Deep Blue Scuba celebrates the festive season with amazing dives in Maldives, reports Kelly Ng
If you were planning to get away from the crazy parties for a relaxing tropical Christmas, you are in for a huge disappointment. Those with a love for challenge will find themselves slapped with many folds of craziness, unleashed within a confined 38-meters dive boat.
22 eager divers were warmly greeted at Male Maldives onto the lushly furnished 10-cabin MV Southern Cross, all looking forward to checking out the clear blue waters in South Male and South Ari Atoll. They were surely treated to 17 amazing dives over the course of six days.
Male has an array of diverse dive sites that promise to please a group of divers with different profiles. And it certainly did on this trip. The coral lovers indulged in a leisurely swim in the Coral Garden where the abundance of coral fishes, eels, and anemones simply took one’s breath away. The pelagic hunters were rewarded with an intense experience of being surrounded by a school of mature white-tip, black-tip and reef sharks.
The divers were unanimous when it came to the highlight of the trip. It had to be snorkeling with the whale shark – for majority of the group – for the first time! The boat paced up and down the channel anxiously for two full days as the dive masters kept watch for the faint shadow of a whale shark. Just as the group grew restless, a four-meter medium sized whale shark decided it was time to strut its stuff. Most of the divers never thought they would jump (without hesitation!) from the bow of the boat three meters down into the sea!
There was no snow or mistletoe but the divers were not shortchanged of a cheery Christmas. Far from that, many would not want to spend it any way and any where else! Imagine being swept off to a private island, savouring grilled meats over a grand long table lined with rose petals and tea candles, and basking under the moon light with the fire glowing in the background… That was Christmas in Male.
Diving with Deep Blue Scuba is never complete unless you have found yourself suffering from stomach and facial cramp – generally more than once hourly – after laughing your head off at a thirty-second spontaneous stand-up comedy by one of the Deep Blue crew. At other times, the group kept themselves busy and entertained by taking hundreds of photographs (sometimes after smearing half a bar of bright red lip stick onto one another), learning synchronized dance moves to 80s music, filming the Asian adaptation of R.E.C. the movie, or sneaking a huge bunch of banana into someone’s cabin. The Maldives experience was enhanced by the excellent company of hyperactive, easily-tickled and over-the-top crazy divers; certainly not a trip for the faint-hearted.
