Diving at Maldives?

[bowlofpetunias]

I was just responding to the information in the link posted of the Government regulations. I must say it concerned me that of all the regulations and controls listed by the Government there was nothing talking about the maintainence of fill stations and checking the quality of the fills. Had those issues been addressed in the regulations I would probably be more open minded about it.

There are a lot of places I can go besides the Maldives to experience the kind of diving I am looking for. We all get to decide what are "deal breakers" for ourselves. What qualifies as the world's finest diving is relative I suspect. I must confess I have not done the livaboard thing yet for the same reasons hmp2z mentioned. I would rather not waste a dive holiday being sick and I react very bady to any kinds of fumes. I have done some great diving off Lady Elliott Island with the Mantas and whales. Trips to PNG north and south where we did day trips. California again day trips and shore dives. Curaco day trips.

The key is to know what is important for the trip to be successful for you and research to find the best and safest places to meet your criteria. Whatever floats your boat ..

 

[Shaff]

Being from the Maldives, I'm glad that the Maldives has the dive regulation for tourists with max depth 30m and max time 60mins. We had only one dive accident last year! and it was also because of diver carelessness.

 

[leo]

Sorry, IMO a 60 minute dive max time regulation is flat out STUPID. It makes no mention of depth... to say that I can't do a 90 minute dive if my max depth is 6m (20') and my tank may last much longer is stupid, and that's what the regulation says. For someone doing 20m, ok... 30m, sure... guidelines are good, but as it's written - stupid.

 

[Popeye328]

For all those people who are talking about 60 minutes diving doesn't make sense.....we have currents up to 4 knots in the Maldives.

Biggest risk of diving in the Maldives is not finding the divers at the end of the dive and in that regard the 1 hour dive limit makes a lot of sense. As we regularly dive in heavy current conditions you don't want people to drift for more than an hour.
Divers are allowed to do the dive with their buddy and don't have to stay with the group. If these divers did not listen to the briefing or forget how to dive the site or are just stuborn and drift 15 minutes through the kandu (with 4 knots) before surfacing and then surface in the middle, they will be a long way from the divesite after 60 minutes.

To minimize the risks of not finding the divers (because losing divers is bad for business) we have the 1 hour rule. The dhonicrew expects all SMB's on the surface after 1 hour and they leave the dive site to go look for them downcurrent.
I always tell my divers during the briefing that if they are flushed out it is 2400km to Sudan and 2400km to Indonesia to keep them focussed but every now and then we have to search for 30 minutes or more to find a buddyteam who made a mistake........
It is a tradeoff between freedom of diving and safety. Divers get a lot of freedom on most liveaboards but this comes with responsibility which not everybody can handle.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I would have been more re-assured if there had been something in the regulations dealing with compressors and fill stations to ensure my fill was safe and regulations requiring O2 systems onboard rather than something regulating my dive time and depth.

 

[Big fish63]

can't believe people are moaning about a 60 minute dive time and saying they wont travel to a location because of it. its pretty common right across Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand so on and so on i could give you a list of dive centres right across this part of the world that implement this. imagine drifting out into the Indian ocean miles away from anywhere with little chance of being found, because you wanted 10-20 minutes more dive time... its not always easy diving these areas its for safety. fools

 

[leo]

fools? i do a dive on shallow reef of max depth 5m which might allow for nearly two hours of dive time, in shallow house reef water with no current and no blue sea nearby and the op wants me to limit my dive to half a tank and one hour? your post ignores that different situations call for different rules, that your "drift out to the blue and be lost" scenario doesn't always apply, and to use a one hour limit in all cases is foolish, flat out dumb. and in your scenario, why would an extra 10-20 minutes put the diver and dive master at risk... or do you suggest that the extra time implies a lone diver separating from a buddy and dive master (which is not foolish, it's STUPID)?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I can deal with the 60-minute rule as long as we're allowed a minimum of four dives per day (five would be better). On my Indonesia trip we were typically getting 70+ minutes ... but not on the current-sensitive sites. If there's a reason to apply the time limit, I can see it making sense.

Reading through the linked regulations above (from 2003) I noticed two things that caused me to raise my eyebrows ...

- the specification that you must be certified through an RSTC or CMAS organization ... ah, everyone in my group is NAUI-certified, which is not a member of the RSTC. Is this going to be a problem? I was once denied access to a dive charter in Maui because the op only accepted PADI certifications. No problem there ... I simply walked across the street and signed on with their competitor. On a national scale, this could be a problem.

- snorkels are required ... seriously? With the hog rig I prefer to dive, snorkels are not only inconvenient ... they interfere with deployment in the event of an OOA emergency. That sounds like a regulation created by some bureaucrat who probably doesn't even dive.

