Maldives - Diving Aboard the Sea Spirit

Back from my week aboard the Sea Spirit. What a fantastic week! It was practically perfection. The food was outstanding - our Sri Lankan cook was phenomenal. The diving offered all kinds of life that I hadn't seen before, and there was so much life! I definitely had 2 of my favourite dives ever. One of them consisted of going down as fast as possible (to avoid being swept away by the current), using a hook to attach yourself to the reef, and spending the rest of the dive watching the manta rays go by. There were about 30 of them and they kept circling and gliding by us. Their size, grace, and unique appearance are incredible. Some of them came close enough to touch. It was really an inspirational experience.

The other dive which astounded and amazed me was the night dive. My dive buddy decided not to do the dive so I got buddied up with Nick, one of the guides. We descended to about 15 feet and quickly spotted a couple white tip sharks. Then we saw an octopus and a pufferfish. Next came a couple giant morays out hunting. One of them caught a fish and went to hide to eat his dinner. More white tips were appearing... I looked at my dive computer - 8 minutes into the dive... I knew this was going to be a good one! The dive continued to have to many creatures that I didn't know which one to look at! The white tips were constantly around, but weren't particularly good at hunting as the only contact I saw them make with anything was when one of them swam right into a hard coral. When we descended even deeper, we found a few huge loggerhead turtles sleeping under overhangs. One of the highlights of the dive was when Nick found a baby octopus. It was the smallest one I have ever seen - about the size of a ping pong ball!

The only less than perfect part of the week? My dive buddy... or should I say non-buddy. He was also my roommate. If they're looking for a new star for another Grumpy Old Men movie, this guy is the man for the part. He complained constantly and was negative about everything! "Brussel sprouts?" "No, they're green - might be healthy." "Going night diving?" "No, what do I want to hang off a 5 metre rope at the back of the boat for?" (where he got the idea that this was the dive plan, I have no idea... but did he ever miss out!) This guy has been diving for 25 years and is a BSAC instructor. Interestingly, about 35 minutes into our first dive he signalled that he was low on air and was going up so I buddied up with another buddy pair. For the rest of the week, whenever I wanted to know where he was (he paid no attention to me), I looked up... and there he'd be... 10 or 15 feet above me, hovering vertical in the water. Then at some point he would just disappear... only once did he bother to tell me he was going up. I was careful to make sure that I always had a visual on at least one pair of divers so I could join up with them after I was abandoned. It was sort of comical really. For the most part anyway... there was one dive where he totally pi$$ed me off. He motioned me come over to see something. As I was approaching the hole in the rocks that he was pointing to, he pushed me towards it! I had to put my hand out so I didn't crash into the rocks. Of course I ended up putting my hand on a sea urchin! These little guys are so small that the spikes are really teeny are very hard to remove. The other annoying bit was that there was a white tip poised perfectly for a photo in the hole in the rocks and as I came crashing in, the shark turned around. Grrr...

Overall, it was the best diving trip I have been on. It was far to hot to catch any sun - you couldn't even walk on the deck in barefeet, you had to run. So we all spent a lot of time chatting and reading. It was very relaxing. On the last day we took a trip into the town of Male. We visited the local fish market (phewwy!) and the local fruit and veg market. After that we walked around a bit, but had to duck into shops every couple minutes as the heat (plus humidity) was unbearable. Then we went for ice cream. After a goodbye meal back on the boat, I was the first to leave to catch my flight. It was weird to take a boat right to the airport... especially as I was fully dressed with bags in tow on the boat that we had used all week to dive from. It's too bad the Maldives are so far from Canada... I would love to go again...