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> travel > travel features > maldives special | appeared in DIVER May 2004 | ||||||||
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Intro | Liveaboards | Coral | Wrecks | Currents |
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I COLLAPSED EXHAUSTED ONTO THE BENCH ON THE BOAT, and looked up at Barbara. "Aren't we meant to go with the drift, not against it?" She could see that I was frustrated and started to explain: "This isn't drift-diving, it's Maldivian current diving..." I had just completed my first dive in one of the fast-flowing channels that surround the Faafu Atoll, close to the resort island of Filitheyo. It was the first afternoon of a four-day trip. I had expected some fairly sedate holiday diving, and this was indeed available, but "Maldivian current diving" was bothering me. Filitheyo, like most of the resort islands in the Maldives, takes no more than 20 minutes to walk round. The beaches are picture-perfect, the bungalows have stunning views, the whisper of the palm leaves is mesmerising and the sunset from the pool is straight from a postcard. But even paradise has its limitations, so most of the one-to-two-week residents soon venture into the water. My first underwater foray reinforced everything I had heard about the Maldives since El Niño bleached its reefs in 1998. M&M Reef was a small, circular rock reaching from wave-breaking depth to about 20m. From the surface it looked like any other small patch of exquisite blueness, but under water it failed to deliver the promises of colourful corals and marine life made on the boat by the dive guides. On the ride back I spoke to some of the other divers. "It was a bit disappointing," declared Dave from England, "I saw more fish when I was snorkelling on the house reef." A German couple shared their thoughts: "It was nice, but not as exciting as what we saw yesterday off the beach. There must have been 10 small reef sharks hunting down small rays." Over the four days I snorkelled on the house reef, a sloping wall dropping to 30m-plus, and Dave was right - I saw more marine life than on any of the undemanding boat dives inside the atoll. Shore-diving was popular, and it was easy to see why. Barbara, the dive centre manager, promised me a more interesting excursion that afternoon. I would experience the power that lay beyond the edge of the atoll. Seven Stingrays was named after seven large thilas lining the atoll side of the wall that looked out into the open ocean. The plan was to drop on the top of the wall at 28m and watch shoals of large fish and sharks feeding off the nutrients brought from the depths by the currents. We would then try to move along the top of the wall before finishing the dive. I could see from the swirls at the surface that the current was strong, but it was only as we neared the reef-top that I saw how fast we were moving. Barbara indicated that I should grab anything solid. That's when the full force of the current hit me. With camera in one hand and the other holding onto the reef, I waited for the signal to drift. I guessed we had overshot, but then Barbara signalled for us to go against the flow. I watched to see how she intended to do this, the current being far too strong to fin against. Barbara grasped a piece of reef and pulled herself hand over hand, keeping her body as close to the bottom as possible. With only one hand free I tried to emulate her but felt as if I was going three steps forwards and two back. After a few minutes we reached the lip of the channel. We hung on and watched streams of fusiliers, bulky Napoleon wrasse and several whitetip reef sharks. This stunning view wasn't without a price. I couldn't remember the last time I had needed to fin so hard and I had only about five minutes' worth of air at this depth left. The current felt twice as strong as on our descent. I could feel it pull against my mask and regulator, and the hard corals around me shuddered like signposts in a gale. As Barbara looked into the blue I saw her exhaust bubbles streaming from her regulator at a 45¡ angle. After five minutes I signalled to surface. My breathing rate was not yet normal and a headache was coming on. The current continued to play games as we surfaced, the 20m upwards zone resembling a gentle roller-coaster. Back on the boat my frustration set in, which was when Barbara explained that in Maldivian current diving you needed to pull yourself against the current, hang on, watch and then pull yourself along to another point." I wasn't sure. This practice went against my training and seemed to contradict usual advice on not touching coral reefs. Mark, a British diving instructor, commented after the dive: "I didn't enjoy it as the current was very strong. I saw another diver lose his grip and go tumbling across the reef, destroying several corals in his wake. This isn't diving for the inexperienced, and even then it could be very confusing. At 15m it felt like a tumble-dryer. My bubbles were going down and I was going up." One British couple were nowhere to be seen and the lost diver procedure had to be implemented. Fortunately, after 20 minutes a call was received from another boat - they had been picked up almost a mile from the dive site. They had missed the target and landed on a piece of uninspiring reef. After several minutes waving around in the current they had aborted the dive. "When we reached the surface we could see the boat moving away from us - or the current moving us away. We were picked up by a boat going to meet the seaplane. They seemed quite surprised to see us!" The arriving guests weren't the only ones to get a shock. The couple put a brave face on their experience, but it was clear that they were both stunned. I wasn't convinced about Maldivian current diving. It appeared to me to be an open door leading to the incident pit. The next day we took a 90-minute boat ride to Kuda Falhu, or Manta Point - I had been told that this two-tank all-day venture was a must-do. It's also a popular trip, so worth putting your name down on arrival to avoid disappointment. The dive was in one of the channels on the western side of the atoll, where the current streams out into the open ocean. On one side was a thila in 19m, an underwater cleaning station where the giant mantas visit the resident cleanerfish. As with any dive involving a channel we started with a drift. All we had to do was find 19m and follow the slope to the thila. We sought the seabed's natural handholds, but this time waited and watched. After several minutes of day-dreaming I saw a manta ray emerge