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Maldives Travel Notes
December 18-28, 2022
About the Trip
On about Dec 15, 2022, after telling our family that it was "too expensive" to fly home to the USA for Christmas, we decided that we'd do a side trip from our marina in Malaysia to dive in the Maldives.
In just a couple of days, we found and booked a Liveaboard Dive Boat with a "last minute" deal, organized bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur airport, airplane tickets on Air Asia, and a hotel for one night in Male.
Emperer Explorer Dive Boat Booking Site Alternate
Where are the Maldives?
The Maldives is an archipelagic state in South Asia, situated in the Indian Ocean. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about 750 kilometres (470 miles; 400 nautical miles) from the Asian continent's mainland. The chain of 26 atolls stretches across the equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south.
The Maldives comprises a territory spanning roughly 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 sq mi) including the sea. But the land area of all the islands comprises only 298 square kilometres (115 sq mi).
Maldives is one of the world's most geographically dispersed sovereign states and the smallest Asian country as well as one of the smallest Muslim-majority countries by land area and, with around 557,751 inhabitants, the 2nd least populous country in Asia. Male (pronounced mal-ay) is the capital and the most populated city, traditionally called the "King's Island" where the ancient royal dynasties ruled for its central location. More on Wikipedia
It was a 4 1/2 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malasia (about $500 r/t per person on Air Asia), including checked bags, seat selection, and a meal.
Diving Season: Maldives historical "season" is December through March. November and April are OK, but weather starts getting squally in May and June it's not that great. (SW monsoon season). However, the dive boats DO run year round, so it is theoretically diveable all year, just on the other side of the islands/atolls. The "winter" season is most popular because the Maldives primary clientele is from Europe, and Europeans want to get out of Europe in northern winter.
Local Customs: The Maldives is a very traditional Muslim country. You cannot buy liquor or pork products, except in tourist facilities, not even a beer. Visitors should wear conservative clothing except at tourist resorts. For women that means no shorts, no tank tops, no bikinis at local beaches (its OK at the resorts). You should be ready to respect the local dress code, or plan your visit to somewhere else.
Time Zone: Maldives is +5 UTC, so 7am Maldives time is 9pm USA East Coast, 6pm USA West Coast, 2am in London, and 10am in Malaysia.
Money: Most tourist oriented things quote in USD, Euros, and Maldivian Rufiyaa. You can pay for most stuff in USD. But we didn't have any USD with us, and opted to get local currency, as you don't get so much "round up" error.
There were 2 ATM's in the airport. I had no trouble getting money out with my US debit card. Current (2023) xchange rate is around 15 MVR per USD.
We had no problem using our US Visa-backed credit cards in places that accepted credit cards.
Cell Sims & Internet: Normally when visiting a new country, we get 2-3 sims at the airport. (one for each of us and one for our mifi hotspot... because for us, communications between us, and internet access is key). Our dive boat has wifi, but charges I think $25 USD for only 5GB (this would likely be enough if you don't go wild uploading stuff, for a 10 day stay).
Arriving at 9pm, the only cell phone sims we saw for sale were Ooredoo. Big signs everywhere saying they were the best sims for tourists, though it wasn't the one recommended when I'd been doing research online ahead of time. Because of the expense, and our short visit, we bought ONE Ooredoo sim for $35 for 17GB good for 30 days (same price as the one I'd researched). Pretty steep cost, compared to the norm in SE Asia!
There was a line at the counter of people waiting to have the sim card put in and activated. We were tired and I was impatient, so I just took the sim and activated it myself. It seemed to work ok the morning we were walking around Hulhumale. But later, there was a problem with our reception (Hot Spot from my cell to my laptop worked, but most things on my cell did not (only Whatsapp worked), nothing Google-oriented worked. I contacted Customer Support via the Ooredoo chat, and they had me clear the "proxy" settings in the APN settings, and everything started working on my cell phone. Another diver mentioned they were having problems too, but didn't know how to get to the APN settings on their mifi device.
We had decent reception in the central Maldives (North and South Male, and North and South Ari), except at Felidhe Atoll (just south of South Male Atoll). We had really weak connection at the very north end, and then nothing as we moved further south.
