Halaveli Zone

Ellaidhoo Housereef * *

Of all the resorts in the Maldives, Ellaidhoo has one of the best and most convenient housereef dives. Divers can literally step off the jetty or swim from the beach to a 750 metre long wall dive studded with caves full of seafans, hard coral, sponges, featherstars and soft coral. For most of the reef, the wall is undercut below 20 metres to the sand bottom at 25 to 30 metres. Most of the caves are between 10 and 15 metres, some being just big enough to swim into without damaging the coral. NEar the jetty is a 15 metre long wreck laying upside down with the bow facing west in 32 metres of water. A big grouper is usually found here. To the west of the jetty are no fewer than 15 caves between 11 and 14 metres, two of which are 20 metres long. One has a great number of large seafans and ships. Many of the caves are full of soldierfish and squirrelfish, also masked bannerfish, long-nosed butteflyfish, moorish idol, triggerfish, oriental sweetlip, midnight snapper, and blue face angelfish, to name a few. At both the west and east ends of the reef are excellent acropora and porite coral on the reef top. At the western end in 4 to 5 metres are schooling bannerfish. Divers can also see lobsters napoleon, sting rays and morays. Ellaidhoo divers can dive the housereef whenever they like and rarely complain of being bored.