The Maldives

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STUART PHILPOTT

To round off my whistle-stop tour, Euro-Divers (www. euro-divers.com) had arranged a visit to Kagi - a brand-new five-star resort located 54km from Velana international airport in the Northern Malé atoll. Kagi opened for business in November 2020 and was Crown and Champa’s latest offering. Altogether, they own more than ten properties ranging from 3.5 star to uber-luxury located in the South Ari and Northern Malé atolls.

Kagi offers 50 luxurious rooms varying from beach and lagoon villas to water villas, all with private plunge pools. Other on-site facilities include several top-notch restaurants and bars, a massive over-water spa complex, a (non-motorised) watersports centre and the all-important dive centre. Note that all guests have to be 12 or over, and minimum stay is three nights.

There are two transfer options. Guests can either take a 60-minute speedboat ride or a 15-minute seaplane flight. Personally, I think it’s easier to exit airport arrivals, walk across the road and jump onto a speedboat rather than take a bus over to the seaplane terminal and then wait for another flight, but I guess we all have different priorities.

I was sad to be leaving Meeru Island resort. The Euro-Divers staff had really looked after me and the local dive sites had

offered plenty of exciting picture opportunities. But the thought of spending my last few days at a luxury five-star resort being seriously pampered did sound attractive. One of the waiters on Meeru said that before the resort was built, Kagi had been the perfect Robinson Crusoe Island complete with swaying palms and white sandy beach popular for snorkelling trips and romantic beachside picnics. When I arrived at the jetty, I could see there had been quite a The turtle swam directly at me and few changes. After checking in I was given a tour of the island, which didn’t take very looked straight into my mask. A few long. Kagi is small - it only takes about ten minutes to walk around the entire island. It’s basically spherical shaped, moments later it decided to sit on my fringed by white sandy beach, with two rows of water villas protruding out to sea, both of which converge next to head. Saeed was the main bar and restaurant complex complete with infinity pool. Although laughing through the island had been extremely busy his regulator! over the Christmas period, it was very quiet during my stay with no more than ten other guests visiting from Canada, Dubai, UK and Germany. My main mission was to check out the dive centre and the dive sites and, with limited time available, I didn’t get a chance to test out the spa and wellness centre, but from what I heard, everybody was extremely impressed with the facilities, especially the state-of-the-art gym and daily yoga sessions.

SCAN ME

TO START YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE!

Maldivian Saeed Mohamed ran the dive centre. He had worked with Euro-Divers for more than 30 years at numerous landbased and liveaboard operations. Kagi offers 32 dive sites of which 15 are regularly dived, all within 15 minutes to an hour boat journey. Saeed said the shark and turtle dives were the most popular. Cylinders are normally 11-litre aluminium, but 12-litre and 15-litre are available on request. Meeru resort is only 45 minutes boat ride away, so it’s easy to get extra staff or equipment when necessary. Saeed also offered the full range of PADI training courses.

I immediately hit it off with Saeed. He knew all of the dive sites extremely well and could read the conditions perfectly. Our first dive site was called Makandu Garden. Saeed said this was a popular snorkelling and diving site for hawksbill turtles. There was one other boat at the site when we arrived, with about a dozen snorkellers aboard, but no other divers. I followed Saeed around the reef at a depth of no more than 10m. The top of the reef was much shallower. I could see the snorkellers swimming after a large shoal of blue tangs. Visibility must have been around 20-25 metres.

There seemed to be a lot of green algae covering the corals, maybe this attracted the turtles? After a few minutes I caught sight of a hawksbill obliviously nibbling away on the corals. I managed to get close enough for a wide-angle picture and then the most-bizarre thing happened. The turtle swam directly at me and looked straight into my mask. A few moments later it decided to sit on my head. Saeed was laughing through his regulator! The turtle just wouldn’t leave me alone. I spent the next 15 minutes ‘dancing’ with the turtle. It was totally non-aggressive, just curious. We carried on around the reef and saw another four or five hawksbills and again they were just as friendly. I really do recommend this site for close encounters!

