There are plenty of fish in the sea. Some of them are overlooked, some admired briefly, some make you want to play peekaboo with them for hours. And then – there are manta rays.

The joy of diving or snorkelling with mantas is incredible and we’re extremely happy every time we can share our excitement with guests by taking them to sites where manta rays frequently go to feed or have their bodies spotlessly cleaned, be it Fushivaru Thila or Dhanifaru or other sites where plankton blooms. Their feeding habits resemble a coral reef ballet, one of those awe-inspiring sights that everyone wishes for. You must have heard about the manta ray madness in the Maldives – don’t miss it out!

As of day, we’ve identified roundabout 230 individuals in the Lhaviyani Atoll. If you would like to find out more about the one that you saw, post a photo of its belly to our Facebook wall and with a little bit of help from Jon Hancock, the PD Manta expert, we’ll tell you more about it!

We’ll look into first 5 submitted photos and try to find a match. If it’s not in our database yet – congratulations, you’ve found a Manta that hasn’t been seen before and you’ll get to name it!

This week we were lucky enough to receive a visit from Guy Stevens. Guy has been working out here in the Maldives as a marine biologist for the last 7 years conducting manta research and is head of the Maldivian Manta Ray Project, of which Prodivers is a part. His work focuses on researching the life cycle and habitat usage of the Maldivian manta population, while also working with the government, resorts, local communities and guests to create greater awareness and understanding of these graceful rays.

The reason for Guy’s visit was to update us on the research and data collected in the Lhaviyani atoll, and Maldives in general over the last year.

He was able to tell us how we now have nearly 250 individuals identified in our atoll, mostly jouveniles and sub-adults, and a nearly 70% resighting rate (suggesting we are now beginning to see the extent of our local manta population). He also stressed the importance of us continuing to gather data, and take photos of these wonderful giants for identification.

He left us all highly enthused, and we now can’t wait to get back out there and carry on helping with this important research.

We’ve been very fortunate to have numerous sightings over the last weeks and we’re hoping that a great manta ray season is ahead. Join our Manta Ray Specialty Course for more information and latest news!

It’s THE time of the year again! We’ve been very fortunate to have numerous manta ray sightings over the past few weeks, so it seems like the manta madness around Kuredu is kicking off.

The joy of diving or snorkelling with mantas is ineffable and we’re extremely happy every time we can share our excitement with guests by taking them to sites where manta rays frequently go to feed or have their bodies spotlessly cleaned.

Fushivaru Thila, one of the two marine protected areas in the Lhaviyani Atoll, serves as a cleaning station at which these gentle giants let cleaner wrasses remove small parasites from their skin and gill cavities. We’ve been taking divers to Fushivaru repeatedly, and with the right currents, saw one of those awe-inspiring sights that everyone wishes for.

Since feeding occurs near or at the surface where plankton accumulates, snorkelling is often the best way to get really close to the mantas. They have inquisitively approached us on several occasions, with the highlight being about 20 of these noble creatures a week ago at Dhanifaru.

Our Manta Search diving boats are up and running, and the Manta Ray Specialty Course has again proven to be very popular with snorkellers. We’ve been doing our sums and we have seen approximately 100 mantas around Lhaviyani in September and October, an average of about 3 each time.

We must say, not bad for a season kickoff at all!

Imagine a squadron of eagle rays streaming past,  a couple of majestic mantas lingering around for half an hour and you diving with a scooter amongst them.  Oh,  and a whaleshark.

As evidenced by the photo,  one can have amazing encounters around Vakarufalhi.  This one took place at Digura Corner and there seems to be something about scooters that attracts big fish,  as our divers have been having similar experiences quite frequently.  Whalesharks remain surprisingly calm and don’t seem to be bothered by the excited divers at all.

What is even more awesome is that Marco,  one of the divers,  filmed the enviable encounter.  Not the worst idea for a souvenir from the Maldives!

After recently hearing stories from the team at Komandoo about Manta Rays at Fushivaru Thila, yesterday we decided to load up a boat and go to see for ourselves, and we were not disappointed…

On the boat trip down we spotted several Mantas’ feeding in Kuda Kandu so everybody grabbed their snorkels and slid in to have a look, after 10 minutes of watching these majestic creatures from the surface, everyone was keeping everything crossed we would be lucky enough to see them underwater as well. As we dropped in above the cleaning station we saw our first Manta loom out of the blue and from then on there was a near constant stream for the rest of our hours dive. We managed to spot one pregnant female and several males with some big (4m) boys amongst them. The cameras were going crazy, the Manta were showing us their best poses and our 60 minute dive time was up way too fast, one manta even accompanied us on our safety stop at 5m. Both pictures you can see here were taken by one of our divers, Bjørn Smidt-Olsen.

It was a magical experience and all our divers and staff alike surfaced with massive grins and couldn’t stop talking about the dive. As if that wasn’t spoiling us enough we then went back to Kuda Kandu and snorkelled with 10 more feeding manta during our surface interval.

Here at Kuredu we are hoping the Mantas’ are here to stay for a while and we manage to share this fantastic experience with more of our divers – and the staff wouldn’t mind seeing it again ourselves!

On the last day of July we decided to visit the southern outreef of the Ari atoll because we heard that whale sharks were spotted in the area. We started the two tank dive cruising the outreef with underwater scooters when fortune favored us with not just one but two whale sharks. We slowly approached the whale sharks not sure how he would react to the scooters, but to our surprise they were very calm and just swam slowly along the outreef. Because of our added propulsion we managed to stay with these gentle giants for half an hour and the experience was mind blowing.

On the way back after the dive we passed Dugura lagoon and spotted lots of mantas in the area. We decided to do our second dive there and had another unforgettable dive with the mantas.

What better way to go diving and we had a fantastic days diving with many memorable experiences. We hope that the whale sharks and mantas stay in the area so we can share this experience with more of our divers.

As the end of their 2 week stay came closer for Claudia, Stephan and Marc, they decided to do their last dive of their holiday on the house reef.

The idea was a chilled out dive and taking some nice shots with the camera of the smaller reef fish as well as the wreck.

During their descent suddenly their air consumption tremendously increased and the idea of a chilled out dive was forgotten: 11 Manta mobulas appeared out of the blue!

Luckily a picture was taken by Claudia to be shown to one of their friends, Olivier, who sadly decided not to go for the last dive…