Maldives Diving

[coliseum]

I will be heading to the Maldives tonight... Staying at Hilton Rangali...

I heard that there is a close dive site (15-20 min by boat) from the hotel where we can find Mantas...

I have 1 day where I can do 2 dives only... Is there a dive spot name you know of where we can see Mantas AND I would love to see Whale Sharks (or 1 Whale Shark would be fine )

 

[Damselfish]

Safe bet that if there is a place to see mantas or whale sharks nearby I'm sure the dive op will know about it. The thing will be what day they might do that as opposed to some other dives. Should probably just talk to them when you get there. Of course neither is a guaranteed thing, this time of year especially, and the sites most likely to see them probably will be lower viz and not the best dives otherwise. So you could spend your dives swimming in murky blue water looking for them and not get to see much of anything else. If I only had 2 dives I probably would opt for the places with incredible fish and macro life instead. We had great luck (when current running right) with dives at the end of channels - parades of sharks, eagle rays, pelagics and dense schools of fish on many dives, and usually we would be on a wall or pinnacle with lots of other cool stuff to see at the same time.

That said, we did 2 dives last week in N Ari Atoll looking for mantas. None at Madivara Manta Point, but hit paydirt at Dhonkab Manta Point. Also did 2 dives looking for whale sharks in S Ari Atoll, not sure which sites but we got skunked both times. (Of course they had seen one "last week.") There's also supposed to be a site where there is a decent chance of hammerheads but we decided to skip that one.