Posted by Andy Carroll on August 24th 2005 to
Holidays Well I’m back after two weeks in Meedhupparu in the Maldives and before the rosy glow wears off thought I’d do a trip report to assist anyone thinking of going (and to make you all jealous of course).
I booked the island last minute on the advice of some YDers after our planned family holiday to Mexico was cancelled due to Hurricane Emily. The island is a 40 minute sea plane ride from Mali, the hotel is all inclusive - although not to carribean standards and is quite big compared to other Maldive resorts (150 bungalows) The diving is run by Crab diving who also operate in Egypt and Zanzibar. I went with my husband, and three children - 14, 6 and 3.
This is the island
I did a few dives in January with Sandals in St Lucia (when I had only done 20 odd dives in total) but have not used a dive centre like this before and was pleasantly surprised on several counts.
First, but most impressive as far as I am concerned, all diving was done in small groups matched on ability - if there were lots of divers on the boat then more guides were used to keep the groups small - 5 was the maximum number I dived with. Certification levels were followed strictly - with groups limited to 12 metres (scuba diver), 18 meters (OW) and 30 meters (AOW - but also the legal maximum diving depth in the islands). Computers are required for all divers - another Maldives rule.
All divers were asked to perform basic skills (mask clear etc.) on their first dive but this was on a proper dive rather than limited to the house reef which I understand can happen elsewhere. The standard of diving I witnessed was also (with a few notable exceptions ) pretty good and the newly qualified divers trained on the resort were of a good standard which would lead me to recommend the island if you or a family member are looking to learn to dive (PADI).
There is no nitrox available which is a shame as the sort of diving done here is ideal nitrox territory (60 minutes to max 30 meters) and I was running close to deco many times due to the repetitive diving. The only other negative as far as I was concerned was the timetabling of the diving. If you wanted to do two dives a day you left at 9:30 to be back at about 12 noon for dive one and again at 3:00 to be back at 5ish for dive two. If you have non diving relatives on the island this means that you will be away most of the day. If, on the other hand, you are a party of divers only then you get a relaxed surface interval over lunch The staff have tried to get two tank boat trips going out but have found that people are not prepared to go out early enough.
I did 22 dives each of around an hour. The dives were mixed - some great vis as I had been led to expect from warm water diving, others on the other side of the atoll in vis of less than 5 metres due to a plankton bloom which attracted the manta rays. If you saw a manta on the dive then it made up for the poor vis - but if not the dive could be quite dull.
Manta ray on dive 4.
Seeing my first manta was impressive - I saw my first shark too After 22 dives though I became a bit fish immune and started to hanker for a bit of rusty metal. I learned the meaning of a drift dive on this holiday - whee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must have been moving at 20 mph - which gets you thinking how you would cope if you or your buddy had a problem.
Me!
Snorkelling was a bit disappointing compared with the diving but my husband and son thought it was fun. The house reef is not great but there is another reef about 100 yards from shore which makes a great dive. I did it the first time with Ed, an English instructor, who was doing his 800th dive that day. It was just the two of us so we did a bit of a deeper profile and some deep swim throughs with some really impressive free swimming lionfish which I had been trying to get a picture of all week. Needless to say that this was the dive I left my camera behind I pestered them to let me do the reef again as a shore dive but they refused Boat diving only on Meedhupparu as the sea plane landings need you to be covered
My elusive lionfish
We have no complaints at all about the resort, the food was at best excellent and even at worst still fine and after two weeks monotony was still not setting in (not bad considering that there is only one all inclusive restaurant on the island). Other facilities and service were comparable to other hotels of similar class - although the evening entertainment was absolutely dreadful - I’m sure the singer was only hired to ensure that people did not make too much use of the all inclusive bar
Overall - would I recommend the resort and the diving… well yes, if you are happy to do one dive a day or spend a lot of time out of the resort doing two dives.
Would I go back… well no - but I never would - the world is too big to go to the same place twice. If you want a family holiday destination in the Maldives give Meedhupparu a try - and give my regards to Ed, Sasha, Oliver, Janet and Stoney if you do
PS - I found nemo - he’s got a bird
Bookmark, Spidge, or Discuss this Article
