From: rob@dbn.lia.net (Rob Fisher)
Date: 1997/01/21
Hi again Anja
>I found the divemasters (who are all instructors) very good, talanted, >nice and friendly, but sometimes the general attitude from the dive >center administration was a little too greedy (sp?),
We were lucky enough to get Tom as our DM (Swedish I think he was) for most of our dives and he was great.... some of the others we had the misfortune to have were unfriendly and the one in particular was an absolute cowboy.... with little regard for safety.
>As for the food, I found it OK, but other people complained a lot about >"dry fish tasting like dirty socks" and things like that.
Sheezzzz the food was BARF! Compared to the wonderful spread one get at LaGalawa in the Commores the food at Kuredu was second rate.
>new in a few days. The fact that we were on an isolated island showed >now and then when the restaurants ran out of one thing or another: >potatoes, salad, ham, ice cream <sob!>...
The first thing I did when I got back to South Africa was eat a kilo of bacon!
>In all, I had a great time, and I would consider going there again, but >there are still some things I would have done differently.
The diving was excellent and that alone was worth every minute!
From: rob@dbn.lia.net (Rob Fisher)
Date: 1997/01/21
Hi Anja
>It seems like I've missed the beginning of this discussion, since I >returned from Kuredu myself just a few days ago, so I'm not sure what >opinions have been expressed here already. If someone has posted a trip >report, I would be very interested in reading it, too.
Here it comes.... repost...
Kuredu, Maldives - Jan 97
The SAA flight to Male in an A300 Airbus was not great. No in flight movies... any duty free and normal kak food. When we flew to the Commores with Air Emirates last year the flight was great, the service was great, the food was good and we had movies to watch on our personal screens. SAA has a LOT to learn.
Having been warned about the 5-hour nightmare boat trip from Male to Kuredu Island we booked a flight on a seaplane. What a good idea that turned out to be.... The poor suckers who went by boat were moaning like stuffed pigs when they eventually arrived.
If you are doing a trip to the Maldives be prepared to hurry up and wait! The delays once arriving at Male was enough to drive me crazy... we shot through customs with a dash of speed and that was the one part we thought would be a problem.... Once out of the airport we were driven a short distance to the sea plane jetty.... For some unknown reason we waited over 3 hours with seaplanes taking off and landing all the time before we were summonsed to fly. The flight was about 45 minutes and we touched down gently on the clear blue water with amazing visibility and walked down the jetty to a welcome of drums, clapping and glass of orange juice.
The Maldives certainly matches up to one's idea of a tropical island of crystal clear water, white sands and coconut palms. The islands are breath taking.
The PADI dive center at Kuredu is the biggest in South East Asia but they could do with an attitude adjustment. Their attitude is almost that Kuredu is such a wonderful dive spot that even if they give you indifferent service you will come back anyway. Again comparing it to the Commores where after every dive there was coffee served and log books filled in and fish identified and so on... with ProDivers Kuredu you just got off the boat and that was it! Fill in your log book and take it to the DM for signature and you get told that once you have finished all your diving for the week you go to the dive center between 18:00 and 19:00 and they will then stamp and sign the log books. At the end of our diving for the week I went to the dive center at 17:40 to get the stamps and signatures and despite the fact that they were doing absolutely nothing behind the counter they had the cheek to tell me to come back in 20 minutes! BIG mistake! They did the necessary after a few words.
You are on your own from a safety point of view as well at Kuredo, not once did any of the DM's check our air nor were they very particular at making sure everyone on the dive was comfortable. It was a bit disconcerting to think that newbie Open Water Ones are diving to 30m's with such a poor level of DM'ing.
The diving was marvelous! The water the coral the fish! All totally amazing! Fan corals of 8 foot wide! The reefs are in excellent condition and the Maldivian Government banned the export of coral and shells to protect the reefs and it seems to be working.
What you are not prepared for is the CURRENTS! You may think because you have dived at Aliwal Shoal that you know currents.... Not so... there are some really strong currents in the Maldives and 2 of our dives were not great because we simply could not see much at that speed! The walls were a new experience for us and one has to be careful with your depths, as it is very easy to just go deeper and deeper. It is illegal to dive deeper than 30m in the Maldives. Most of our dives max'ed out at around 27m. The best dives for us were the comfortable 18m no current dives when we could explore every nook and cranny of the reef and their inhabitants. More fish than you have ever seen in one place.
