The boring dives

We sailed to South Male Atoll after our second dive in Manta Point. We stayed around South Male Atoll for three days and two nights. I did six day-dives, including a wreck dive and one night dive.
The dive sites are as follows:
1. Embudhoo Kanda
2. Embudhoo Canyon
3. Kuda Griri (wreck dive)
4. Gulhi Out
5. Madhu Form (dive abandoned after ½ hr. fighting the current!)
6. Vilivaru Giri (night dive)
7. Kandoomaa Caves

All the sites were very ordinary with nothing special - few soft corals and many broken hard corals. The fishes were quite colourful and plentiful but I had seen them all before except may be the "Honeycomb" moray eel. We also caught sight of some whitetips from a distance in a couple of dives. Anyway, it was a good opportunity for me to test my new camera.

Followings are some pictures of marine life taken in South Male Atoll:

All of us were feeling quite bored diving in South Male Atoll and so we made our request to return to North Male Atoll. We left after our first morning dive on 1st Sept.

Immediately upon our arrival in North Male Atoll we headed to Manta Point where we did our third repeat-dive. We encountered some surge in the water this time, but we were fortunate again to have some close views of mantas.

Our appetite for more mantas seemed insatiable (not eating them!) and so we went back to have another go the next morning (2nd Sept.). But this time luck was not with us as we met strong currents and surges and had to abandon the dive after struggling for ½ an hour in the water.

That was the end of our diving expedition to Maldives this time. We were glad that Mantas had graciously come to save our day!

Spells of Doing-Nothing

As the weather condition in the late afternoons was generally bad, I decided to take a break from diving in most afternoons. Therefore I had plentiful of time to spare.

That gave me the opportunity to do nothing during many afternoons.

That's it. Nothing - lazing around in the rolling "Handhufalhi" and thinking about nothing in particular; listening to the waves lashing the boat and not thinking too much about strong underwater currents I have had to endure had I gone diving; and alone watching, in the cozy lounge with a can of beer, the storm brewing and not worrying about getting chilly and drenched through the skin coming back in the rocking dive-boat they called "Dhoni". No, diving was just too much for me to do….

It's easy to do nothing, but it's hard to do it slowly (that's why it is called an art!). I have discovered that Maldives, either on a resort island or in a liveaboard boat, is indeed an ideal place to practise this pleasurable art.

You kill two birds with one stone - diving and doing nothing slowly.

ADIEUS MANTA

Click here to view video clip taken at Manta Pt.

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