Where we stayed ashore: Because of worries about airplane delays, we opted to fly in the day before the trip started and spend one night in a hotel. Normally we would pick a cheap-as place, as we save our money for "adventures" not cushy resorts, but decided we were on a vacation, and I ended up getting a pretty nice spot a block in from the beach, with free breakfast and free wifi. I thought the nightly cost was $75 USD, but by the time they added all the taxes and fees (shown clearly in the fine print on Booking.com) it was $100 USD! When we gasped on check-in, the guy offered us a free ride back to the airport the next day in compensation (a ~$10 value).
It was a nice room, nice breakfast, in a nice location. But no elevator, and we were on the 3rd floor. But the nice guys in the lobby carried our (heavy) luggage both up and down the stairs.
Dreams Grand Hotel, available on Agoda, Booking, TripAdvisor, but try a direct booking! (could save you money). Viber or WhatsApp +960791611 or call 3356533 reservations@dreamsgrand.com On FB too at https://www.facebook.com/DreamsGrandMV/
The Emperor Explorer Dive Boat: This is a really nice dive boat-new in 2019. It is well kept and well run. The Emperor is essentially a floating hotel, and is accompanied by a 24-person dive boat, everywhere we go.
All the dive gear is set up on the dive boat on Day 1, and tanks are filled with Nitrox in place (no changing your BC from one tank to another). We had 4 dive guides split across 19 divers. So 5-6 people per guide. After the first dive, they tried to pair us up with like divers (accounting for language, diving experience and air consumption, etc).
We thought the crew, from the guy who made our beds (while we were diving) to the Dive Director, and including all the boat crews and captains from the big boat and the dive boat, were fantastic. Our only complaint in the whole 10 days was they kept the main salon too cold at 24C (but lots of space outside to lounge on 3 different decks).
The Divers: We had a good group, encompassing divers from the UK, Germany, and Belgium, Singapore, and of course, us from the USA (via Malaysia).
Exploring Male
On our last day, we had 12 hours in Male, and went to the National Museum (not worth it at $10 USD pp) and walked around town. We finally figured out how the bus system works and took a few very inexpensive air conditioned bus rides around town, sightseeing. Details in the trip recap PDF below.
Resources
A full day-by-day recap of our diving is here (pdf file):
Soggy Paws Maldives Dive Trip Recap (free PDF)
For yachties, we kept track of the track for the big boat and when we were on the dive boat using our hand-held GPS, and marked the "going in" and "getting out" spot for each dive. These have been translated to OpenCPN gpx files, and can be downloaded here:
Maldives Diving Tracks and Waypoints (free ZIP, gpx)
The tracks are named and colored differently so you can tell which is the big boat and which is the dive boat.
I can't guarantee that all the places the big boat anchored would be good anchorages for a 40-50 ft cruising boat (especially monohulls, some were pretty rolly). But it gives you an idea. The big boat had a draft of 3.5 meters. The dive boat was probably 1.5 meters.
More waypoints and additional Satellite Charts of the Maldives for cruisers can be found on Terry's Topics. Download the Word document from that page and search for Maldives.
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Our liveaboard had a bunch of coffee table dive books, including a couple on the Maldives. Between dives, I photo copied the Dive Maldives book, 3rd Ed (2006) and pulled it together into a PDF file. The book is nicely done. My copy is a little rough, but since the book isn't available for sale that I could find, worth a download. Dive Maldives 3rd Ed (2006) by Tim Godfrey 150Mb PDF I found a used older paper version of this book for sale on Amazon (1998 version).
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Cruising Guides for Sailors: For cruiser's services and comments by cruisers regarding their trip to the Maldives, while cruising within the Maldives, and departing from the Maldives to another cruising destination, see the Indian Ocean Compendium and the Red Sea Compendium on this page (again, free PDFs, no gimmicks).
http://svsoggypaws.com/files/hidden.htm
I am continuing to update these guides as we prepare for our 2024 trip from SE Asia to the Mediteranean via the Red Sea.
Photos
A nice selection of photos from
our trip can be seen on Facebook, courtesy of our dive buddy from Belgium,
Paul Devriendt. This is a
Best of Maldives
FB Group for our trip, public to view by anyone.