from the green of what was fairly murky water. Nothing can adequately describe the way a manta hovers, glides, loops upwards and soars across the seabed. This one was no exception, and for five minutes it danced above the thila before taking its exit by flying right over our heads - magnificent. We were treated to two more visitors before heading back to the boat for lunch. The afternoon dive involved an hour of watching the same rock being buffeted by the current - no mantas but, hey, that's nature. Next day I asked Dave to join me as part of his PADI Advanced Open Water course. He needed to dive in a current, and apparently South Little Channel would be just what he needed to qualify. His instructor, Jack, described the current as "medium to medium-strong". Nothing to worry about, then? As it turned out, the start of this dive was almost perfect, with incredible visibility and, in mid-channel, a large thila that rose from 50m to 30m, providing a target in the fast current. As we shot over it, I glimpsed the large barracuda and reef sharks that spearheaded the angular, ocean-facing side of the rock. As we were only five minutes into the dive, and as the section beyond a certain point was, according to Jack, "completely rubbish", we fought to get back to the wall at the edge of the channel. It was time for more Maldivian current diving! For about 50m we pulled ourselves hand over hand across the reef. Dave struggled and I found movement with a camera in my hand hard work. Eventually we gave up. A French family with their 13-year-old daughter came up after us. They had not bothered to battle the current and seemed happy to enter the "completely rubbish" zone. Later, Dave held his head in his hands. "Scary - I'd rather be back at the office!" he said. "That was normal. You've passed," Jack told him. Next morning Jack promised me a dive that would be "strong to very strong" at Fishpan. It was time to forget the camera and protect my increasingly frayed fingers. The gloves were on. I could see from the swirling whirlpools and upcurrents that Jack hadn't overestimated the current. The briefing was very precise. I would buddy with Jack and the others would follow in a team of two and three. Maldivian diving rules do not allow depths beyond 30m or decompression dives, so we would need to follow the plan carefully. We dropped into open blue water to drift onto the channel's lip. From there we would secure a vantage point to watch the bluewater activity. Jack and I levelled out at 28m and allowed the current to take us, though I had no reference point to know how fast we were travelling. Below us the team of three had dropped below 35m. Jack couldn't catch their attention and was clearly concerned. After a few minutes I saw the outline of the wall that led up to the surface on my right. Now I knew how fast we were going. Jack indicated that we should veer towards the wall. There was the lip, covered in green hard corals waving like possessed trees in a cyclone. The edge of the lip was flying by below us, so we descended to secure ourselves. This was an underwater version of gliding and parachuting, except that we had to avoid missing another drop-off. I picked my spot and positioned myself so that I faced the current, as I knew it would whip me round otherwise. Three metres, two metres, one metre, touchdown - I reached out for the nearest piece of rock that looked like a handhold. Both hands secured, I looked out into the darkness. I could see only a couple of sharks in the distance. But what took my breath away was the sheer power of what I was resisting. The current was actually rumbling. I could hear it hit the lip, and every minute or so it would gust like a gale on a mountaintop. I could just see Jack in the corner of my eye, but couldn't turn towards him, as the force of the water would have ripped my mask off. The regulator was having difficulty preventing globs of water entering through the exhaust ports. After five minutes, we decided to move along the lip. This called for the sort of planning and manoeuvring Tom Cruise needed on the top of the train in Mission Impossible. I picked my spot and launched myself at it with a push of my arms and fierce fin-kicking at an angle to the current. After a few more such manoeuvres, coupled with some pulling on the reef to get back to the lip, I started to see the sense in this form of extreme diving. Had we gone with the current, the dive would have been over by now. So we continued until it was time to find a plateau at 17m. We flew with the current and veered off to one side by using our limbs as rudders. After about a minute we saw a sandy dip in the reef and headed into it. There we enjoyed a breather for a minute or so, and Jack indicated that if we pulled ourselves along this gully while keeping our heads down and out of the maelstrom, we would make the plateau. After a minute or so of gentle finning we found it. Here there was more to see, though as it was shallower the gusts seemed fiercer. Directly ahead, an anemone was waving around like a shaggy haircut in a tumble-drier gone mad. Shoals of fish sped by, either having trouble keeping up with the flow or happy to let it take them. Then came the jewel in the crown - an eagle ray shot directly over us. It was time to go up. The team of three had become separated. Two had gone to 39m and missed deco stops. One of the other team arrived at the surface with 0 bar and the other had gone to 37m, past the safe depth for his nitrox mix. Jack was not impressed. They were all given "official" recorded warnings and were unable to dive for 24 hours. He monitored them carefully on the way back for any adverse physiological signs. I looked into the swirls of the current and at last saw the sense in Maldivian current diving. By using the current, then fighting against it, you could use it to your advantage. But was this last dive typical? Jack later told me that it was "very extreme." This was the time of year when the strongest currents occurred, and the full moon was making them even more powerful. Jack added with a grin: "Dave would have found it more than scary - he really would have preferred a day at the office!" |
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 The island of Filitheyo, like so many in the Maldives, provides the ideal get-away-from-it-all environment.  Grey reef sharks  Hang on, wait and see what comes along - note the angle of the exhaled bubbles  Manta rays often give fantastic displays when foundat cleaning stations.  Maldivian Napoleon wrasse can grow up to 2m long
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