Sunday 24th to Sunday 31st March 2019

I flew out of Heathrow for this trip with Etihad Airways, via Abu Dhabi, to Male. I booked the trip directly with Emperor Divers from their web site for 7 nights aboard the Emperor Atoll, one of their oldest and smallest (there is only room for 12 divers) dive boats. On our trip there were actualy only 11 people, 5 couples and me being the odd one out, which worked out great because I got a cabin to myself, which was a stroke of luck because the cabins were quite small and cosy.

A 12ltr tank and Nitrox is included in the price, but I needed a 15ltr tank for which they charged me an extra 83 EUR which I was not really happy about. In the Red Sea Emperor Divers charge 30 EUR but as every other operator in the Maldives charges a lot more for 15 ltr they follow suit instead of setting an example.

Anyway, rant over, all in all the trip was excellent, plenty of Whitetip, Grey Reef and Nurse Sharks, Mantas, Turtles, Octopus, Eagle Rays, Sting Ray, Moray Eels to name a few of the larger animals, with plenty of other wildlife associated with equatorial reefs; Trigger, Napoleon, Angel, Lion, Butterfly, Barracuda, Clownfish, Long Nose Hawkfish, etc.

Below are some of the images and videos from the trip. The majority of the dives were deep (30mtr) and often there was quite a strong current - a reef hook is essential equipment so that you can hang and take pictures of the sharks patrolling along the reef edges in front of you.