Trigger, parrot, clown, wrasses, soldiers, box's, squirrel, unicorns, groupers, butterfly, puffers, rock cods, snappers, sweetlips, morays, octopus, turtles, rays, grey sharks, reef tip sharks and God knows how many others that I have no idea what they are.... And of course let's not forget the highlight of the Manta Rays! We also saw a huge Sailfish chasing some small fish from the boat on the way back from one of our dives. Oh yes also the spinner dolphins!
We also did some snorkel trips, which were also excellent! The Kuredu House reef is not that good and it's far to swim for the snorkeler so all the best diving and snorkeling were via 30 to 60 minute boat rides.
We dived the "shipyard" which is a dive with 2 wrecks very close to one another. Unfortunalty it was one of those dives with a strong current so we were only able to see the one wreck, as we had to hang close to the wreck on the one side out of the current. If you put your head round the side of the wreck that was the end of your mask! The wreck is also full of things that bite, prick, stab and sting... fire coral, stone fish, scorpion fish and rusty things.
All in all a great dive experience! Would I go back to the Maldives? Well maybe one day once we have done the Seychelles (next on the trip list), Bazaruto, Red Sea and the Commores again. I would try another island next time.
The object of our trip was to relax, chill out and dive our brains out.... All objectives were met 100%
Oh yes before I forget... if you don't eat fish then take lots of food with you! You get fish, fish, fish, fish, chicken and fish to eat.
From: Damon Grigg <dgrigg@h640.dunton.ford.com>
Date: 1997/01/20
Spent 2 weeks in the Maldives in August 96, diving was excellent lots of quiet, unspoilt reefs with lots to see: sharks, morays, mantas, eagle-rays, dolphins napoleans plus huge variety of smaller sealife. Water temp was 25degC + vis > 30m. Would love to go back! Apparently whale sharks and mantas are more common during sept to may time.
From: XTQD91A@prodigy.com (Daniel
Kessler)
Your report set my mouth to watering. I've had 3 trips to the Maldives,
2 at Bandos in the Male-North/South Atoll and one out to Ari Atoll. Would
go back in a 'flash'! I guess that Kuredu is the 'hot' place. Is it North
or South of the Male-North/South Atoll. As to the helicopter trip I took
out to Ari...same problem with the flight, waiting, waiting, waiting at
the Airport. I returned by launch on the return leg out!
I can strongly reccomend Kuredu. The diving is supposed to be the best in the Maldives. Shark, eaglerays, stingrays, napoleonfish and barracudas are seen on every single dive, together with the rest of the spectacular marine life on the reef. If you're lucky (as we were) there will be mantas and dolphins as well. We even encontered a whale once - though not during diving, but when we were on the outskirts of the atoll on a daytrip by boat.
The divecenter en the island is ProDivers, a five-star PADI IDC-center. The center provide you with all equipment needed. If you bring your own equipment from home, (except tanks and weights), the price for two weeks of no limit diving including boattrips will be about $800,-.
The staff and guides are professional, and speak English, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish.
You ought to know that the currents at the Maldives can be pretty rough. The Maldives is located in the middle of the Indian ocean, in the center of the big ocean-currents. The atolles on the Maldives actually are coral-reeves on top of underwater mountains that stretches from 3000-4000 meters of depth. When all this water from the big ocean-currents suddenly hit shallow water and try to squeeze through channels only 70-80 meters deep, the result is strong currents.
This however, does not have to be a problem. First off all, drift-diving is really fun when you know how to controle it, and can be some of the most spectacular diving you can do. Second - not all of the dive-sites around Kuredu have the same rate of current. Some of them are almost without any current at all. Also the house-reef at Kuredu is supposed to be pretty good, and is current-free. I've never dived the house-reef though, so I can not tell by experience.
However, the best dive-sites around Kuredu, are the ones where the current is strong. The reason is simple: Strong current squeezes large amounts of oxygen-rich and noutrisious water through the channels, which results in a overwhelming marine life. Diving here is no problem at all for the experienced diver, but if you are new, I would reccomend you to take a driftdiving-course before you throw yourself into the strongest currents.
Such a course you can of course take at Kuredu, if there are no suitable currents around where you live.
>The PADI dive center at Kuredu is the biggest in South East Asia but they >could do with an attitude adjustment. Their attitude is almost that Kuredu is >such a wonderful dive spot that even if they give you indifferent service you >will come back anyway.
