Male, Maldives

We set sail around 4am. As I am in a cabin fairly near the engines, it’s noisy. So not a lot of sleep.

Officially we were woken at 6am. Ready for Fish Head. This site is a marine reserve. And wow – can you tell. The pinnacle was covered in fish – thousands of red tooth trigger fish, schooling long fin banner fish and the ubiquitous blue stripped snapper. Copious numbers of grey reefs hanging around and a load of hawksbill turtles being harassed by another load of divers from a different boat. Popular site. I really enjoyed it. And realised it’s the first time that really, I’ve not been bored whilst diving here.

After a bit of sailing, we were a bit further North, at Maaya thila. Another good dive – amazing visibility. A few grey reefs. And a strong current (the only part I wasn’t too pleased about!).

When we had just got out of the water, there were dark shadows moving just next to the dhoni. Mantas?! No – huge blue marlins! There were 3 of them, hunting. One even jumped out of the water, right next to us. They were massive. Awesome!

More food. Lunch.

And then the final thila for the day – Haafsa. Loved this one too. Grey reefs everywhere!! We just sat for ages on the edge of the wall whilst 4 massive and 2 smaller grey reefs circled around in front of us.

Today has been a good day! Definitely enjoying North Ari Atoll diving a lot more.

We headed away from Ari and onto Radshoo, a small collection of islands to the north of Ari. And had a lovely sunset, with the sounds of the mosque on the background. The seaplanes taking off on one side of us and a beautiful deserted island on the other side. What a lovely place.

And dinner time. And bed time. So predictable.