Maaya Thila

What is Maaya Thila, the thila in the middle of North Ari?

A thila is an isolated reef that rises from the lagoon floor without ever reaching the surface. This one, in the middle of North Ari Atoll, is a square about 80 meters on each side, with its top between 6 and 12 meters. It is shallow enough for the sun to keep a garden of hard corals alive, and deep enough for the tidal current to push plankton-rich water over it all the time, along with the schools of fusiliers and trevallies that draw the predators. The four sides drop steeply to the sand at 30 or 40 meters, ringed by satellite rocks and small overhangs where the whitetip reef sharks shelter by day. On September 27, 1995, the government listed the site among the country's first fifteen marine protected areas: 1,024 hectares, covering the reef and a 500-meter radius around its center.

What is the Maaya Thila night dive like?

In the evening, the boat stays at anchor and you go back down to the plateau with a light. The whitetip reef sharks, sluggish by day, turn into hunters: twenty to thirty of them sweep the top in a pack, slip into every crack, flush out sleeping fish and fight over their catch a few meters from divers, paying them no attention. Settle above the reef, light the bottom rather than the sharks, and do not follow or touch them. Between passes, your light picks out octopus, crabs, spiny lobsters and stonefish, and sometimes a gray reef shark circling at the edge of the beam. It is one of the most famous night dives in the Maldives, and the reason Ari liveaboards spend the night here.

What can you see at Maaya Thila by day?

The day dive circles the pinnacle between 20 and 25 meters, side after side. On the current side, five or six gray reef sharks hold the edge of the plateau, noses into the flow, with a school of bigeye trevallies above them, and eagle rays pass in the blue. Under the overhangs at the base, look for whitetips at rest; on the sides, soft corals, sea fans and moray eels in the cracks. Save the plateau for the end of the dive: hawksbill and green turtles, butterflyfish, Moorish idols, triggerfish, parrotfish, and the small camouflaged things, stonefish and frogfish, that a guide who knows the site will point out.

How do you dive the current at Maaya Thila?

The current sets the plan. It is variable, sometimes strong and often unpredictable, and it can reverse between the morning dive and the evening one. You descend along the mooring line, start the circuit of the thila facing the current, where the sharks are, and finish in the shelter of the lee side, where you come back up onto the plateau for the safety stop. Do not stray from the reef, do not go below 30 meters, the legal limit in the Maldives, and keep an eye on the guide when the flow speeds up at the corners of the square. Dive centers require Advanced Open Water; a surface marker buoy and a backup light for the night dive are the basics.