Rasdhoo is a tiny Island about 500 meters long and 600 meters wide. It’s one of the inhabited Islands of Maldives. Situated few miles away from Ari Atoll, Rasdhoo is known for it’s crystal clear beaches, reefs, some rare underwater species like manta rays, hammerheads and many more.
An hour’s ride by speedboat from Male brought us to Rasdhoo Island. It looked really beautiful, guesthouse staff received us from the jetty and walked us through little lanes to the guesthouse. The entrance looked small and little dirty. Thought we were mislead by the pictures online. But when entered the premises, it was a different world.
The rooms and restaurant were right on the beach. We had lunch at the restaurant with the view of ocean. Didn’t waste any time, quickly after lunch got my snorkel kit on and went for my first snorkeling session.
Few meters from the beach is the Rasdhoo reef which has plenty of marine life. During our first snorkel session around the reef, we could see reef sharks, turtles, sting rays, schools of other colorful fishes. There is an intersecting point where the depth of the water suddenly various from shallow to very deep. That’s the place you find really interesting stuff.
After the snorkeling session, I went around to find a dive shop and after talking to few dive schools finally signed up with Rasdhoo dive center. Imran who runs the center was really helpful and we got our dive equipment ready the same night.
Next morning after quick breakfast, we started for our dive site, I’m diving after a gap of three years and was very much excited. Dive site was velligadu, did my refreshers before diving. It was a very relaxed dive, felt good to get under water after a very long time. And no special sightings, then on we went to the next dive site which was the Rashdoo house reef. It didn’t disappoint us, we saw eagle rays, reef sharks, turtles, nurse sharks, etc. Missed the sighting of manta ray by a whisker. But again the dives were memorable, decided to skip the evening dive and spend time on the beach after a session of snorkeling. There were sacks to sit hardly 4-5 people on the beach, watching the sunset with a cup of coffee in hand was just bliss.
Whole of the island had lot of election manifesto and you can see people writing their opinions on the wall about their prime ministerial candidate.
Next morning walked along the beach, found lot of baby sharks near by. Early morning snorkeling will give you some surprise, I was able to see some eerls, groupers, bump head parrot fish, etc then after breakfast we reached the dive shop again . People in the dive shop saw hammerheads that morning and I was too lazy to go for the early morning dive and missed the hammerhead 🙁 We started for Manta ray dive site. Moment we were nearing the site, saw lot of dolphins jumping above the water. Within few minutes we reached the manta site, our dive master spotted a manta on one of the blocks. They come to the block to clean themselves. We all were super excited, quickly got our gears on and jumped into the water. As we were descending down there was a huge manta circling above us and dive master asked me to get down to the bottom quickly, out of curiosity I turned around to see the manta and it was just above me, I was only 10% in size compared to it. One of the best experience underwater seeing these magnificent creatures which are vulnerable(population is decreasing) species.
It was a shallow dive, we reached the seabed in about 14-15m. Stayed there all throughout the dive looking at the mantas, there were 3 individual mantas. After a memorable dive at Manta point, I decided to do the night dive at Kuramathi wreck. We started late in the evening while on the boat could see hundreds of stars and observing these from middle of the ocean felt heavenly.
While descending underwater, it became pitch dark. There was a huge eerl in the open, saw lot of fishes resting on the wreck. And for few seconds I lot track and missed my dive buddy. Was scared and got really anxious. But I could spot a small beam of light coming from the other side, it was my dive buddy :). Then I calmed down and continued the dive. Saw lot of eerls, shrimps, lion fish,etc.
Next day went to the sandbank, which is a small strip of land spent good time relaxing and tried walking to the near by island since it was shallow. We snorkeled and then came back to our guest house for lunch.
After lunch I went for another dive this time it was to vellingadu west. It was a wonderful place to dive not much current different types of eerrls saw nurse sharks, blacktip reef shark and lot of nudi branches. Saw a huge nepolen in the size of me hovering around the sand bank. It was a relaxing dive after the dive went back and relaxed the whole day at the guest house. In the night we went to the near by stadium and watched local students play football.
As usual in the night sat on the beach and listened to music from near by resort island (kuramathee) . Last day we did the manta point again, this time we had to wait for a while. Could see lot of garden eerls moving up and down from the surface. Then came the giants, initially it was only one and slowly few more joined it and this sighting came like a farewell in Rasdhoo, before we headed back to Male.
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