I just returned from Kuredu ten days ago from today, and I gotta tell you I really disagree with your oppinion about ProDivers. In my opinion, the service and the guiding was excellent.
>Again comparing it to the Commores where after every >dive there was coffee served and log books filled in and fish identified and >so on... with ProDivers Kuredu you just got off the boat and that was it!
We didn't get coffee, but we got fresh-cut coconuts and chilled coconut-milk. Exactly what you need after 60-70 minutes of bottom-time! After each dive the group gathered in the beachbar to have a coke/beer, do the logging and talk about the dives. Our Norwegian guide Vidar Heggelund joined us whenever he had the time, wich where more often than not. Besides, every diver knows how to make a log, and I cannot in my best will see that the it's the divemasters/instructors job to guide one through log-making! Anyway, in the diveshop on the island they sell all kinds of inexpencive slates, showing the marine life of the Maldives to help you with your guiding.
>You are on your own from a safety point of view as well at Kuredo, not once >did any of the DM's check our air nor were they very particular at making sure >everyone on the dive was comfortable.
You are on your own from a safety point of view wherever you're diving! When you're diving, be it Kuredu or anyplace else in the world, you are responsible for your buddy and yourself. When either of you run out of air, you both surface and get picked up by the boatcrew. The rest of the group continues to dive until they're out of air or the bottomtime-limit of 60 minutes is reached. If you believe it's the divemasters job to check the air of every single individual in a group of 12-15 divers, you really do not know what you're talking about. This is not trainingdive tthree and four in a Open Water course. Please.
, >It was a bit disconcerting to think that >newbie Open Water Ones are diving to 30m's with such a poor level of DM'ing.
An Open Water diver are only sertified to dive to max 18 meters. It is his own responsibility to make sure you don't violate the limits. The few ones in my own group who did not have AOW or higher, did not get to join the rest of us doing deeper diving before they finished the advanced-training. > >The diving was marvelous! The water the coral the fish! All totally amazing! >Fan corals of 8 foot wide! The reefs are in excellent condition and the >Maldivian Government banned the export of coral and shells to protect the >reefs and it seems to be working.
The diving was fantastic, you're right about that. After 24 dives all around Kuredu, I'll recommend (for exprerienced divers) Fushi Waru tila and Fushi Waru outreef. Those were the places where we encountered big shark. The tila is a spectacular dive-site. The current is strong on incoming, so you drop in blue water with empty BCD and descend straight down to about ten meters. Then you drift inwards until you see the edge of the tila, on 28-29 meters. Swim straight down, grab on to a potato-coral (the only corals you're allowed to touch) and put your face towards the current.
After a few minutes you'll see numbers of quite big greysharks, whitetip reefsharks and leopardsharks. The biggest greyshark we saw was about 10 feet, and got as close as 15-20 feet. It is absolutely amazing to lie there on the bottom, clutching a potato-coral in current so strong that the regulator is shaking in your mouth - and then you look up at the 10 feet shark, just gliding lazily and totally effordlessly past you.
When your computer reaches the no dec limit, you just let go and drift upwards on the tila. Every now and then you grab onto a potato-coral and checks out whats going on underneat a big coral-house, or maybe pet a murene under the chin. Then you let go again and just let the current sweep you along the bottom, "flying" over beatiful tablecorals. When you reaches 55 minutes of bottom-time you "surf" into the channel and the bottomless blue water, do the safety-stop in open water, just lying there on your back drifting on, or stealing the guides fins, shutting down your buddys air or filling his mask...
And, what never failed to amaze me: The boatcrew. It was full moon the first days we where there, and the currents hit us strong. Still, after bottomtimes of 60, sometimes 70 minutes, when i poked upwards during the safety stop in open water, the boat was right over my head. It is absolutely amazing how the crew manage to navigate in the currents, and how they know exactly where the divers are at all times.
Kuredu is some of the best diving I've ever done. I can strongly reccomend every aspect of it.
From: jbecky@vnet.ibm.com
Date: 1997/01/31
For the poster asking about diving in the Maldives, here's a web site to get you in the mood:
http://popweb.com/maldive/ Fish-watching in the Maldives
I just returned from 10 days diving there, based on the MV Manthiri. Bottom line: excellent diving, exceptional crew, good food, OK boat, horrendously long trip (I guess if it was easy, everyone would do it...). When I get caught up at work, I'll compose & post a trip report.
I have collected these articles from usenet postings, if the author doesn't want them here, please let me know.