Trip Report Ocean Divine Liveaboard - Deep South Itinerary

[Ayisha]

Part 1:

We had an amazing time on the Maldives Deep South itinerary for 12 days onboard the Ocean Divine liveaboard just a few weeks ago. We arrived a day early and stayed at Hotel Paralian on Hulhumale (the Malé airport island), which we were happy with and it has a beautiful beach.

We saw everything we hoped to see, including manta, eagle, and sting rays; tiger, grey, silver tip, white tip, spinner, and nurse sharks; hawksbill and green sea turtles; green, golden, and moray spotted eels; octopi; dolphins; and all kinds of schools of other fish. There was quite a lot of small stuff as well, nudibranch, worms, etc.







Two whale sharks came to visit our boat at night, which had lights on, which attracted the plankton and bait balls, and in turn the whale sharks, nurse sharks, and dolphins. We happily jumped in with the second whale shark, and it was an awe-inspiring experience.

 

[Ayisha]

Part 2:

The coral was healthy in some areas with lots of pink, purple, red, green, yellow, etc. hard and soft corals. Lots of anemone and clownfish. In some areas where there was some coral bleaching, you could still see the structure of mounds and mounds of huge corals. What a shame, but still healthier than most and with lots of life.

The attraction off the south atolls, though, is the big stuff, and they tend to like the swift current, silty conditions and the sandy bottoms in and near the channels, so that's often where we went. We didn't have to swim against a mild to moderate current for long, and settled in a spot where we watched walls of sharks cruising by or mantas or sharks getting cleaned. Where we stopped to observe, the current was often very strong, and we had to use a reef hook, which they provided at no extra charge.



They say that the north atolls have more colourful and healthy coral, but they also have primarily smaller critters, rather than the big critters of the south. Some of the areas even in the south, though, were quite breathtaking.

 

[Ayisha]

Part 3:

We saw a tiger shark naturally on 2 dives, but we also did a dive with tiger sharks at Tiger Zoo off Fuvahmulah for $30 US. They placed a couple of tuna heads around and the tiger sharks came. I don't love the idea of baited dives, but it was fun.



They had an allotted time in another area with some fishermen to throw down tuna heads near us, but there were other groups of divers there as well that apparently weren't supposed to be. Spinner sharks came and chomped up those tuna heads once the little fish stopped pecking at them.



We observed so many manta ray and grey shark remora cleaning stations, and just watched as the scene changed minute by minute. All of the manta rays that we saw were reef mantas rather than Giant mantas, but they were plenty big, beautiful, and graceful.





We saw squadrons of up to 7 eagle rays at a time going different directions, complete with cute wayward babies performing u/w acrobatics.



Our dive guide was Ripon, who was excellent. He was personable, always with a big smile, and a keen eye for all the big stuff plus all the tiny stuff we surely would have missed. The 14 divers were split into 3 groups, and ours had 5 divers. He kept a watchful eye on those of our 5 that needed to be watched more closely, and, once he knew us, allowed more leeway for those more experienced and taking photos or videos.

One of our groups saw a hammerhead shark, but we didn't unfortunately.

The head honcho Marc Chicano and several of the crew were formerly of the Aggressor fleet, and knew the best spots to find the big critters and where the cleaning stations were. They usually said that we hoped to see certain critters at certain dive sites and sightings couldn’t be guaranteed, but much to our pleasant surprise, they never failed to deliver – and in spades.

The food was excellent and plentiful, with lots of fresh caught fish, seafood, steak, lamb, chicken, vegetarian, and freshly baked desserts and snacks. They accommodated a variety of allergies as well as preferences. The bartender came up with so many refreshing concoctions as we came up from our dives.

We did 3 dives a day, except 2 on the last day, with only one dive being a night dive. We did 32 dives total. We visited a few islands in our down time; had a fabulous beach BBQ complete with a beautiful sand whale shark, natural decorations, lighting, and kayaking; and a party one night that got everyone dancing and having a blast.

This itinerary is expensive, but since it was for 12 days and the dives were so incredible and so different from day to day, and we saw so much, it was so worth it.

The 12 day deep south itinerary normally costs $3600 US, but since we're friends of their friend, they gave us 10% off as their friends and family rate. So we paid $3240 US.

Alcohol or pop was an extra charge, but water, coffee, tea, and juice from a carton were included. The fresh squeezed mocktails that they provided the first day or after dives were included, as were the juices from a spigot at breakfast at least. If you ordered fresh juice, it was an extra charge.

There were 14 guests and 14 crew, including the general manager Marc and his partner Marilen. Several guests joined Marilen for yoga bright and early in the mornings before 6 AM. Marilen is the heart and soul of the operation, and is a fabulous diver and guide as well.

I took a lot more pictures and videos, and they're posted on fb. Hopefully they're visible:

Facebook

 

[apedai]

Nice report! which camera you use? the photo and video is amazing!

 

[Ayisha]

Nice report! which camera you use? the photo and video is amazing!

Thanks! I use an old (2016) Olympus TG-4 camera in an Olympus housing, plus my Sola 2000 dive light that's on my hand as a modeling light. No strobes.

