Meedu Resort - Raa Atoll

[Scubanut]

This was our third trip to this part of paradise that is the enchanting Maldives. The bug bit after previous trips to Kani (North Male Atoll) and Hakurra (Meemu Atoll), but that could result in more typing!!

General

The resort is the only island that has been developed to date in the Raa atoll although it is suspected that there will be more in the near future. There are various other islands within the atoll which are occupied and there is a high proportion of fishermen within the area.

The island was quite large, measuring approx 40 acres and taking around 45 mins to walk around. The rooms were basic but comfortable and kept clean by the room boy who visited a couple of times every day. The food was good and there was plenty of choice at every meal. There was a high concentration of Italians on there and as the entertainment staff are all Italian the activities were very much focussed on them! But anyway as we were there to dive we weren't really that interested in the other activities...talking about diving....

Diving

We were more than impressed with the diving that we experienced at the resort. It was very different diving to that we had previously done in the maldives at Hakurra in December 2002. Almost every dive we did from Meedu was a drift dive and some of the drifts were very fast at times. We are not sure whether this was due to the time of year, the tide or the position of the atoll. In the 2 weeks we spent there we completed 24 dives...all exciting in their own way!! Here are a few descriptions of the sites that we visited and what we saw....

There are 25 dives sites in total that the dive school visit with many more just being discovered. 4 of these dive sites are in different atolls and have to done on a day trip (These include Shipyard/Kuredu Express - Lhaviyani Atoll and Fares Giri/Kashi Faru - Baa Atoll).

The dives are mainly reef dives with a couple of wall dives with nice overhangs. There was plenty to see whilst we were there...loads of anemones with resident clownfish, shoaling bannerfish, triggerfish ,fusiliers, jacks...and all the other usual reef fishies! We did also see larger stuff including lots of turtles, giant barracuda, tuna, giant trevallies...were also lucky enough to see manta's on our day trip to the Baa atoll. There weren't many sharks to be seen in the vicinity although we do suspect that this has got to do with there being alot of fishermen within this atoll (although we were rewarded by some large grey reef sharks on our dive at Kuredu Express on our other full day out!!). The dolphins were elusive whilst we were underneath the water although we could hear them clicking and whistling but we were rewarded by them playing once we were back on board!!

Here's a link to the dive centre at the resort:

www.thecrab.com

This is a link if you want to have a look at the resort:

http://www.maldiveshotels.co.uk/meedintro.htm

Anyway, hope you have enjoyed reading this if you have managed to make it to the end!!!

We have some pic's to download also but we are stuggling at the mo trying to work out how to get the file size small enough!!! If anyone has any tips/advice on how to do this feel free to send us a message!!!

Cheers

Scubanut and scubachick

[JAG]

<font color='#000080'>Hi,

Nice report. Suitably jealous &nbsp;

If you want I don't mind sticking the photo's on a web page on the galleries section of Essex Diver and providing you with a link. Just let me know or email me the photos..

HTH,

Ian