TRAVELSPECIAL
A friendly male Napoleon Wrasse at Fish Head, Maldives
The Theatre of Big Fish
If all the world’ s a stage, the ocean is its
most spectacular theatre. Simon Rogerson rounds up some of the best venues for big fish encounters
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●Bahamas
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Galápagos Islands
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●Egypt
● Maldives
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Bali
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Aerial view of a‘ kandu’ – a gap in the atoll wall
Angels of the Maldives
Setting the scene: The picture perfect beaches and azure shallows of the Maldives bely the power and unpredictability of the currents racing though the atolls. Moving water creates a supercharged food chain, with grey reef sharks riding the current in most of the kandus( gaps between reefs) along the atolls. But the Maldives are best known for big filter-feeders, drawn by seasonal concentrations of plankton.
Stars of the show: Whale sharks and manta rays are the apogee of big animal life in the Maldives. Encounters with mantas typically take place at cleaning stations, which the rays visit to have
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