Best of the Maldives: Diving AI – Sun Siyam Iru Veli

Sun Siyam Iru Veli - diving

All-inclusive is becoming very de rigeur in the Maldives these days. But not the “AI” with cheap, constrain your budget, drink off-brand booze to your heart’s content stereotype, but “luxury AI” where the quality of the property and the “inclusions” are high. And in the luxury destination of the Maldives, the 5-star properties are regularly including everything under the sunshine to make the package even more appealing. Sun Siyam Iru Veli has gone beyond just “everything under the sun” to include under the water too with 3 dives included in its AI offering:

  • Within the premium all-inclusive package offered by Sun Siyam Iru Veli, up to three dives per person per week are included for certified divers as an alternative to spa credit. Guests must present a valid diving license and medical record if applicable. Boat charges and equipment hire fees do apply.”

Best of the Maldives: Scuba Girls Ambassador – Nova

Nova - scube girls ambassador

International Women’s Day today is an occasion to celebrate women doing great things and the great things that women do.  Nova resort is marking the occasion by hosting “Girls That Scuba” Ambassador Hamna Ali:

  • The bright new star resort Nova in the Maldives is celebrating International Women’s Day and marking 8th March 2023 in style. The soulful island has crafted an array of special activities for women to recognise and honour their incredible achievements and immense contribution to the world.  A special event awaits all guests as they will be able to join a snorkelling journey with Hamna Ali. Maldivian lady, a free scuba diver and ambassador of Girls that Scuba, the world’s largest female dive community, will lead all Nova guests to explore the wonders of the Indian Ocean and to snorkel into a world of breathtaking marine life.”

I caught up with Hamna in an exclusive Maldives Complete interview.  She was especially positive about the website’s profiles on Maldivians doing intriguing work in their paradise of a country.  She remarked, “In my experience, a lot of people don’t know the local side of the Maldives…such article It bring life into the other side of Maldives.”  I checked out her website and I recognized her tiger shark photo (see directly below) which has gone a bit viral on Instagram.

Here is her contribution to a fascinating peek of that other side…

  • What atoll are you from?
    Fuvahmulah.  It is unique in the Maldives for being the “One Island Atoll.”
  • What are your earliest memories of being in the water?
    I’m someone who got in the water fairly late in life.  We don’t have lagoons in Fuvahmulah where it is easy to go and learn to swim safety.  We have open water and so parents ask us to not go in the water.  However, near our house, during low tide, there is this huge patch of sea grass.  It would be covered with shells.  I remember being so fascinating. 
  • When did you get introduced to scuba diving?
    I wanted to learn how to swim and snorkel, but when I was about 12, one of my friends passed away swimming.  After that I stayed away from the water into my teens.  I was about to finish school and I started seeing friends going surfing.  I noticed that there were no other girls going surfing.  I would ask people to take people but no one would take me.  I chose as my job being a gym instructor but my interesting ocean activities continued on.  When Covid came, I went back to my island Fuvahmulah.  I had nothing to do so I decided to just go for it.  I starting swimming then surfing then snorkeling.  Even then, I didn’t know what diving was at that time.  One of my cousins owned a dive center and he reached out to me.  He told me that at the island there are lots of opportunities but there are no girls doing it.  He thought that I would be able to do it because I was going surfing with the guys and with waves crashing over me.  I told him that I would think about it.  I stayed at Fuvahmulah for 9 months.  I was going in the water every day to surf and to snorkel and I was falling in love with the water.  When COVID ended, I went back to my job and I realized that I wasn’t getting the joy that I had in the water.  So, I left my job and moved back to Fuvahmulah and decided to take up diving.  One day, one of my friends told me to get ready to go out in the water.  They took me to the ocean and when I got there, I saw a bunch of guys with diving equipment.  We all boarded a little fishing boat.  People came up to me saying “Your life is about to change. You are about to do your first dive.”  My cousin told me that we would jump in, but I saw everyone doing the roll-back into the water and I thought that was great so I did it to on my first entry.  Out of the harbour, we saw the tiger sharks come out.  Until that point in my life, I had never seen a shark.  Not even a reef shark.  It was an amazing experience.
  • What are some of the challenges that women face in the scuba diving world?
    I think representation is the place to start.  In my experience, I was the only women in this field so I didn’t even know about it being a possibility for me.  Also, I initially expected a lot of support from people in the industry, but it was quite the opposite.  People were not used to seeing women do things that men were used to doing like docking the boats.  Many men made little comments to me doubting my ability.  Sometimes they don’t like to believe the same things you can do.  There is lot of ego involved with shark diving.  Kind of power thing facing these powerful creatures.
  • How did you overcome some of those obstacles?
    I just continued what I’m doing because actions speak louder than words. I stayed precisely because there were so few women. And some people are very supportive.  And those that are sceptical at first, turned positive when they really saw what I was doing every day and how I was fitting in.  If they see what I am doing, they have no choice but to accept that I can do these things. 
  • What sort of questions do you get from women about scuba diving?
    A number of people got confused about how you can dive with sharks during your “time of month”.  It sounds funny, but people need to talk about these things to know how to these things as they are very easily addressed.
  • What is the most memorable creature you saw diving?
    So many things!  My first thresher shark.  My first big school of hammerheads (100-200 passing by).  But the most amazing was the oceanic white tip shark.  Known to be one of the most aggressive sharks.  They roam the high seas and go months and months without eating.  We had just finished a dive and saw a group of melon headed whales and were snorkeling with them.  Oceanic white tips often follow these pods of whales, but we were not expecting to see one because they are so rare.  They were the top of my bucket list because they are the most elusive.  It was one of my dreams to see them.  If you don’t know how to read them, they can be a little bit dangerous.  And in fact, i had one charge at me and I got to redirect the shark.  That is amazing. [see Instagram photo below]
  • What is your favourite creature to see?
    Sharks aside, I would definitely say the Ghost Pipefish.  Also, nudibranchs.
  • What does your role as “Girls That Scuba Ambassador” entail?
    “Girls That Scuba” is the biggest female diving community in the world.  Every year they choose 10 girls in the world to represent this community.  These ambassadors reach out to people so people can see all different kinds of women from all over the world in the diving scene.
  • Where is your bucket list destination outside the Maldives?
    Raja Ampat, Indonesia known as a “Lost Paradise”.  The coral life and marine life is something out of your imagination.  One of best places for coral in the world.  Also Baha, California for whales especially blue whales.
  • What is your latest project?
    We have started an NGO called “
    Miyaru” whose purpose is to research the sharks of the Maldives, and our first project is researching the tiger sharks in Fuvamulah.  No local NGO doing research on these sharks and Fuvahmulah has the biggest tiger shark population in the world.  It is our effort to give back to the sharks.  Also, I am working with a UK NGO with the objective to empower women in ocean science, and women in Fuvamulah.  We will be bringing more opportunities to women in the field by training local women in different types of research like data analysis, data collection, diving, etc.