Saeed was eager to show me Kagi’s house reef. The instructors at both Vilamendhoo and Meeru Island resorts had said this was one of the best snorkelling and diving sites in the North Malé atoll, offering plenty of marine life sightings. We jumped off the jetty and headed around the island in a

clockwise direction. Unfortunately, the visibility was not the best, probably a milky five to ten metres on the day. We stayed at a shallow depth of around 6-10m. I noticed the hard corals were in really good condition. There were plenty of reef fish darting around, including triggerfish, barracuda, parrotfish, snapper, sweetlips and grouper and then to my surprise, I caught sight of a manta ray. It just appeared out of nowhere, stayed for a few seconds and then headed off around the reef wall. Saeed said that other guests had mentioned seeing a manta while they were snorkelling, so maybe Kagi has its own resident population? It’s a shame I didn’t have time to go back the following day and check out this theory.

Saeed had promised me nurse sharks and after a barren five minutes we found one, then another and so on until we reached a tally of seven for the whole dive. Unfortunately, most of them were wedged underneath the reef with just a tail sticking out, so not so good for pictures. We came across one monster four-metre-plus individual which was the biggest I have ever seen. An hour and 15 minutes later, we surfaced between the two water villa jetties. This had definitely been one of the best house reef dives I had experienced in the Maldives.

Normally if there is an ‘in’ current on one side of the atoll, there will be an ‘out’ current on the opposite side. But during my visit the currents were behaving strangely and we had two ‘in’ currents. This meant visibility was not so good and the current at most of the best sites was moving at a very rapid pace. We started off the day at Blue Canyon. Saeed had warned it would be a negative entry descent, so I finned downwards as fast as I could while clearing me ears just as quickly. We finned against the ripping current and managed to duck under an overhang where there were a few sweetlips and a pufferfish also sheltering with us. There was no way we could stay stationary at the site and take pictures so, after 20 minutes, we canned the dive.

Plunge pool at a villa The Euro-divers Kagi dive team

At Saeed’s favourite dive site, Finger Point, conditions turned out to be just the same. We did another negative entry and quickly finned down towards the seabed. I saw a squadron of eagle rays above and was in two minds whether to change direction and head up towards the rays. If I had the current would have swept me away from the site, so I decided to carry on downwards. There were a number of whitetip reef sharks patrolling the reef but alas the eagle rays had gone. We drifted off the point but the marine life activity significantly reduced so I turned around and headed back into the current. We encountered shoals of sweetlips and snapper and a fleeting glimpse of a hawksbill, but too far away for a picture.

Saeed was trying his best to find me a site without any current. We dropped in at Belt Reef and although there was very little current to contend with, the water had a distinctive shade of green and looked quite murky. We finned along the vertiginous wall at a depth of between 15-20m. Under the overhangs there were huge pockets of glassfish with lionfish, mouths wide open, gorging on the feed. I looked out into the blue/green yonder but didn’t see any passing sharks or rays.

As a last-ditch attempt, we headed over to a site called KKK, which was located just a couple of km away from Kagi. The idea was to ‘drift’ along the reef and see what marine life we could find. When we got to the seabed the current was running like a steam train. I caught sight of a huge stingray lying flat on the bottom. I dug my fins into the sand to slow myself down, but I was still being dragged along. I grabbed a rock to get a shot of some colourful soft corals and my regulator started to freeflow. We were absolutely flying. We passed sharks and barracuda in a blur. I think they were shocked to see us moving so quickly! We travelled more than a kilometre in 20 minutes before the current eased off.

I think it’s hard pushed to beat the Maldives as the perfect diving holiday destination. The standard of accommodation and food is usually top rate and the dive sites and marine life sightings always deliver. Euro-Divers had chosen three very different resorts for me to visit. Vilamendhoo was the perfect choice for divers, Meeru a good all-rounder and Kagi best suited for some luxury pampering. Out of the three resorts I visited, I do have a personal favourite, but I’m not going to kiss and tell - you’ll just have to visit all three yourself and come up with your own conclusion! n