Thudufushi, Maldives

by Trevor Thorpe

I visited the isle of Thudufushi in the North Male Atoll, Maldives in May. It was my first holiday as an Advanced Diver and I was very much looking forward to it.

After an eleven hour flight from Gatwick we touched down at Male International Airport and after reclaiming our baggage & clearing customs we then had another wait for a flying boat to take us to Thudufushi. The journey by flying boat took about 20 minutes and, because they fly so low, the views are outstandingly beautiful. The atoll is surrounded by reefs and this makes landing difficult, so they drop you on a pontoon and you then have to wait there for the island dhoni/boat to pick you up. This was very interesting although a bit nervy for me as my balance isn’t very good – I am slightly physically disabled.

But when you got to the island the staff were very helpful and you soon forgot about the difficulties of travelling there. It is a very small island and the hotel plus a few shops is all that there is to it. It was an all-inclusive Island and the rooms were very comfortable, if slightly basic, but the hotel food was very nice.

I went for a walk around the island one day, and it took me 15 minutes walking very slowly! The dive centre on the island is run by Crab Divers and is very well managed with some very good gear which I used as I didn’t have my own at the time. I just used a 3mm. shortie wetsuit as the water was pretty cool. As I am a single traveller and don’t have to please anybody else I managed 12 dives. I took out a 10 dive package and then decided to do 2 more because the fishlife and visibility were so good and to be honest there was nothing else to do except dive.

The first dive I did was Dela Tilla, followed by Ali Tilla. We did a night dive on Emboodu Reef. I don’t normally like night dives but they talked me into it as they were one short of the required amount of divers needed for a night dive. I quite enjoyed it actually. We also dived Thudufushi Tilla where we saw a beautiful Eagle Ray, Hinnafushi, Emboodu Reef, Reeti Tilla and Dean Tilla. Some of the dives were done in a stong current but it was well worth it. They did 2/3 dives per day but I prefer to do just the one. The rest of the time I spent enjoying the beautiful sea and I just "chilled out " in the georgeous sun. It was very humid which was quite strength sapping. The weather the first week was marvellous but in the second week we had a few monsoon rainstorms where the visibility on land dropped to 15 yards. There was very little, if anything, for non-divers to do apart from sunbathe and maybe visit some other islands.

While I was there they had the inter-island football championship, which as an avid football fan and Derby County season ticket holder fascinated me. I asked if I could go to the game against Moofushi, played on Moofushi to which they agreed and while there I was treated like royalty because I was the only westerner there. I sat on the halfway line with the Mayor and at halftime they bought me some drinks & biscuits. And when Thudufushi kicked off for the 2nd half the centre forward rolled the ball to his team mate who lobbed the goalie from 45yds. The referee was unsure as to what to do but I told him that if the ball had travelled its own circumference before being kicked forward by another player it was a perfectly legitimate goal. So I even played a part in refereeing the match!!! What an experience.

I went with Kuoni Dive and picked that time of year because it was cheapest for me, when you took single supplements into account. I cost me around £1200 plus £4-500 for the dives and equipment.

Maldives main page