LDA Travel

You don't need a minimum number of dives but you should be comfortable with drift dives. Currents can be strong. All your diving is made from dhonis or zodiacs to give precise entry and exits points. Experienced divers can dive in a buddy pair unguided.
Rasdhoo Atoll: Hammerhead Dive, Beautiful Reef with Pelagics
North Ari Atoll: Grey Reef Sharks, Maaya Thila Night Dive, Multiple Manta Cleaning Stations
South Ari Atoll: Whale Sharks, Beautiful Pinnacles
South Male Atoll: Grey Reef Sharks, Eagle Rays, Other Pelagics, Beautiful Macro Wreck.
Vaavu Atoll: Beautiful channels with magical soft corals and pelagic delights. Action packed night dive with Nurse Sharks and others.
North Male Atoll: Beautiful Pinnacles.
This is the Best of the Maldives - and it delivers exactly that. This is where you dive the best and most famous dive sites of the Maldives in a week of wonderful liveaboard diving across Male and Ari atolls.
Enjoy a dive holiday that gives you all you could wish for from the iconic sites of North Male, South Male and Ari Atoll. Awaiting you are channels, drifts and pinnacles where you have every chance of meeting mantas, whale sharks and mesmerising marine life of so many varieties. We don't follow an exact itinerary; flexibility is the word so that no matter what time of the year you visit, this underwater world is yours (and ours) for the exploring.
This itinerary gives you a marine mix of big fish such as shark and manta dives as well as reef dives, reef fish, morays and the abundant macro life. Get up close at the cleaning stations without disturbing the locals! One of the best known dive sites is Maaya Thila; this pinnacle is approximately 30m in diameter and falls away to reveal sharks and fish a plenty.
A night dive from sheltered moorings here is a must! And the boat will also aim to find whale sharks so you can get in the water and snorkel with them...as long as they stay around long enough!

This itinerary is not for beginners and most dives will involve going to depth and diving with currents. All diving is made from dhonis to give precise entry and exit points. We recommend a minimum of 100 logged dives to join this trip.
North Male Atoll: Beautiful Pinnacles.
South Male Atoll: Grey Reef Sharks, Eagle Rays, Other Pelagics, Beautiful Macro Wreck.
Vaavu Atoll: Beautiful channels with magical soft corals and pelagic delights. Action packed night dive with Nurse Sharks and others.
Vattaru Atoll: Pristine coral reefs.
Meemu Atoll: Beautiful channels with pelagic action, Sailfish, Grey Reef Sharks, Eagle Rays and beautiful soft coral. Manta cleaning station.
Thaa Atoll: Hammerhead Sharks, Whale Sharks, Dolphins, Traditional Maldivian Channel Diving.
Laamu Atoll: Beautiful fish filled channels with great shark encounters.
Looking for action? Speedy drift dives, mantas, sharks and diving 7 atolls appeal? Both MV Leo and MV Orion offer this itinerary and our guides and crew make it their business to make sure you see mantas, sharks and even a wreck.
January to March is the time to join us as this is when the current in the Kandus is largely incoming. There's a good variety of diving from thrilling channel dives to more relaxed diving inside the atolls on Thilas or Giris.
The best thing? There are few, if no, boats as we visit atolls that have very few resorts and lots of uninhabited islands so liveaboard competition is low! The main manta activity is at Ari at this time of year but there's a good manta cleaning station in Meemu Atoll.
Hammerheads are often found in Thaa as well as whale sharks who visit our boat at night attracted by the lights. When the currents are running well, the channel dives here are outstanding. Abundant with schooling snappers, jacks, barracuda, white tips and greys, grouper, Napoleon wrasse, turtles, eagle rays and more. Fancy a wreck dive? We can fix that for you at the Kuda Giri wreck, famous for its rare black corals and macro life complete with resident frog fish.
This itinerary has a lot of drift diving so it's best suited to more advanced divers. With visibility being really good in the southern atolls, this is ideal for photographers for normal and macro shots.

This itinerary suits experienced divers (100+ dives) with a strong focus on drift diving. All your diving is made from dhonis to give precise entry and exits points.
Meemu Atoll: Beautiful channels with pelagic action, Sailfish, Grey Reef Sharks, Eagle Rays and beautiful soft coral. Manta cleaning station.
Thaa Atoll: Hammerhead Sharks, Whale Sharks, Dolphins, Traditional Maldivian Channel Diving.
Laamu Atoll: Beautiful fish filled channels with great shark encounters.
Huvadhoo Atoll: Whale Sharks, more sharks, fast channel dives in Vilingilli Kandu area
February to April is the time to sail to the southerly Maldives atolls and dive into the shark action in these out-of-the-way southern dive sites between Huvadhoo and Laamu. Spend a week away from the madding crowds and dive Foammulah and Huvadhoo on the lookout for the Indian Ocean's larger residents; tiger sharks, silver tips, grey reef sharks and whale sharks.
From Male we take you to Huvadhoo by plane to join your liveaboard - or from Huvadhoo to Male depending on how you have chosen to dive it - and then it's off on our adventure. Here you can expect to meet tiger and silver tip sharks around Foamulah. At Huvadhoo, one of the deepest lagoons in the Maldives, the currents are ideal for even more shark sightings including hopefully whale sharks and silkies, hammerheads, tiger and grey sharks spotted most of the time. There are swift channel dives with several kandus; Vilingilli, Nilandhoo, Mareehaa and Kondeey, as well as reef thila dives; Gazeera and Vaadhoo. The night dive on the Hyatt Reef is definitely one to be experienced.
This itinerary suits experienced divers (100+ dives) looking for 'away from it all and different' diving with quite a focus on drift diving.

You don't need a minimum number of dives but you should be comfortable with drift dives. Currents can be strong. All your diving is made from dhonis or zodiacs to give precise entry and exits points. Experienced divers can dive in a buddy pair unguided.
Baa Atoll: Hanifaru Bay and other great dive sites
Rasdhoo Atoll: Hammerhead Dive, Beautiful Reef with Pelagics
North Ari Atoll: Grey Reef Sharks, Maaya Thila Night Dive, Multiple Manta Cleaning Stations
South Male Atoll: Grey Reef Sharks, Eagle Rays, Other Pelagics, Beautiful Macro Wreck.
North Male Atoll: Beautiful Pinnacles.
This itinerary runs at the time of a New Moon when the manta are most prolific between July and November, sailing from Male to the northern atolls of Baa (Hanifaru Bay) and back again.
As well as manta, you can get close to whale sharks, hammerheads and reef sharks. One of the big attractions is the promise of manta encounters and diving at this time of the year will hopefully fulfil that promise.
Thanks to the currents that sweep plankton into the shallow lagoons, manta and whale sharks follow in vast numbers to feed. Here you'll see manta swim and loop at dive sites that have been chosen to hopefully give you sightings all week long.
Manta Point and Gangethi are well known stations that manta visit all year round and Rasdhoo and Maya Thila promise some fabulous diving with hammerheads, grey reefs and white tip sharks. And be sure to do the night dive on this trip!
Of course, sightings can't be guaranteed, but diving at this time means your chances are very high!
Please note: Manta Madness will visit either the cleaning stations of Male, Ari and Vaavu atolls or Baa Atoll, which includes Hanifaru area. This is at the Cruise Director's discretion based on the weather and current conditions to ensure you get the most possible interactions with manta and whaleshark.