Diving the Maldives
1986 - 1987 - 1988
An easy trip. Half way around the world by Boeing 747, we landed at Male, the capitol of the Maldive Islands Republic. Actually, the airplane lands on a small atoll a short distance by Dhoni from the atoll the city of Male sits on. Neither atoll is large enough for both a runway and city.
While at the islands we lived on the S/V Rusalka, a 75 foot sailboat. It took us to the outlying atolls in the vast archipelago that extends north south some 600 nautical miles, and east west over 150 nm in the Indian Ocean south of the country of India.
We did the actual SCUBA diving from our 'Escort", a native dhoni, powered by a one cylinder diesel engine. The dhoni with it's shallow draft and maneuverability made it a good dive platform, albeit a little rustic and fishy smelling. It carried all our diving gear as well as the vital but noisy air compressor used to fill our SCUBA tanks.
We returned to dive The Maldives 4 times over a 3 year span. All told we explored (underwater) 48 different atolls/reefs. Our son John B. and wife Beth joined us on the 1987 expedition. I made my first ever dive to 200 foot depth (on SCUBA air) at Rasdo on that trip.
Our last trip to the Maldives was in November 1988. We arrived 24hrs after a government coup. The S/V Ruslaka had been expelled from the country, and the possibility of diving looked pretty bleak. We finally arranged to live on a bare-bones dhoni, manned by a crew of two natives and 1000 giant cockroaches. There was no electricity or running water. A small coleman stove was used by the natives to cook our meals, and we shared the wooden bunks with the cockroaches. We did have our trusty "escort" dhoni along and enjoyed, one last time, the pristine clear waters and wonderful unspoiled underwater life at the remote atolls.
Click on the page buttons to see our underwater pictures from the Maldives.
| Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mantas Part VII |
Sharks Part VIII |
Anemones Part IX |
Don't touch Part X |
Clear water Part XI |
The End Part XII |