I use the underwater macro setting, which gets the colours and light properly, but zoom it out to wide angle for any distance near or far. Just on u/w macro, it automatically zooms and you're too far to get good pictures. Better to be as close as possible. I just point and shoot, I don't use the manual settings.

The newer Olympus TG-6 takes even better photos and video. I don't think Olympus makes anything newer, but they're still available.

 

[apedai]

Thanks! I use an old (2016) Olympus TG-4 camera in an Olympus housing, plus my Sola 2000 dive light that's on my hand as a modeling light. No strobes.

I use the underwater macro setting, which gets the colours and light properly, but zoom it out to wide angle for any distance near or far. Just on u/w macro, it automatically zooms and you're too far to get good pictures. Better to be as close as possible. I just point and shoot, I don't use the manual settings.

The newer Olympus TG-6 takes even better photos and video. I don't think Olympus makes anything newer, but they're still available.

WOW! I think the TG4 or 6 is good enough, compare with my poor gopro 7

 

[also_anon_dc]

Thanks for the report! I've had my eye on a deep south itinerary but hadn't heard of this boat- were you in the lower deck cabin or one of the suites on the upper deck? How was it?

 

[Ayisha]

WOW! I think the TG4 or 6 is good enough, compare with my poor gopro 7

Thanks! The GoPro 7 seems to be really good for those that have filters and especially strobes. I saw some really clear footage by a couple of other passengers. One of them told me they got the tray and strobes really cheap from AliExpress.

 

[Ayisha]

Thanks for the report! I've had my eye on a deep south itinerary but hadn't heard of this boat- were you in the lower deck cabin or one of the suites on the upper deck? How was it?

Hi, the Ocean Divine was really divine. We were in the Dolphin cabin around midship, with portholes. Our cabin was bigger than many liveaboard cabins, and had 2 berths side by side, one double and one single. There was AC, a TV, a good amount of storage space, and a pretty large washroom with a shower.

Some new friends in a suite wanted to see what our cabin looked like, and we looked at theirs as well. The suite is absolutely huge, like family size. There are only 2 suites on the upper deck, and our main thought was that if they split each suite in half, each of them would still be a huge suite. Lovely though.

The 34m/112' ship was renovated a year or two ago, and it's beautifully done, with a lot of attention to detail, and Bali furnishings. There's lots of comfortable seating throughout the ship, clam shell beds, cushioned lawn chairs and couches outdoors, lots of covered spaces, wind screens that come up when it's windy or rainy, clothesline racks (with some spring-loaded clips - I brought 6 small ones of my own) to dry swimsuits, etc.

The large salon has a long, wide camera table spanning the width.
The portside and starboard side of the salon have long counters for electronics with pairs of outlets spread out along them, so each person could have 2 or 3 dedicated outlets. All of them were never used as far as I saw. There were plug adapters here and there.
They use 235 v and British Type G, 13 amp plugs. Since we use North American 110v, we brought a hi-low converter and type G adapters for the electronics that weren't rated to 235 v.

There's a large (16 m/52'), separate, comfortable, purpose-built dive dhoni named One Breath. You set up your gear behind your bench on the first day, and then just take off the first stage after each dive, and put it back on before your next dive. The dhoni has a compressor on board, and between dives, while you're back on the liveaboard enjoying a snack or meal, they fill each tank with a long fill whip.
They have 2 large wetsuit rinse buckets and 2 rows of high wetsuit hangers on the dhonni, and they stay there overnight. The wetsuits dry quickly there.
There are 2 handheld warm showers at the stern of the dhonni.

They also trail a dhingy in case of emergency or for beach transportation.

The whole operation is very smartly designed with a good use of ample space.

When we booked over a year ago, we chose this liveaboard mainly because it seemed to be the only one at the time that had a deep south itinerary. The small amount of liveaboards that went south mostly had a little taste of the mid-south and went back to Male, whereas this liveaboard went for 12 days in one direction all the way from Male way down south stopping along the atolls to Fuvahmulah and Addu, where they dropped us at the Addu (GAN) airport the last day. From there, we took a 1.5 hour flight back to Male (Velana or VIA) airport onboard the Maldivian Aero. When we were on the trip a few weeks ago, there were only a few boats at the very deep south atolls, but they said that is more than even a year ago, and it looks like more liveaboards are heading that way, so there are more choices today, as well as new airports being built.

Here are some videos of the hallway and our cabin, as well as the sun deck.





I have a lot more photos and videos in my fb album:

Maldives 2023 Album

 

[also_anon_dc]

When we booked over a year ago, we chose this liveaboard mainly because it seemed to be the only one at the time that had a deep south itinerary. The small amount of liveaboards that went south mostly had a little taste of the mid-south and went back to Male, whereas this liveaboard went for 12 days in one direction all the way from Male way down south stopping along the atolls to Fuvahmulah and Addu, where they dropped us at the Addu (GAN) airport the last day.

Thanks so much for the info! I'll definitely keep this liveaboard in mind when I'm ready to book!