UKDIVING TRAVELSPECIAL
Kurumba
I landed in Malé in a tropical downpour, not unusual and soon over. Fifteen minutes in a speedboat and I was warmly welcomed to the family-friendly island of Kurumba. This was the Maldives’ first resort, opened in 1972. Alongside the coconut palms, there are now some 700 species of plants, providing beautiful natural shade around the island.
Arriving to purple, cloud-filled skies and wind-buffeted seas, I was happy to be able to snorkel in the lagoon, where I found porcupine rays feeding in the sand, oblivious to me. The house reef proper has plenty of big life – sharks, eagle rays, hawksbill turtles, and more – which you might not expect this close to the airport.
The resident marine biologist guides snorkellers to his coral-conservation gardens, where harvested fragments of coral are fixed to extensive lines. They are kept free of algae and coral-eating snails until big enough to be replanted. New hard corals are growing naturally, including in the lagoon, but in 2024, even at depth and more than once, temperatures reached more than 30⁰C for days at a time, so I was interested to check out the local reefs.
Many classic sites are within a 30-minute boat ride of Euro Divers Kurumba. Despite it being early December, manta rays showed up at Lankan Manta Point. Majestically graceful, they circled overhead for the entire dive. As we left, passing a clownfish family guarding their eggs( they hatch in 10 days you know) and a feeding turtle, many more divers arrived.
Banana Reef is a stunning place; tall vertical walls with overhangs filled with shoals of blue-striped snapper. Soft corals abound and in the coral gardens on top, small table corals shelter tribes of tiny fish that dart for cover at the first sign of a shadow.
At HP Reef, we drifted past arches and overhangs festooned in soft corals, being picked up and dropped by the current in this meadow of bright oranges and pastel purples and pinks.
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Dusk at the Kandu deck and bar- still time for a sundowner