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Beautiful soft and hard corals.  Incredible fish life.  And we didn’t even know these dive sites existed until this week!

Following on from the discovery of AliHa Giri last year, the Marta dhoni crew (Ismael, Easa and Ibrahim) have been busily checking maps and talking to local fishermen in order to help us find out whether there are similar sites hidden away in the atoll.  This week, led by Ismael and his crew, we organised a special ‘Exploration Full Day’ to see whether AliHa is just a one off unique site.

The highlights from the dive sites and the trip can be seen in The Last 7 Days…On Kuredu section of our video gallery.

Setting off early, the divers headed down towards the south east corner of the atoll  – an area untouched as far as diving is concerned.  The south east corner of the Lhaviyani has traditionally been just out of reach for dive trips, but with the introduction of the much quicker ‘Marta’ dhoni, the area has now become accessible.

After a series of false starts, Mueen and the group of divers stumbled upon the incredible coral of Ibrahim Giri. Ibrahim Giri offers everything from 2 meter plus table corals, to soft coral pinnacles jutting up from the sea floor. Throw in schooling surgeon fish, glass fish, nudibranch and clown fish on top of all this coral, the group were suitably impressed.

The second dive took the group right to the south of the atoll, to the Aligau outreef.  Again, they were met with schooling fish, a manta ray passing by, a leaf fish and 5 hawksbill turtles.  The day was going well.

The final stop was MuDa Thila – and the best was definitely kept until the end. Stunning coral growth (both hard and soft) and a huge amount of fish life (including schooling fusiliers, schooling trevallies, a hunting juvenile nurse shark) capped off a successful exploration trip.