A week of Sea Life at The Maverick

Laamu is a special atoll in the Maldives for wild life and The Maverick is in a great location within Laamu to experience the best sea life in the Atoll.

There are only 5 channels into Laamu atoll, as most of the atoll is surrounded by ‘flats’ of shallow turquoise blue waters. Big fish only have these 5 channels to get into the Atoll, the Maverick sits on Mundoo channel and 500m from Mabaidoo channel, so we see much more  great marine life than you would in most places in the Maldives. Manta rays, turtles, eagle rays, dolphins, sharks and so much more can be seen from the shore, boat or snorkeling. Our Mundoo channel gives us some of the best drift diving and snorkeling in the Maldives, and of course our wave Sarongs or Bedhuge in Dhivehi, one of the best right handers in the Maldives. The current in the channel brings crystal clear waters.

Our island Mundoo has a fabulous house reef with a 25m drop from our turquoise sea to the deeper blue waters, meadows of sea grass and lots of table top coral.

As we’re so lucky to have all this nature, I thought I’d record what we saw in a week and try and take some photos and videos and share them. The list below only involved an hour or so a day of activity (so still plenty of time to enjoy the beach and to relax) and would cost about $200 as both diving and the use of a boat have a small charge. Most of the sea life below could be seen from a canoe, snorkeling or from the beach though and are completely free.

So here’s the weeks sights!

Monday: Snorkelled before breakfast on the house reef and in 30 minutes saw what we are christening ‘the big 3’ shark, turtle and rays.

At sunset we went to find some dolphins on our dive dhoni whilst enjoying a glass of wine and we saw a ‘super pod’ of over 100 dolphins. They spent 20 minutes swimming around the boat, under the boat and playing in the wake. My daughters got some great video.

A good start to the week!

Tuesday: We went snorkeling at 2 of the pinnacle reefs in the centre of Laamu Atoll. The reefs are a relaxing 20 minutes boat ride away and, as there is very little boat traffic in Laamu and no islands in the centre, it’s calm, tranquil and unspoiled inside the atoll.

The pinnacle reefs are great snorkeling spots for anyone who’s nervous of the ocean as the table top coral is only 8 feet below you, the visibility is perfect and there are hundreds of fishes in the colorful coral. Apart from myriad reef fish we saw a couple of turtles meandering around the coral.

Wednesday: We went drift diving in the Maabaidhoo channel, a 5 minute dhoni ride away from the Maverick, which is also the home of the famous Machines left and right waves. This experience has been described by my friend Paul, who’s dived hundreds of times all over the world as his favourite diving experience.

To begin with we were tied to the rocks at the enterance of the channel and the current torpedoed all the marine life at us. GT’s, groupas , reef sharks and dog tooth tuna amongst so many others hurtled past on the current as we did our best to dodge them!

At the end we were released from the rock and shot down the channel on the current to the dive dhoni which was waiting to pick us up. The experience was so good that it made me think it shouldn’t only be available to divers, so I discussed whether we can create ‘drift snorkeling’ with our Dive Master, Hassan. He says it’s not only possible but isn’t as crazy as I thought it may be, so watch this space, we’ll trial Drift Snorkelling soon!

Thursday: At 7.30 this morning my son and I saw some dolphins from the shore and took canoes out to see if they would play with us. The mornings are very quiet, no sound of boat engines before the 8.30 inter island ferry, no call to prayer at that time, just the sounds of the ocean, and we got within 20m of the pod!

We were 200m out from the hotel, we stopped paddling and although they didn’t come any closer, we were so close and it was so tranquil that all we could here was faint dolphin chatter and the whoosh sound of their breathing. A truly great start to the day!

Friday: I spent half an hour snorkelling above the sea grass. These sea grass meadows are the favourite feeding place of the turtles. There were a couple of turtles grazing and they were so busy eating that I managed to get within a few feet of them. The sea grass absorbs 35 times as much co2 as the Amazon, so is an essential part of the ecosystem, but also has completely different fish than those seen around the coral. The reef fish that feed on the coral are all brightly colored but the fish that live in the sea grass are all various shades of green which provides perfect camouflage.

Saturday: As it’s Saturday night we were on the way to our floating bar for a few cocktails. Although the bar is only 100m from the shore, we were joined by a few spinner dolphins on the way. As they love to surf the wake from the dinghy we created a few waves for them to play in. In the video you can see Orla, who we named after my daughter, (another big show off), spinning and jumping out of the water for us.

Sunday: A little hung over I had to write this blog, so no snorkelling etc today! There’s often fish splashing and dolphins swimming to see from the restaurant or walking on the beach though.

I learnt a little about blogging during the week and realise that I need to invest in a better camera (rather than using an oldish iPhone) and a Go Pro etc to take underwater shots, as everything that I tried to photo was a bit rubbish, so expect better content in the future, but there are some great images on our website and social media to look at.

Although I’m not expecting a huge audience (but secretly hoping for one!) if anyone has any ideas that they would like me to write about please let me know and I’ll see what I can do. In the future I’ll try and write weekly about not only sea life, but island life, the staff at the hotel, food, fishing, history etc.

Thanks.