Liveaboard 28-09-2008 to 09-10-2008Having returne ...
Liveaboard 28-09-2008 to 09-10-2008
Having returned to the cold Denmarkfor a week, I wish to share me and my wife´s very good experience on the Seaqueen for a 12 day liveaboard.
Boat
The Seaqueen takes up till 12 guests. On our trip the boat was full for the first week and then half the guest left. So plenty of room. The boat is cosy. Compared to the more flashy Red Sea liveaboards it is a little basic, which in my eyes is not negative at all. The cabins are fairly small with own bath and toilet. All diving is done from an accompanying Dhoni. The crew is very competent and friendly. The food is excellent and a good variety of western and oriental dishes. Big living room with music and DVD. Most meals are eaten outside, unless the weather is bad.
Dive guides.
The diving is run by an english couple, Lisa and Dave. They are both competent, friendly and enthusiastic. They have been on the boat for 4 years, so they know the divesites extremely well. As an added bonus, Lisa is a very talented artist with her videocamera. We bought a trip DVD, that we very much enjoy. Good memories
.
The diving is in buddy pairs. If you wish to follow the guide, that is fine. If you want to do your own stuff that is fine as well. There are no strict limitations on divetime. So I made a personally best at 78 minutes.
Diving
We were there in the South West Monsoon. Supposed to be in the rainy season. We had 1 day with rain and a few showers. Apart from that sun.
In general the current is not so strong at this time of year and the visibility not at its best due to a lot of plankton. In general 15-20 meters but occasionally up to 30 meters.
We started out going directly to the Baa Atoll which is a hot spot for Manta Rays and Whalesharks at this time of the year.
We started out at Nelivaru Thila (no checkdive and it delivered Manta Rays for the entire dive. The cleaning Manta Ray seemed to enjoy our bubbles and came very close. On our first day we also went snorkling in Hani Faru lagoon. Wow, it delivered 5 feeding whalesharks and unnumerable feeding manta rays. Fantastic. Later in the week we did it on scuba. No whalesharks, but the manta rays more than made up for it. Otherwise we had turtles, morays and a lot of fish.
After 3½ days in Baa we went up to North Ari. Had feeding manta rays at the boat in the evening for 2 days. We were especially impressed with Makaru Thila. Beautiful Grey Reef Sharks, White Tips, Eagle Rays and turtles. Maya Thila on a night dive with hunting whitetips was also great. Fishhead with the big friendly napoleon coming close to say hello, wow. Going to South Ari, a lot of encounters with bat fish, turtles and even a couple of scorpion leaf fish. We ended up in the South Male atoll for the last few days of diving. Fishsoup.
To conclude, we had everything that we had hoped for and more. Only miss was the frogfish. Well see you next time.
Travel
We organised the trip by ourselves. Flew with Emirates via Dubai and organised the boat with Maldives Scubatours in England. www.scubascuba.com.
Conclusion
If you want to go on a smaller boat, enjoy excellent diving (with no preset itinary) and can live with an english speakin boat, then we can highly recommend the Seaqueen.
Best regards
Christian Nielsen
Mehr lesenHaving returned to the cold Denmarkfor a week, I wish to share me and my wife´s very good experience on the Seaqueen for a 12 day liveaboard.
Boat
The Seaqueen takes up till 12 guests. On our trip the boat was full for the first week and then half the guest left. So plenty of room. The boat is cosy. Compared to the more flashy Red Sea liveaboards it is a little basic, which in my eyes is not negative at all. The cabins are fairly small with own bath and toilet. All diving is done from an accompanying Dhoni. The crew is very competent and friendly. The food is excellent and a good variety of western and oriental dishes. Big living room with music and DVD. Most meals are eaten outside, unless the weather is bad.
Dive guides.
The diving is run by an english couple, Lisa and Dave. They are both competent, friendly and enthusiastic. They have been on the boat for 4 years, so they know the divesites extremely well. As an added bonus, Lisa is a very talented artist with her videocamera. We bought a trip DVD, that we very much enjoy. Good memories
.The diving is in buddy pairs. If you wish to follow the guide, that is fine. If you want to do your own stuff that is fine as well. There are no strict limitations on divetime. So I made a personally best at 78 minutes.
Diving
We were there in the South West Monsoon. Supposed to be in the rainy season. We had 1 day with rain and a few showers. Apart from that sun.
In general the current is not so strong at this time of year and the visibility not at its best due to a lot of plankton. In general 15-20 meters but occasionally up to 30 meters.
We started out going directly to the Baa Atoll which is a hot spot for Manta Rays and Whalesharks at this time of the year.
We started out at Nelivaru Thila (no checkdive
and it delivered Manta Rays for the entire dive. The cleaning Manta Ray seemed to enjoy our bubbles and came very close. On our first day we also went snorkling in Hani Faru lagoon. Wow, it delivered 5 feeding whalesharks and unnumerable feeding manta rays. Fantastic. Later in the week we did it on scuba. No whalesharks, but the manta rays more than made up for it. Otherwise we had turtles, morays and a lot of fish.After 3½ days in Baa we went up to North Ari. Had feeding manta rays at the boat in the evening for 2 days. We were especially impressed with Makaru Thila. Beautiful Grey Reef Sharks, White Tips, Eagle Rays and turtles. Maya Thila on a night dive with hunting whitetips was also great. Fishhead with the big friendly napoleon coming close to say hello, wow. Going to South Ari, a lot of encounters with bat fish, turtles and even a couple of scorpion leaf fish. We ended up in the South Male atoll for the last few days of diving. Fishsoup.
To conclude, we had everything that we had hoped for and more. Only miss was the frogfish. Well see you next time.
Travel
We organised the trip by ourselves. Flew with Emirates via Dubai and organised the boat with Maldives Scubatours in England. www.scubascuba.com.
Conclusion
If you want to go on a smaller boat, enjoy excellent diving (with no preset itinary) and can live with an english speakin boat, then we can highly recommend the Seaqueen.
Best regards
Christian Nielsen