Male, Maldives

I’m knackered. But up and out by 6am. Another submerged pinnacle.

With a red frog fish! Yay!! Love them.

Here there was a lot more soft corals than previously, and a lot more small fish. Today is a race to get to a good mooring point.

Heading from South Ari Atoll, up into North Ari Atolls.

By around 11am, we were at our mooring point for the night – Fesdu lagoon.

We were second to make it – and got a good spot. (Later on in the day we were joined by 7 other boats (!) scattered around the bay).

Our second dive was before lunch and was fairly unexciting. Lunch and then another dive – Fesdu wreck, with around a hundred other divers. Eeek.

We had the whole afternoon free – in a perfectly flat lagoon, and 2 others had brought paddle boards along! I had a go – it’s so difficult!!

I have no balance at all. Quite fun though!

And as the sun set over the horizon, the spotlights were turned on on the back of the boat.

And soon there were mantas swimming around and under the boat! At the back, the plankton was being attracted by the lights – and we had a pair of mantas on the surface, doing somersaults as they fed on the plankton. Amazing!!

Time to jump onto the dhoni and get ready to dive. This time, torches were laid out in a circular shape across the sandy bottom (at 14m). And we sat around the edge. Looking up and watching the mantas.

They circled overhead and came sweeping across in front of me. I had a total shock when one came right over my head and hit me! It was so cool!!!

70 minutes of sitting in the sand watching them 🙂

We had definitely got the best mooring spot. We had the only mantas!! The other boats had none, and were driving over in their dhonis to come and look at ours. I was the last out of the water and had a rather late dinner at 9pm.