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Scuba Diving In The Maldives

I have always loved the water and have lots of experience snorkeling and diving, but never got my open water certification. One of the things my husband and I have always talked about doing together was learning how to scuba dive. For all our years living in Kenya, we never were able to find the 3  days required to do this. Thankfully, our plans changed when we decided to head to the Maldives for our honeymoon!

Karis and Andreas all suited up for a dive

Getting certified & Maafushi Island

We chose to do the PADI online course and then stayed at a very reasonably priced hotel (~$80/night) on Maafushi Island, the Kaani Grand Seaview. The island itself is not private and, because of the Muslim culture, it is respectful to cover up and not walk around wearing a bikini. The locals created ‘Bikini Beach’ just for the foreigners who visit and go for a swim and tan in the sand. The beach is conveniently located behind a thick hedge, and our hotel overlooked the beach as well.

The view from our hotel overlooking Bikini Beach

There is also no alcohol allowed in Maafushi. When you arrive at Male airport they will often check that you have not brought any alcohol in your luggage. There is, however, a floating bar which can be reached by boat from Maafushi. Although we never went there, it seemed quite popular. There were lights and disco dancing going on far into the night!

A panoramic view from Maafushi Island – you can see the disco boat on the horizon on the left

We arrived from the States, which meant that the jetlag was pretty severe. Thankfully, we took our first day off and just relaxed, walked around the island (a 20 minute walk will take you all the way around), and swam in the ocean.

The diving course

We went to a local dive shop, Maafushi Dive Center, for our diving course, and highly recommend the experience! We started by learning all about our equipment from our instructor. He drilled us on how to put our tanks and gear together and to take it apart.

Andreas trying on his gear at the dive shop (he didn’t think he was getting his picture taken)

Afterwards, we went to the opposite side of the island, put on our gear, and headed into the water. We went 2-3 meters below the surface and basically stayed there for 2 hours. We learned about hand signals, how to take our masks and tanks off and put them on again underwater, how to equalize pressure, and many other things.

The Learning Dives

In the afternoon, we went out to sea for our first official dive. It was probably the most incredible and memorable dive, not only because it was our first, but because we saw turtles, sharks, and so many manta rays!

The next day, we went on two dives, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. On our first dive, we saw more sharks. In a few cases we were within just a couple meters of them. Our teacher told us to stay close to the coral when we saw them so that we didn’t frighten them away.

Waiting to go on a dive – the OK symbol was probably the one we used the most!

We also saw the Kuda Giri ship wreck, which was located around 40m. It was definitely an eerie sight, but there were also a lot of divers checking it out. It felt fairly safe to swim around it and explore. At this point, we weren’t allowed to go that deep, but we were close enough!

On the second dive we were able to get up close to a sea turtle. There were also some groupers, lionfish, and hundreds of varieties of other small fish. We wished we had remembered to bring our waterproof casing for our camera, but honestly it was a great experience just to be diving and observing the waterlife around us. Not to have the distraction of feeling like we needed to be taking photos all the time made our dives more relaxing.

Absolutely stunning sunsets in the Maldives!

Finding The Little Things & Learning About Dive Computers

Our instructor gave us an appreciation for finding the tiny things, like nudis, rather than focusing on the larger, seemingly more exciting creatures. This was a great bonus! There’s a certain satisfaction in finding such small fish amidst all of the beautiful colors of the coral.

At the end of our dive, we were pretty tired and my mask had been a bit too tight the past day so I felt bruised. Although it was exciting to dive and see more of the life below the surface, we were happy to have some time to relax afterwards.

One of the best things you can do to relax in the Maldives is enjoy some sundowners on the beach and watch the sunset!

The most exciting part of the last day was that we got to use dive computers. The dive computers tell you how deep you are diving. They will also beep if you ascend too quickly, among other things. Thankfully, they were fairly simple to operate and read. Our online course had made them seem pretty complicated, but we think with technology advancing, diving is probably getting easier and simpler.

Costs

The online course can be done at anytime before you do the physical part of the PADI instruction. It was surprisingly expensive to buy the app and register for the course ($185), but it was nice to have flexibility in finishing in our own time.

The cost of the dive portion was $375. This included the first session offshore, four dives, a guide, the boat fee, certification fee, the use of all of their equipment, and taxes. If you want to do the theory part of the course at the dive school it costs $475 for everything. You will also need an extra day or two for taking the classes and exams, and completing all of the dives.

The guard parrot at the dive shop

Dive Challenge: Let’s See More Places!

Overall, we would say that this course was definitely worth our time and opens up a world of exploration as we travel around the world. There are so many places we can already think of where we would like to dive, and so many other creatures we would love to dive with, including whale sharks!

Do you have your diving certification? What is your favorite thing to swim with or see underwater? Where is your favorite diving spot in the world?