Question Maldives March 2026 - Deep South LOB vs. Fuvahmulah land based

[boqurant]

FWIW I’ve done #1, part of #2 (during #1), and #3, and going back to the deep south again next year!

Central route is the best if you’re relatively inexperienced, and the variety of dives is huge. Deep South is challenging (high currents) and unpredictable in what you'll see. That said it's well worth diving at some point in your career, and a rare treat since it’s so seasonal.

 

[diveUAE]

We've done 2 central LOB and a 10 day stay at Fuvahmulah.

The central route is great and you do see a lot of sharks, usually you drop down and hook up to see the sharks passing in the channels - expect currents. Both LOB's we used did this type of diving - but the first had a "Shark trip" so did many more of this type of diving (actually became a bit boring at the end.

On our first LOB we made the mistage of jumping in the water to snorkel with whale sharks. Absolutely horrible experience with 100 other snorklers, would not recommend. On our second trip they (luckily) did not find any whale shark - but we saw one during a dive and that was much better.

Our trip to Fuvahmulah was great - I could do the Tiger Zoo many more times, but the deep dive in the morning and the reef dive in the afternoon were not so exciting. However just after our trip friends of ours did a deep south LOB (sorry, can't remember the boat, but it wasn't Scubaspa as I know they used them on another trip and loved the boat and crew, but could not get a spot for the south). Anyway: their encounters with whale sharks, mantas and other sharks were epic and they loved it. However for the Tiger Zoo all divers from the LOB had to join on the same dive (24 divers + guides) and they did not really see any tiger sharks up close like we did, so found it very disappointing.

What I would do if I had 2,5 weeks was: do a LOB - central or south or a combination, then do 2-4 nights on Fuvahmula for the Tiger Zoo.

 

[Volleyball]

What I would do if I had 2,5 weeks was: do a LOB - central or south or a combination, then do 2-4 nights on Fuvahmula for the Tiger Zoo.

I was going to say something relating to this. If one wants to go the central route, it's easy to do pre/post-LOB trip to both the Addu atoll and Fuvahmulah. Each island/atoll has its own airport, and a 45-minute ferry between the two. Fly into one, dive a couple of days, take the afternoon ferry to the other, dive for a couple of days and fly back. Addu has the mantas that the guides can call over like dogs

 

[Lu Y]

I was going to say something relating to this. If one wants to go the central route, it's easy to do pre/post-LOB trip to both the Addu atoll and Fuvahmulah. Each island/atoll has its own airport, and a 45-minute ferry between the two. Fly into one, dive a couple of days, take the afternoon ferry to the other, dive for a couple of days and fly back. Addu has the mantas that the guides can call over like dogs

How do they call over mantas? I've only seen them calling sharks before

 

[Tippytoes12]

How do they call over mantas? I've only seen them calling sharks before

The mantas at addu are particularly curious and there are only two small dive shops on the island. They apparently recognise the guides, who have diver the area for years and years. It was an amazing experience.

 

[Dan]

I’ve done the Deep South with Carpe Vita, Central with Maldives Aggressor 2, Blue Horizon 3, Emperor Leo. Tried to go back to Deep South in March 2025 with Maldives Master, but the boat got plumbing problem so they replaced it with Safira for Central Maldives.

Fuvahmulah is good one to do if you want to be up close & personal with Tiger Shark (but it is not as closed as the ones in Tiger Beach, Bahamas, where you can touch & push away the pesky Tigers).

 

[Blackcrusader]

@Dan loved your video. I can say that at Tiger Zoo guides want divers to not manhandle the sharks.
That is unless your guides as mine did in May realized I have done anough shark diving and let me stay behind the divers on the wall. One reason for a few days we only have 4 - 6 divers so plenty of space then we had a Spanish group of 15 join for four days. Just too many divers.

Along Tiger wall as you can see sometimes the Tigers do come very close and need some interaction to get them to turn away. I got this lovelly 4.5m Tiger shark, She's well known probably the largest female at Fuv.

I did have to use one hand to guide her away but you sense that all the sharks there are used to being diverted by hands. Good thing no one feeds them by hand so they don't associate hands as being food.

This photo was taken at Tiger Zoo to the left side of the viewing area. Visibility was quite low as sometimes the sharks stir up so much sand. I saw this lass as a slight shadow got my camera ready and took this

 

[Dan]

@Dan loved your video. I can say that at Tiger Zoo guides want divers to not manhandle the sharks.
That is unless your guides as mine did in May realized I have done anough shark diving and let me stay behind the divers on the wall. One reason for a few days we only have 4 - 6 divers so plenty of space then we had a Spanish group of 15 join for four days. Just too many divers.

Along Tiger wall as you can see sometimes the Tigers do come very close and need some interaction to get them to turn away. I got this lovelly 4.5m Tiger shark, She's well known probably the largest female at Fuv.

I did have to use one hand to guide her away but you sense that all the sharks there are used to being diverted by hands. Good thing no one feeds them by hand so they don't associate hands as being food.

This photo was taken at Tiger Zoo to the left side of the viewing area. Visibility was quite low as sometimes the sharks stir up so much sand. I saw this lass as a slight shadow got my camera ready and took this


View attachment 916643

That’s as close as you can probably get to the shark in Tiger Zoo. When I was with Carpe Vita, they don’t let us get to the pit. We stayed in the blue (Tiger Wall).