You can follow Hamna’s underwater adventures on her Instagram account and her webpage.

Nova - scuba girls ambassador 3

Nova - scuba girls ambasador 2

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Best of the Maldives: Cousteau Tradition – Ritz-Carlton Maldives

Ritz-Carlton Maldives - Jean-Michael Cousteau

Jean-Michael Cousteau is the David Attenborough of the subaquatic world. A generation of sea lovers, like myself who watched it diligently as a child, were inspired by his prime time “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” (a sample episode of sharks is featured below). He never shot an episode from the Maldives, though in 1997 the ubiquitously marine Maldives honoured him with a postage stamp (see bottom). But Ritz Carlton Maldives has brought his enduring legacy to the Maldives with their “Ocean Futures Society” collaboration with Jean-Michael Cousteau (Jacques’ son) which is carrying on the family mission to inspire people around the world with not just appreciate the aquatic world, but to take care of it.

The centre has sponsored six projects at the Ritz Maldives. One is exploring the concept of coral reefs as “underwater cities”. The notion described in Richard Murphy’s “Coral Reefs: Cities Under the Sea” postulates that all coral reefs have species who do different “jobs” (such as janitor, policeman, builder, farmer, etc. Curiously. which species do which roles varies from coral reef to coral reef.

     

Jacques Cousteau stamp

Best of the Maldives Online: Shipwreck Guide – “Shipwrecks of the Maldives”

shipwrecks of the maldives

The Maldives’ shallow atolls might make for spectacular lagoons and particularly accessible snorkelling, but they were nightmarish obstacle courses for the seafaring trading ships of plying the East-West trade centuries ago. While the wooden vessels have long since rotted away, more modern ones have hit these lurking reefs plenty of times in recent years. In fact, enough to fill a book, “Shipwrecks of the Maldives” by Peter Collings. Not only is it full of dozens of wrecks that I wasn’t aware of (despite having nearly 2000 site in the Dive Site database), but most of them are meticulously researched about their history and background.

I was fortunate to catch up with author Peter Collings who provided a bit more background on his work for Maldives Complete:

  • What got you into wreck diving?During the early expeditions in southern Egypt (1995), I brought together divers from all agencies-with a common goal to explore new locations looking for shipwrecks and unearthing their stories. Endorsed by the Red Sea Association, it soon became an international club which included divers from all walks of life with very useful skill sets, and non divers within the archival services of the world. It became the leading body of wreck research, and still is, in Egypt. To date the team have located, identified and surveyed 34 of the wrecks dived in Egyptian waters.
  • When did you first visit the Maldives?1995.
  • How long did the book take to write?Three weeks.
  • Are there any aspects of wrecks in the Maldives that are a bit different to wrecks in other parts of the world?Most wrecks there are deliberately sunk for tourists.

