Maldives: The Mother Of All Diving Holidays

Whale sharks, snoozing haWksbill turtles, and tWo happy teenagers. Radhika tandon discovers the joys of drifting With the current in the Maldives

- Radhika tandon

We seem to have the Indian Ocean to ourselves. It is late afternoon. We are the only people on the white sand beach, and the sea is a shade of blue that makes me want to use fanciful words like beryl and cerulean. Small hermit crabs scuttle by, giving us a wide berth as they carry off all the best shells washed up with the last tide. A thick wall of tropical green separates the beach from the world. Only two things give away the fact that we are not on a desert island, all evidence to the contrary. My two teens are plugged into their devices, courtesy a phenomenal wi-fi connection at our little guesthouse behind the greenery. And beside us, a big warning sign proclaims that bikinis are prohibited beyond this point. For some reason, the kids think that’s hilarious.

We are on Dhigurah, almost a 100km south of Malé. A speck in the Indian Ocean, the island is about 4km long and so narrow in parts that you can cross from east to west in a leisurely minute. We are here for a diving holiday. It’s just me and the offspring. I’ve been looking forward to getting away with them. As they get bigger and busier, I am only too aware that my time with them is ticking down.

I spent weeks dithering over where to go and where to stay. The reasons for picking this island were two-fold. Dhigurah has a reputation for its proximity to great dive sites, and for being one of the best places for spotting whale sharks. And The Boutique Beach Club (BB), where we are staying, is a British-owned guesthouse with a PADI-affiliated dive centre that offers an all-inclusive diving package I didn’t need to sell a child to afford.