First Diving Days on Carpe Diem

Our first full day of diving in the Maldives started on Sunday morning with a 6AM a briefing in the main floor lounge area of the yacht. Munkko, the Diving Director for Carpe Diem, did the initial briefing with a detailed diagram of the site we would visit. The description of the underwater topography with depths, features and typical current conditions was covered. The type of marine life we might see was discussed with the caveat that is a variable outside of their control, so we hope for the best and take what we get.

We entered the water at our first dive site about 7AM from the dive dhoni (boat) that is fully equipped with an extensive array of top-notch dive equipment, including a Nitrox compressor. Karen and I both decided to breath a Nitrox O2 blend of 31 to 32%. I initially wore my 4/3 mm wetsuit on the first two dives but later decided to skip the wet suit in the 84ºF water and just go with a rash guard.

Karen used her wetsuit to keep warm. She doesn't have as much natural insulation as her husband.

I brought two different camera set-ups on this trip. My standard go to Olympus TG-4 with my Ikelite housing, bracket for two different light sources (one Sea & Sea electronic strobe, one Sealife Sea Dragon 5000 lumen flood light), all the miscellaneous articulating arms and NiCad batteries to power everything. This has been my underwater camera kit for years but I decided to add another set-up to my equipment. I purchased a DiveVolk underwater housing for my Apple iPhjone 13 after our last trip to Raja Ampat in Indonesia. Several in our group there had this new phone underwater case and just raved about it.

The first dive I did here was with the iPhone DiveVolk combination. This allowed me a few attempts to get acclimated with minimal equipment and the Indian Ocean's water salinity and get weighted properly. Once I got all the bugs worked out I started bringing a more complex camera set-up on almost every dive. The variety of marine life here is simply amazing. Our first dive we observed a school of feeding stingrays followed by a school of sharks. Before the dive ended I spotted a Great hammerhead shark cruising below me as I spent 3 minutes at 15 feet doing my safety stop.

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A Hammerhead shark spotted on our first dive site of the trip.

It only got better and better with each dive. A school of Manta rays were spotted on the second morning dive after breakfast. Nurse sharks resting on the bottom at the third dive site in the late afternoon. We gently approached them and rested on the bottom with them for a while. Only eleven more days of this beautiful underwater world!

We had a group photo taken with our Nurse shark friends resting on the bottom. From left to right is our group: John, Karen, Mathias and Bill.

Nurse sharks are generally not aggressive and are considered docile animals that pose little threat to humans unless provoked.

Our last dive of the first day end at 6:11 pM. And after three dives I look wiped out waiting to get picked up.

For six more days we traveled up the Maldives to our northern most destination in the Baa Atoll. Every day we dove three dives generally starting with a wake call at 6 AM and in the water by 7 AM. Following our first dive of the day we would have a full breakfast and wait about an hour and a half before doing dive number two. Lunch was served around noon followed by another break before our third dive of the day. After the third dive we would enjoy some snacks in the lounge, take a nap in our air conditioned room or up on the sun deck. Dinner was always at 7 PM.

The food on board was well prepared and plentiful. Fresh fruit and salad, different pasta dishes, a variety of meat (beef, chicken and fish), rolls and desserts. I found myself usually eating a big breakfast and tried to do a lighter lunch and dinner. Despite my intentions, I still ate more than I would have liked. Our cabin had a queen bed and plenty of room but the bed was placed against the bulkhead under the windows and made it difficult to get in and out of during the night to use the bathroom. We were able to exchange our cabin with the young, single gal from the Netherlands. She was one deck lower in a cabin with two single beds which we thought would work our bettter. She loved the idea of switching to the bigger bed.

Now more about the scuba diving. First and formost the Maldives are known as a great location for Manta ray and Whale shark activity. This is one of the reasons we chose to make the journey here and we weren't disappointed. We had multiple encounters with Mantas. In the open water we observed them feeding in a school. They would spin around each other creating a "Manta Cyclone" as they fed on the micro-organisms. We also got some great opportunities to view Mantas at "cleaning stations" periodically located on some of the pinnacle structures around the atolls. This where I got some amazing still images and videos of a Reef Manta circling the cleaning station. It got so close to me at one point I had to duck under the animal as it passed overhead.

This not an AI image, it really got that close to me. I was able to maintain my location at the cleaning station using a reef hook and tether. I had the best spot to watch the show. Notice all the small fish under the Manta doing the cleaning.

The Mantas were plentiful along with many other large pelagic species including Reef sharks, Eagle rays and other variety of rays, tuna and a large Wrasse known as the Humphead Wrasse or Napoleon wrasse. Males can grow up to 6.5 feet long and weigh up to 400 pounds while females are generally smaller, reaching up to 3 feet.

The Humphead Wrasse frequently approach scuba divers and have even earned nicknames like the "puppy dogs of the sea" due to their sociable demeanor.

In addition to the different fish life we also encountered a number of Green sea turtles feeding on the reef.

.The reefs in the Maldives appeared healthy. The quanitity and variety of reef fish life was impressive. Both soft and hard corals exist in these waters, including Indian Ocean sea fans, a colonial soft coral belonging to the order Gorgonacea, characterized by flexible, fan-like branching networks that grow perpendicular to prevailing currents to filter plankton. These reefs are home to multiple Anenomefish species. We found Lionfish, Triggerfish and many Scorpion fish the more dives we did exploring the reef structures.

Clark's Anemonefish also known as the yellowtail clownfish.

This clownfish, the Maldive anenomefish, is characterized by its rusty orange color with a single white stripe running vertically just behind the eye. It has black pelvic and anal fins (hence the common name) and a variable area on its belly can be more or less black.

This well disguised bottom dweller is the Breaded scorpionfish. Scorpionfish are among the most venomous fish in the ocean, delivering a moderate-to-severe and intensely painful envenomation through their sharp, spine-covered fins.

These are just a few images from the over 500 I have on my computer taken over the entire trip. My challenge is editing down selections from this large image data base. This first blog posting of the diving covers some of the earliest highlights. The trip got progressively better and better as the boat moved north.

There's more to come. We are thankful and blessed to be able to experience this beautiful underwater world designed by creator God! Now that the diving is over I have the time to write some future episodes. So stand by for more in the upcoming postings.