Maldives dive-sites

Maldives

The Maldives and getting there (from the UK)

The Maldives are home to outstanding underwater life and amazing coral reefs and are considered one of the worlds top diving locations. The Maldives are made up of 1192 islands. These islands are arranged in 17 Atolls, which stretch like stings of pearls lying 300miles Southwest of the tip of India. Only 200 of these islands are inhabited by the locals and about 74 are tourists' islands. The government has adopted as serration policy, I'd guess this is to try and avoid the Sunni Muslim locals being "corrupted" by western visitors. On the tourists islands you won't find any locals other than the local staff. The exception is Malé, the capital of the Maldives were 62,000 of the 260,000 Maldavians are packed onto 3sq Km's. The Maldivian Government has been quick to recognise the risks that tourism brings and that they risk ruining the ambience and environment that bring the tourist to the Maldives in the first place. They strictly control development and considering it must be a very hard balance to achieve, I think they got it pretty much right. If considering a holiday in the Maldives, your first dilemma is which one! They are all beautiful and nearly all have either their own dive centre or an arrangement with a nearby island. The tourist islands vary considerably in both the ambience and their facilities. The Maldivian motto is "no news, no shoes". Which reflects the remoteness and the 'get-away-from it all' feel of the islands and that many islands bars and restaurants have sand floors! In selecting an island for your hard-earned holiday, be careful to pick one that will meet your expectations above water as well as below. Typically, each resort island consists of one hotel facility. All are 4-5Star set-ups but the size of the resorts and hotel & their rooms vary considerably. Modern western hotel with all of modern life's comforts with air-con, telephone, mini-bar, hot water, trouser press etc to typically Maldavian thatched roofed huts with outdoor cold shower and a ceiling fan to keep you cool. Read the holiday brochure carefully.
Getting there Located in the Indian Ocean, it's a 12hour flight from London Gatwick! The standard route is teatime departure from Gatwick, via Bahrain to Malé. Monarch also run a Manchester-Gatwick-Bahrain-Malé route as well. The first leg to Bahrain is about 7.5 hours. Then a one-hour pit-stop in Bahrain terminal and then another 4.5 hours to Malé. It's a long trip. On Air2000 you can upgrade for 200UKP return to their executive class. For this you get free drinks, more comfortable seats, personal video players but most importantly, that extra leg-room. I didn't consider it worth the money so didn't bother. Girlfriend did try to be sneaky and ask customer relations which seats were over the escape routes and have extra legroom. We arrived 5 hours before the flight and these seats were already taken! We had a bit of a result on the return journey though. We were first in checkin queue and manged to be put in the row right behind the exectutive class. These seats had extra leg room but it also meant that when they pulled the divdiving curtains back we couldn't see the TV monitors, so we also got the personal video players for the flight. The bane of every holiday divers life is the air baggage allowance! Most airlines only offer the standard 20kg in the hold plus 5kg hard-luggage. That's not much for a two-week holiday when the girlfriend is packing every lotion and potion stocked in Boots the Chemist. I travelled with Air2000 and was pleasantly surprised. I'd picked up on UKRS newsgroup that they offered divers an additional 10kg each. This isn't mentioned in the brochures so a phone-call to Air2000 customer services confirmed this. All we had to do was produce or diving cert cards at check-in and the extra 10kg was ours. I was sceptical, as I've heard other divers being told one thing verbally and being stung by some dizzy check-in clerk. A second call to customer services confirmed the first story and stated that no advance written proof was needed. They even asked if we wanted to bring cylinders, as there were special check-in procedures for those. Did cast an eye at my 3l pony but a glare from the girlfriend knocked that on the head. They were as good as their word and our combined 70Kgs were on the plane. I've come not to expect much from airline food but the meal on the second leg of the journey was pretty poor, just a roll, and my only (small) compliant with Air2000. Overall I'd recommend them for a long-haul flight.

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