Are these rules enforced? It's a bit late for me to be having second thoughts ... my trip is paid for. But it is interesting that no one has thought to mention either of those rules to us in the process of booking it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[beautybelow]

I can deal with the 60-minute rule as long as we're allowed a minimum of four dives per day (five would be better). On my Indonesia trip we were typically getting 70+ minutes ... but not on the current-sensitive sites. If there's a reason to apply the time limit, I can see it making sense.

Reading through the linked regulations above (from 2003) I noticed two things that caused me to raise my eyebrows ...

- the specification that you must be certified through an RSTC or CMAS organization ... ah, everyone in my group is NAUI-certified, which is not a member of the RSTC. Is this going to be a problem? I was once denied access to a dive charter in Maui because the op only accepted PADI certifications. No problem there ... I simply walked across the street and signed on with their competitor. On a national scale, this could be a problem.

- snorkels are required ... seriously? With the hog rig I prefer to dive, snorkels are not only inconvenient ... they interfere with deployment in the event of an OOA emergency. That sounds like a regulation created by some bureaucrat who probably doesn't even dive.

Are these rules enforced? It's a bit late for me to be having second thoughts ... my trip is paid for. But it is interesting that no one has thought to mention either of those rules to us in the process of booking it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob,

Those rules were written and published like you said in 2003. Every resort/liveaboard/diveshop goes by their own rules according to their own needs. The Cayman Islands government has a list of rules that would make you cringe too if I remember right, but nobody ever sees them, just like nobody would ever see these silly ones if I had not put that link up.

You don't have to dive with a snorkel here. It probably had something to do with a PADI instructor helping write the rules back then.

You won't be turned away because you are NAUI.

If you are on a site where everyone is having a great time at a shallow depth and the dohni is right over you and you go past 60 minutes you won't get deported I am pretty sure.

Nobody mentions those rules (the government ones) because nobody gives them any thought here.

Like mentioned before, a lot of the diving does require that the boat capt has a good idea where the divers are going to be when they surface, and that can depend on the length of the dive.

If you want 5 dives a day here (or even four sometimes) you will sacrifice quality for quantity and end up diving on sites you will wish you hadn't dropped in on because of the timing.

If the operation is pushed into doing more dives in a day than they have planned (planned because they are trying to give you the best diving possible) then you will have dives you don't enjoy and will miss dives you would have thought were awesome. It's not this way every day, but on a lot of days and areas it will be.

You just have to come and dive here to understand. Come with an open mind and realize that once you get on your boat you are no longer really under any restrictions as far as the government goes. You can drink beer and eat pork (if they have the proper permits) and dive past 100' if it is appropriate and no state police will even know.

Come and have fun...it's really not such a bad place.

 

[supergaijin]

Resort based diving sets a one hour dive rule for logistics. A typical schedule for many resorts is one dive in the morning at approx 9am, one in the afternoon at approx 3pm. Note that you return to the island for lunch. 2 tank dives leave earlier, come back about 1pm for lunch.

The crew is expected to turn the boat around and have it ready to depart at 3pm. What you don't see happening behind the scenes are all the little dramas which unfold on isolated islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean which eat away at the clock. The guide (often an instructor) will be diving again sometimes as soon as the boat comes back. He/she needs a little lunch as well

House reef diving shouldn't have a time limit but check with the dive center. If you want to dive unguided, check with the dive center. Note that I said to check with the dive center as opposed to the hotel. Most 'brand' hotels here won't touch the diving for liability reasons.

There will almost always be the option to go private- hire the boat and a guide and dive yourself silly. Most will not pay the extra $$.

Safari boats run on a different schedule. Moving at night is a big no-no because of the reefs so the boats also travel during the day. There is a wide variety of dives available but sometimes they're a bit spread out. South Ari Maamigili is where you're most likely to see whalesharks (and a dozen other safari boats). There is some excellent drift diving and deep channel pinnacle dives all in this area that only a few safari guides will know about.

When the weather turns, all bets are off. Guests who stay for a week or so, simply do not realise for the most part, the potential of the Indian Ocean when it kicks up. Dives around the outer reefs must be done with extreme caution when the weather is marginal. When it rains, the crew can see for about 25 meters. If you surface away from the reef (for any reason)- you're f*ct.

When the ocean swell is too big for the boat to get out of the atoll to pick you up- you're f*ct.

As Popeye mentioned- the biggest risk is not getting found.

Personally I remember surfacing on one dive (House reef) in the middle of a storm. The wind was blowing offshore, proper thunder and lightning stuff. We were approx 100m from shore (long shallow swim over a reef), couldn't see the island because of the rain, but I had a compass. No big deal until my (thankfully one) diver cramped. It took me pretty much all my energy to tow him in knowing all the time that if I cramped as well, we're f*ct. That particular storm lasted all day and night. I still shudder when I think of it.