The Maldives are a tiny island nation about 400 miles southwest of Sir Lanka, near the equator in the Indian Ocean. They consist of nearly 1200 islands, grouped into 26 atolls that cover an area roughly twice the size of Vancouver Island ... 90% of which is water. The islands are mostly tiny and flat ... the highest point in the Maldives is the speedbump in the parking lot at the airport. About 300,000 people live there ... on roughly 200 islands. About 90 of those are resorts, dedicated to tourism, which is the major part of the nation's economy. The rest are either uninhabited or used for agricultural purposes. Nearly a third of the population lives in the capital city of Male ... a very modern island city in the eastern/central part of the archipelago.
The journey to the islands was arduous ... Seattle to San Francisco to Korea to Singapore to Male ... nearly 40 hours to get there and about 45 hours on the return, because we had an additional inter-island flight to get back to Male from the southernmost part of our journey, roughly 250 miles south of the international airport.
On the way over ... as we were waiting for our connection in Singapore airport ... I heard someone calling my name ... "Bob, Bob" ... and looking across the concourse I was amazed to see my friend Dennis Baum. It seems that he and a group from Bubbles Below were not only traveling to the Maldives at the same time, but were booked on the same liveaboard we were. Small world indeed.
Upon arriving in Male, we were greeted by a representative of our host ... Explorer Ventures. We'd be spending the next 11 days on the 125-foot vessel Carpe Vita Explorer, which has only been in operation for about a year and is a beautiful boat to spend a dive vacation on.
The Carpe Vita is a beautiful boat, with spacious lounges, hardwood floors, and accommodations that are more like a hotel room than a cabin. It accommodates a maximum of 20 guests ... we had 19 on this trip ... in quarters that are roomy and comfortable. But it wasn't the boat that made them special ... it was a crew that worked very hard making sure we had a great time. I was very pleased with my choice of vessel for this trip.
Diving is done off a separate, 65-foot tender called a dhoni. When you board, you put all of your dive gear on the dhoni, set it up once, and leave it there for the duration of the trip. The dhoni travels separately from the main boat, and comes alongside only to board and disembark divers, which is a simple process using a two-step ladder.
Once we were set up and settled into our cabins, we did our first ... "check-out" dive just a short distance out from the airport, on a part of the reef that encircles the atoll known as North Male. This was a simple reef dive, and just a taste of what was to come. Then, as we settled down to dinner, the boat left the more populated parts of the country and headed south ... which is what we would do for the next 10 days, doing 33 dievs on 25 dive sites while visiting six atollls and covering more than 300 miles of ocean.
Those lighter areas you see on the map are the atolls. This map only covers the southern half of the Maldives ... there's about an equal number of atolls going north from our starting point. Where you dive depends on the season ... November through April the boats go south, May though October they go north. The direction of the diving is determined by the direction of the prevailing winds.
Each atoll consists of a reef that encloses a deep lagoon several miles in diameter. Ringed around the lagoon are islands, shallow reefs, and deep channels that produce some of the strongest current I've ever dived in. The diving here is varied, depending on whether you're diving a channel, a reef, a wall or a pinnacle. On the next part of my report I'll cover some of the diving ... this report could take a while to complete, as there's a lot to describe.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
by Unknown
with water and drink it, not snort the powder directly from the packet, right? 
" - Spatman
Great trip report and pics- look forward to seeing more.
