to see what there was to see. as soon as we descended, we were greeted by this enormous, clumsy looking napoleon wrasse. i think wee were more astonished by it that it was of us as it just swam straight up to us to check us out. another noatable sighting was this baby white-tip reef shark resting in a small cave and after i had already ascended a huge manta ray was spotted that i was told was probably twice the size of the one we saw earlier. too bad i missed it but i'm sure there will be more.
we moved south for about 2 hrs into the main part of the ari atoll to a resort called eliadhoo where 4 of us set up for a night dive at the house reef there. huge red snappers, schools of blue fin trevally, enormouse sea fans, little blue triggers that had stuffed themselved into all of the nooks and crannies of the reef in an attempt to sleep, tons of cleaner shrimp, some juvenile angelfish, a couple of scorpion fish and a few lion fish. spectacular. when we surfaced we were rewarded with the biggest, starry sky i've seen in a long time. cloudless and the full moon had yet to appear so the sky was black save for the countless stars.
what a great day of diving.
the rain cleared up around 6 and we left the boat at around 6:30 for madhivaru kandu or "hammerhead point". viewing hammerheads is apparently best just after dawn when they are at shallower depths (~30 m) in order to feed. and we were not disappointed at all. in total i think we saw 7 or 8 of them somewhere between 25 - 30 m down. conditions were dark and murky - not at all ideal conditions for pictures so you'll just have to trust me. one huge one came within 10 meters of us... massive. i missed out on seeing the signature shape of the head but they were still unmistakable by the position of the eyes right at the tip of the head. the water was filled with these tiny bioluminescent thingys that glowed a bright neon blue. i had no idea what they were at first but they were floating everywhere. reach out your hand to try to touch one and it would flicker off and dart away. remarkable.
i'm slowly learning everyone's names... eis is ken's wife, mavis is vincent's wife, and our captain's name is baari. i'm determined to learn everyone's name before i leave this boat.
at about 10am we left for our 2nd dive in rasdhoo at a place called north channel which is also called "manta point" for reasons we were soon to discover. we saw a couple of beautiful moray eels, a huge marble ray, and then at the end of the dive, this amazing medium-sized manta just flew in from out of nowhere and glided slowly past us as if inviting us to take it's picture. which of course we all did.
after a quick lunch we headed over to kuramathi to visit the dive shop there and check things out. the weather had completely cleared up and we were now in the maldives that i remembered, sweet-smelling, hot, a touch of humidity.... bliss. i, of course, was completely excited at the prospect of visiting there than anyone else for obvious reasons. not much has changed there in 9 months. a couple new fences, some new dive boats but overall the place was exactly as i remembered it to be. getting around was easy, i recognized some of the staff, and most important to me was that my diving instructors all remembered who i was - always nice to know that you left a positive impression on people - especially those that were so instrumental in your rebirth.
upon return to the boat we immediately set out for madhivaru again to see what there was to see. as soon as we descended, we were greeted by this enormous, clumsy looking napoleon wrasse. i think wee were more astonished by it that it was of us as it just swam straight up to us to check us out. another noatable sighting was this baby white-tip reef shark resting in a small cave and after i had already ascended a huge manta ray was spotted that i was told was probably twice the size of the one we saw earlier. too bad i missed it but i'm sure there will be more.
we moved south for about 2 hrs into the main part of the ari atoll to a resort called eliadhoo where 4 of us set up for a night dive at the house reef there. huge red snappers, schools of blue fin trevally, enormouse sea fans, little blue triggers that had stuffed themselved into all of the nooks and crannies of the reef in an attempt to sleep, tons of cleaner shrimp, some juvenile angelfish, a couple of scorpion fish and a few lion fish. spectacular. when we surfaced we were rewarded with the biggest, starry sky i've seen in a long time. cloudless and the full moon had yet to appear so the sky was black save for the countless stars.
what a great day of diving.
posted by michael | 8:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home