Diving Republic of Maldives

Exploring the richest underwater world

By Andrea Davoust

Paradise on earth exists. Not exactly on Earth’s surface, mind you, more like several dozen feet below it. To be precise, paradise lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 700km from the coast of Sri Lanka, in the shallow lagoons of the Maldives archipelago. As an island country, fragmented into 1,200 islets, huddled in 26 atolls, the Maldives is an outstanding diving destination.

It is in its transparent, warm waters, that the marine world was revealed to me. “Revelation” is no understatement here. The first day I scuba dived, I swam into an enchanted and hitherto unsuspected universe of iridescent colors, fantastical shapes and unhurried movements.

Now don’t get me wrong. The bit of Maldives that does emerge from the ocean is idyllic – a modest bit really, since ninety percent of the country’s official surface is covered with water and the largest island doesn’t exceed eight square kilometers. In fact, the islets are so postcard-perfect that a description summons every cliché in the book about Robinson Crusoe-style islands: palm trees leaning over fine white sand, turquoise water, gentle waves, tropical heat, fragrant hibiscuses, azure skies.

Then on the 80 or so islands which have been turned into exclusive resorts, foreign guests can sip cocktails under a parasol all day long – a hedonistic treat forbidden to Maldivians, who are Muslims. Since I was not lucky enough to be on a luxury honeymoon, I was stuck working in Malé, the capital island.

It is a compact, polluted concrete jungle of just a few square kilometers, onto which 100,000 people – and possibly an equivalent number of scooters – are crammed, without an inch of palm-fringed beach. Mercifully, other expats quickly pointed me towards the one available escape: scuba diving.

Initially, I was a little worried about getting claustrophobic underwater and strapped into all the gear, so my friends first took me on a snorkeling trip. We rented a dhoni, the traditional wooden fishing boat of the Maldives, and sailed to a spot an hour away from Malé. I slipped into the deliciously warm sea and, floating on my belly, gazed at the depths through a mask.

The visibility was stupendous: I could see shimmering shoals of fish perhaps ten meters below, above undulating sea anemones, eels poking their reptilian heads from holes in the reef, all this in a greenish space of muted sounds. When a turtle glided past, close enough for me to distinguish its scaly face, I knew I had to learn to dive.

And so learn I did. With a funny back-to-school feeling, I sat through hours of “open water” instruction. I became familiar with the tanks and regulators, figured out how to use the dive tables (which tell you how much surface time is required after so many minutes at certain depths), memorized the symptoms of nitrogen narcosis, choked through my first underwater exercises, and finally got PADI-certified.

My first real outing was at a reef called Bolifushi. One by one, harnessed to our clunky equipment, we dropped over the side of the boat, then went under all together. We slowly sank away from the twinkling surface, towards the sandy bottom. Once we had exchanged the necessary safety hand signals, the instructors led the way.

As I followed everyone’s paddling flippers and streams of bubbles, I felt like I was in a science-fiction story. We were explorers, adventurers of a new world, prospecting a totally alien environment, enclosed in our precious survival spheres.

We reached a wreck, at a depth of 25 meters, and my awe intensified. The other divers swam over and around it, like curious insects swarming around an unknown carcass. The wrecked ship lay on its side, and though the structure was recognizable, it had been transformed by its years underwater: fish crossed its portholes and spindly algae grew from the deck.

Over my next dives, I grew so confident that I almost never had to worry about the technical aspects and just focused on enjoying my new playground, the lagoons of the Indian Ocean. I learned to recognize the numerous species of fish: the red and white lionfish, with its antennae-like crests, the big-foreheaded napoleon, then my favourite, the blue surgeon fish, with a round, black-trimmed body the size of a plate and yellow fins.

While no other location can beat the teeming wildlife of the Maldives, I now have the ability to experience other countries around the world differently: underwater.