The book is available as an ebook PDF here.

Maldives shipwreck

Best of the Maldives: Record Group Freediving – Baros

Baros - group freediving

A multitudinous school of freedivers took to the Maldives’ water near Baros to set a new world record for group freediving. The MMPRC reported:

Maldives goes on Guiness World Record for the most people freediving simultaneously, with 520 participants on Tuesday, 1 October 2019. The small island nation renowned for its breathtaking natural beauty and luxury hospitality broke the world record previously held by Italy; ‘La Scuola del Mare 2’ (Verona), in Torri del Benaco, Verona with 280 people.”

Baros - group freediving 2

Baros - group freediving 3

Best of the Maldives: “Peter” Diving – Faarufushi

Faarufushi - Peter scuba 2

[NOTE:  This offering is no longer at the resort…an opportunity for a “not yet seen again” feature for some resort.]

Despite its fame as a diver’s paradise, we didn’t dive in the Maldives until about our fifth year of going there. Lori’s sister did diving and Lori decided to get certified to join her when the sister came along with us one trip. Even then, I stayed up on top snorkelling with the kids. I remember one day, the kids and I were just finishing with the morning house reef snorkel when Lori was just setting out on her dive. She had to get the gear ready while we just threw on our fins and masks and jumped in. When she got back, we asked what she had seen on the dive. Sharks, morays, colourful fish, sting rays. It was all the stuff we had seen snorkelling. I continued to question why bother with all the equipment and faff of scuba diving when so much can be seen so close to the surface.

Since those days, I have succumbed and gotten my PADI Advanced Open Water and done over 60 dives there. And they have all been delightful. I still make a point to snorkel every house reef and there is still something alluring about the simplicity of snorkelling – no encumbrance, the ability to pop your head up and talk to your buddy, the sun on your back.

But I will admit that you do have to deal with the nuisance of seawater sloshing into your snorkel and being limited in how long you go underwater before you have to return to the surface for a breathe. Faarufushi’s “Peter” breathing system provides the unencumbered simplicity of the snorkelling experience with the underwater breathing freedom of a scuba system. Instead of the air supply being strapped to you, it floats on the surface and follows you through an extra long regulator tube.

Another benefit of the Peter is for giving people a stepping-stone taste of the scuba experience. Many dive centres offer complimentary “Try Dive” sessions. You put on all the scuba gear and have a little underwater swim in the safe confines of the shallow lagoon. But the Peter sessions are even less effort and might serve to ease more people into the underwater experience.

The “Peter system is also featured at Sun Siyam Irufushi and Kandooma resorts, but at Faarufushi it is included in their AI package.

Faarufushi - Peter scuba 1

Faarufushi - Peter system

Best of the Maldives: Easy Wipe Forms – Reethi Faru

Reethi Faru - easy wipe forms

For decades, the dream of the digital revolution was the eco-friendly paperless office. Yet, despite the profusion of connectivity and devices, dead trees still seem quite prevalent in the world of administration. You can understand that there are just some areas and applications where electronic record keeping is just impractical. Like on a dive boat where water is sloshing around and the risk of loss is high. Still, despite the extra obstacles of its environment, the Sea Explorer dive centre Reethi Faru is one of the most radically paper-free operations I have come across.

And they have not had to invest tons of money into fancy applications and sophisticated electronics. Just some clever approached. Their innovation is simply to laminate all their forms and fill them out with easy-wipe markers. Once completed, the centre takes a smartphone picture of the phone and saves it electronically. Simples. They use this technique for their registration forms, nitrox logs, dive logs and every part of their business that needs something completed and recorded.

Best of the Maldives: Soft Coral Wall – JA Manafaru

JA Manafaru soft coral

When we think of coral reefs, we often think of the hard corals whose calcium carbonate exoskeletons are the stuff that this destination is made out of. But just as dazzling to the undersea adventurer are the colourful soft corals that line walls and often caves on the reefs. And the best dive spot for soft corals seems to be Becky’s Caves according to a number of experts I’ve conferred with. It is a site for Advanced divers as the sub-aquatic display, described as “lots of soft corals all coming out like grapes” starts at 22 metres deep. The nearest resort, JA Manafaru’s “Sun Diving School” describes it as

  • This reef is the north side of Madulu Island. The top reef starts from 7 meters and drops down until 20-25 meters depth, showing all its beauty. It is a real wall reef, where you can meet napoleon fishes, red snappers and morays, lion fishes and different kind of nudibranches in the small overhangs. At the depth of 20 meters, one huge recess of the reef shows on one side a wall completely covered of soft corals of different colors; from yellow, pink, white to orange, a real universe of colors! Bring with you your torch and your camera: one fantastic dive for everybody but one rare show to see!”