Learning to dive in the maldives will guaranteed give you an experience you will never forget. The water is lovely warm and there is colourful fish and marine life everywhere! Doing your initial course from Fulisdhoo will, besides the great marine environement, provide you a professional education, and a good learning experience. Starting slowly, with the skills in shallow water, you will build up step-by-step, to go diving inside the atoll of Vaavu. But keep in mind, for most people, the diving in Vaavu Atoll is all about getting out to the channels where the currents are thriving along with the big fish! We're talking blue water and sharks, sharks, sharks! Nearby channels - the entrances and exits to the atoll - provide great current, and this attracts large numbers of reef sharks and other pelagics. You will not be diving here during your regular open water course, which is what is included in this package. But... you can chose to upgrade to the "Learn to dive + Deep Dive," where an extra day is added to your course. On this extra day, you go and do the PADI Adventure Deep dive. This consists of studying a chapter from the PADI Advanced course, and do an assessment at depth, which should give you the knowlegde and skills to safely conduct a dive at one of the big channel dive sites. Giving you that mindblowing dive that will stick in your memory forever! This is of course optional for you, and it is also down to the instructor to decide, during your course, if you are ready to go dive the big sites.
As well as an abundance of sharks on the outer reefs, Vaavu Atoll is home to a real variety of reef life. On nearly every reef, you'll find everything from huge Napoleon wrasse, eels, tuna, barracuda and jackfish down to the tiny nudibranches. Schools of eagle rays are common on the bigger dive sites as are turtles and sting rays. From May to December there is a chance to see feeding manta rays not far from the island. But keep in mind, there are a difference between diving inside the atoll and outside the atoll. The corals has taken a hit during the recent El Nino, and are not in great shape inside the atoll. If you are not comfortable diving deeper than 18m, you will be diving mostly inside the atoll, and here, the visibility will not be as great as on the outside, and the corals and marine life will be of lesser wow factor.
Fulidhoo sits on the northern edge of Vaavu Atoll and lies just a few hours away from the equator. At 700m long and 200m wide, it’s not much more than a sliver of sand in the vast ocean. Yet thanks to the availability of fresh water, local vegetation and the bountiful sea, its remote community has thrived for centuries. Arriving on the island, you will quickly feel how your pace slows down as you get lullabyed into island life. There are a few cafe's on this small island, and a beautiful bikini beach in a quiet lagoon, but besides that... there is not much else than lots of green vegetation and white sand. Oh, and the cool fruitbats in the trees, the stingrays feeding around the little jetty in the evening, the friendly people living on the island, their drumming nights and of course the ridiculously blue and warm water surrounding the island.
Introduction to course
The PADI Open Water Diver
course is the most popular diving certificate worldwide. After
completing this 3-4 day course you are certified to dive to 18m
independently with a buddy. The course consists of five modules of
learning. You study via self-study workbook and complete a knowledge
review. This process is assisted by videos accompanying each chapter
to reinforce what you have learned. The instructor reviews
everything with you to ensure that everything are confidently
understood. The practical learning consists of pool sessions and
four open water dives. Dive one and two are conducted at a depth of
max 12m and dive three and four are conducted at max 18m. The
final stage of the PADI Open Water course is an exam, which is a
multiple choice exam covering all that you have learnt. Remember
that the course is performance based and not time based. The course
generally takes 3 to 4 days, with the theoretical, the pool and
the open water part successfully passed.
DIVE PACKAGE:Itinerary - 6 days and 5 nights
The PADI Open Water Course is performance based. That means you have to
understand and pass the theory and perform the in-water skills
correctly and with ease. Therefore, the itinerary can vary slightly
from course to course. The course will take 3 to 4 days depending on
the students enrolled. To give you an idea of what to expect, see the
itinerary below.
