RESTING ON THE SAND, I FIXATED ON THE CLEANING STATION that rose like a mediaeval castle above my horizon line. Soon my gaze was distracted by movements in the corner of my eye. A plantation of spaghetti eels were waving about as if trying to catch my attention, like eager schoolkids in class.
Glancing down, I saw what looked like a baby ray, hardly bigger than a coin. Almost immediately a shadow seemed to pass across the sand - though that might have been my imagination - and an altogether bigger and darker ray rose majestically from behind the outcrop. The giant manta hovered briefly, like a piece of hardware from Independence Day, then flapped gently away in the direction from which we had come.
Up on the cleaning station the wrasse had just lost their biggest customer, though lionfish and triggerfish still seemed eager for grooming. At the tail-end of the south-east monsoon season, the mantas would soon be chasing the currents to catch their plankton elsewhere on the atoll, but if we were going to see them anywhere now, it was here at Sun Light Thila.
Back on the dhoni, towels, fruit and water were waiting. The care and attention shown us on the diveboat was an extension of that lavished back at the Four Seasons Resort on Kuda Huraa, a small island in the marine protected area to the south-east of North Male Atoll. This hideaway has a PADI Gold Palm Resort classification, and there aren't too many of those.

SWEEPING THE SAND
Theme parks around the world offer candy-coated visions of real-life environments - Mediaeval Kingdom, Merrie England, Wild West World and so on. They leave grown-ups with a peculiar feeling of sanitised unreality. After five days on Kuda Huraa, and presumably other upmarket resorts like it in the Maldives, you feel much the same.
There's nothing gritty about a holiday here. The island consists of luxury bungalows, some perched over the sea, some over their own pools. You have your own tropical fishpond, DVD and 24-hour room service. Non-diving couples rarely emerge at all.
The Maldives are 99 per cent water, and 7 per cent of its 1200 coral islands are given over to such resorts, some more though most less luxurious than this.
The only sounds are of the breeze in the palms and staff sweeping unsightly bumps out of the sand. The food, conjured up by a laughing chef who will one day have his own TV series, is superb. The island is regularly sprayed by unseen hands in the night to ensure that not so much as a mosquito will upset you. This is truly Desert Island World.
Only one jarring note disturbs the idyll, an uncomfortable reminder that we can't paper over all the cracks in nature. The hard corals that once flourished here have gone the way of so many in the Indian Ocean - warmed-up waters have left piles of rubble where once there were glorious colourful structures.
For a while, those who lived by selling diving in these parts were in denial. Today the evidence is impossible to ignore. The planet's eco-structure has been dealt a blow from which it will take a long time to recover.

WORKING OUT
That said, we see no reason to remove the Maldives from our highly recommended holiday destination list. It's accessible, the fish life is magnificent, soft coral and sponge gardens remain and, according to marine conservationists, there are glimmers of recovery and regeneration among those damaged shallow-water corals..
The most spectacular diving is on the outermost atolls, so to get the very best out of the Maldives you need to go cruising (see Diver, April 1999). But liveaboard life isn't for everyone, and if your idea of a break includes the sort of pampering you rarely get when diving Dorset, choose somewhere like Kuda Huraa.
The house reef here is a short boat-ride away, which is a drawback for snorkellers, but some 35 dive-sites are within reach.
The Aquarium, or Lohifushi Corner, was my own favourite, involving a gentle drift at around 20m along the edge of a gently sloping reef. In up-to-30m visibility we would approach the whitetip reef sharks patrolling lower down the slope before they moved disdainfully away.

NUTRIENT-RICH CURRENTS
The reef fish are familiar enough but somehow give the impression of being bigger than in many other parts of the world. If the corals no longer provide enough nourishment for the parrotfish, for instance, they must be taking supplements and working out. The groupers and moray eels appear to attend the same gym.
The climax of the dive is a coral-rock outcrop on the corner of the reef, highly coloured by the life swirling around it: anthias and fairy basslets, snappers and fusiliers. Fat oriental sweetlips were being groomed by blue-streak cleaner wrasse, clownfish posed among their host anemones and two leaf-fish in contrasting shades of green rested together like a pair of butterfly wings. A gang of batfish eyed proceedings from above.
Other sites such as Thaburudhoo offered faster drifts over encouraging signs of coral and sponge life, with good-sized Napoleon wrasse and powderblue surgeonfish, clown triggerfish and groupers, sting rays and hawksbill turtles in attendance. A night dive on the house reef revealed spiny lobsters and red crabs, morays, scorpionfish and lionfish.
The Maldives are all about nutrient-rich currents which attract the marine life, so be prepared for that sort of diving.
On one occasion we enjoyed a medium drift down a V-shaped channel, watching the usual teeming reef life flash by below and finning back every now and then to peer into crevices before being swept on.
Approaching the end of the channel, we found that the German couple who had pushed on ahead had encountered a more vigorous current and were clinging to the reef, their bodies extended like banners in the slipstream. My buddy and I found temporary handholds before moving down into the shelter of the reef-end.

OLYMPIC STANDARD
Our Japanese guide, her small body defying the current, painstakingly unrolled her delayed SMB, only for the end of the line, which was not attached to a reel, to be plucked from her hand.
We ascended and did our safety stops without much difficulty once away from the reef, but at the surface it was clear that our dhoni, only a hundred metres or so away, could not see us in the troughs of the swell.
There was no panic - my buddy erected his own safety sausage and all was well. The lesson is clear, however - in places like the Maldives, always carry your own SMB, or a flag. You might be cossetted and protected on your fantasy island, but the currents that make the marine life so spectacular can't be tamed.
As our boat pulled away from Kuda Huraa, resort staff gathered on the jetty, smiling and waving goodbye.
The sun was setting in a magnificent copper and gold display and soon pods of dolphins were leaping joyously in our wake, alternating with Olympic-standard flying fish. All we needed were a few bluebirds and an orchestra.

Manta rays move around the Maldives atolls with the seasons

the jetty at Kuda Huraa


group of divers with the water bungalows in the background


'Perfect' sunset


setting out on a training dive on the house reef


an area of hard coral damage


Moorish idols in formation

GETTING THERE Flights via Colombo with SriLankan Airlines, or via Dubai with Singapore, Emirates etc. Charter flights Britannia, Caledonian. Most well-known dive tour operators organise packages to the Maldives. DIVING DETAILS:Four Seasons Resort, Kuda Huraa (00 960 444 888, www.fourseasons.com) is one of more than 80 resort islands. Its dive centre has two dhonis and nitrox and offers PADI and IANTD training. ACCOMMODATION:See above. MONEY: Rufiya, but use US dollars, credit cards. FOR NON-DIVERS: Watersports, sunshine. BEST TIME TO GO: Dry season (iruvai) Dec-Mar; south-west monsoon (hulhangu) May-Nov (water cooler, pelagics move to east of atolls). Calmest weather and clearest water as seasons change mid-April and late November. 25-30°C. WATER TEMPERATURE:28°C. DIVING SUITABLE FOR: Everyone. COST:We flew with Sri Lankan Airlines £680, but charter flights start from around half that price. Four Seasons five-night package for two from £1050, extra nights from £155. Includes transfers, breakfast, four boat dives per person. Additional 10-tank dives £330 per head.

PROS: The Maldives are a relatively accessible destination, offering year-round diving. Abundant fish life. Relaxing environment.

CONS: Not high on the list for hard coral enthusiasts. The more exclusive resorts can be expensive. Abundant life means strong currents.