The first half of February brought me back to the Maldives on Blue Force One.  The trip brought us from Male in the northern part of the Maldives, all the way down to Addu, the southernmost atoll over the course of 11 days.  So many atolls visited, a total of 26 dives for me.

We saw many lots of marine life, with an emphasis on big animals like manta rays and sharks.  While there were several popular dive sites in the central part of the atolls, featuring large schools of fish, a wreck, as we moved south, there were more channel dives, going deep to watch the animals swimming in the channels between islands.

During the channel dives, there was usually current of varying strengths, so using a reef hook was necessary to hook onto the reef to watch the animals deep below.  Due to the depth, the dive time was usually limited, keeping the noncompression limits in mind.

We did several dives on manta ray cleaning stations, watching as these majestic rays slowly swim around, allowing smaller fish to come up to the manta rays allowing them to feast on dead skin and parasites on the rays.  One particularly memorable dive on the next to last day of diving was when the manta ray slowly swam over Gabriel, the dive guide, and he then used his regulator to free flow and release a bubble stream underneath the ray.  The ray stayed there for what seemed like several minutes, although in truth it was probably only about 2 minutes.

It was also thrilling on the shark feeding dives.  The first of these was outside of the Kudhdhoo fish factory on the Hoovadu atoll.  Swimming in shark infested waters is an understatement, there were easily a couple dozen sharks of different types, silvertip, grey reef, spinner just to name a few.  These sharks were in a feeding frenzy, so not getting too close was important.  We also did two dives at a tiger shark feeding station.  These sharks are considered one of the most dangerous sharks around, and some of them can be quite large.  We had one shark that had very round belly, either pregnant, or just it is well fed.  There was one encounter where a shark came within a couple of feet of the divers watching the feeding.

We also did a couple of dives on coal gardens.  With coral threatened in many places in the world, I found it very heartening to see large healthy coral gardens.  I was many healthy corals that had to have been hundreds of years old, as evidenced by the large size of these corals.  A staghorn coral that was maybe 15 feet across.  A table coral that was maybe 9 feet in diameter.  A large growth of elegant pachyseris coral.  These and many more.

On Blue Force One, we ate quite well.  The chef could cook omelets for those who wanted them, different pastries every day (they were all very good), potatoes, tuna salad, and many other good foods.  Lunch and dinner usually included a selection of salads, rice, pasta, chicken or beef, fish, vegetables, fruits and so much more.  It was too easy to load up the plate with a lot of food.  But since we were diving frequently, at least for myself, I did not put on any pounds.

I would recommend this trip to any diver.  Seasick Productions runs very fun and enjoyable trips!