Maldives Liveaboard: A Soul-Stirring Expedition on MV Felicity

Maldives liveaboard is on every diver’s bucket list. Now I know why. I will be back.

This is the first time I got to dive with my friends from Taiwan, whom I’ve known from high school but never dived together. We got introduced to this trip by ways of friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. It was a memorable trip for us (for better and for worse, we kept joking we will love to tell these stories for the next 40 years), got me to thinking a lot (see [‘Why Two Ocean Notes Started’] to give birth to my blog and Instagram to share my diving passion, and reinforce that we need to be safety minded and find like-minded people to dive together (thank god my friends are).

Note: The review is for a chartered trip on MV Felicity, so there might be some differences in how the trip ran regularly. The intermediary travel agents were onboard and in the water, but I believe their main roles were to use big lights to scare away the cool stuff and translated the dive briefing to Chinese, albeit overly simplified, which unfortunately limited divers’ communication with the dive guides.

Food: Can’t remember anything (3/5)

Average though plentiful. No continental breakfast like toasts or breads before the first dive. Only prepackaged cookies and bananas were available before the first dive starting the second day. I didn’t like the Beach BBQ because the taste was quite bland.

Diving: A Maldivian Roller Coaster (4/5)

Topographies & Biodiversity Galore 

Diving was done from a separate, spacious dive boat with a compressor. The dive gears were stored on the dive boat and I think the crew hose them down every night.

All divers onboard utilized Nitrox, which I highly recommend due to the depth and repetitive nature of the dives on a liveaboard. We encountered a wide variety of topographies and types of dives with currents, ranging from mild to exhilarating drift dives to strategic reef hook dives. It was incredibly fun once I became comfortable with the current.

It did take a little bit of practice to get a hang of reef hooks, though. I wish the guide would have provided a more thorough briefing before the first dive. Our guide assured us the current would be mostly light, at most medium, but even that felt like the strongest I had ever experienced! Hanging out with a reef hook is like watching a show unraveling right in front of you – it requires no effort once you’re properly hooked in and positively buoyant. However, hooking typically involves dropping close to the site and then swimming against the current a bit while descending to the actual rock platform to hook in, which can be tiring. I later learned it doesn’t matter if I kicked with 120% effort or 70%, I was going about the same speed haha.

For the drift dives, I would describe them as a roller coaster compared to those in Cozumel. I felt like I was flying past many different geographies – from plain sands to rocky reefs, walls, and platforms, all in one dive. I observed fish, sharks, rays, and turtles beneath me. It was really fun!

>> Read more: “How to Master Drift Dive” from Master Divers

We encountered lots of different sharks and rays, and tons of fish. Note that there were some shark/ray feeding dives (I participated in only a couple) and nurse shark show dives (where divers were instructed to kneel at the bottom, which I did not participate in). They also tried to attract manta and whale sharks at night by shining a light at the back of the boat. For the manta night dive, we saw the visibility gradually worsen as people entered the water, and were happy we weren’t in that mess. We saw the Mantas coming up to the surface because they were attracted by the lights (and the plankton), allowing us to get some really cool photos while staying completely dry. 

Dive Site Crowds & Liveaboard Coordination

At night, we often anchored with other liveaboards, up to 5 at one point, and on the BBQ dinner day, there were at least 3 other BBQs on the same beach. However, on the dive sites themselves, I think we only saw divers from other liveaboards at two sites. Looking at the dive map, there are so many potential dive spots; perhaps the liveaboards coordinate among themselves in terms of timing or sites? I don’t know, but it was certainly nice to have less crowded dive sites.

There were 24 divers on board MY Felicity, separated into 3 groups. Because this was a chartered trip, the groups were pre-determined based on who knew whom. All the people I knew were in the same group, and thankfully, I found out on this trip that we have the same diving mindset and can remain friends, lol! (you don’t know how worried I was!) Other groups, however, dived very differently from us. They would chase and ignore MOD/NDL and enjoy the adrenaline a bit too much. Well…at least I learned that for good photos, one needs to get really close, but never worth your life for it.

Safety Concerns: Room for Significant Improvement (2.5/5)

There was NO safety briefing. We found life vests in the closet and emergency evacuation routes on the door and life rafts where the route indicated. We asked when we were onboard and were told it would happen later when everyone got onboard, but it never did. I later chatted with the divers who got onboard the latest; they said they also asked about a safety briefing but didn’t receive one.

The dive boat seemed to keep track of groups of divers well, and pickup was quick. However, the shark feeding dives near the Hulhumale ferry terminal were very chaotic, often with divers from other boats in the water at the same time (up to 30-40 people). The visibility got bad quickly, and it was easy to get disoriented or lose your guide. Plus, one or two of the guides needed to feed, which attracted the sharks, making it very easy to miss them. We did 3 dives at this site (one was a check-out dive, without even telling us it was a feeding dive – which I think is highly inadequate). It was common for divers to be separated from their group and end up surfacing by themselves or with another group. For more on liveaboard dive safety, consider resources from organizations like Divers Alert Network (DAN) and stay tuned for my post regarding liveaboard safety.

>> Read more: “Dive Boat Fire Safety” from Divers Alert Network

Cabin Comfort: Spacious & Functional (4.5/5)

We stayed in the Main Deck cabins. It is the largest and most expensive room, located at the front of the vessel and conveniently accessible either through the indoor food/lounge area or a side door to the outside. The room was spacious with a love seat and two armchairs. Nice bed. The room was cleaned daily. Easily the best room I have ever had on any liveaboards (maybe because I’m typically too cheap lol) and even the biggest room out of all the hotel rooms I stayed in this month-long trip.

My friends stayed at the Upper Deck Sea View Cabins. Although much smaller than ours (comfortably fitting a King bed with storage areas and a chair/table), it was still much bigger and nicer than most liveaboards I’ve been on, which typically feature bunk beds. The only drawback was that their room had a double bed, but they were not a couple. They were two girls who have known each other for a long time, so it worked out fine. But I don’t know whether there is an option to convert to two singles.

The lounge area was also spacious with plenty of couches and chairs. The only negatives were some wear and tear on the vessel is needed to be addressed, there were lots of flies on the boat, and the Wifi was spotty.

Crew & Service: Efficient Yet Minimal Interaction (3-3.5/5)

From our observation, the liveaboard crew and the dive tender crew seemed to operate in their own little bubbles. Starting with the dive crew, the dive tender operators and helpers were friendly and efficient. The one who was in charge of the Nitrox analyzer went around and found moments in everyone’s changing chaos to make sure all divers got to see their Nitrox % and set their computers properly. The whip and refill process was quick.

The dive briefing came from the head guide and went through the intermediary  travel agents before reaching the divers, presumably because the agents wanted to translate. I do wish the dive briefing could be more thorough and come directly from the dive guide themselves, but this might be unique because this was a chartered trip from Taiwan (native lanuage is Mandarin). Once my group expressed this wish to our dive guide, he started to give us a separate briefing, interacted with us a lot more, and looked more at ease.

Dive guides needed some warming up, but they were quick to figure out each group’s personality and cater the dive site/planning to them, albeit often they didn’t really tell us the exact plan. My group is safety-focused; another one is focusing on taking Instagram-worthy photos of the divers; and the third focuses on chasing the big stuff. Because the majority of the divers did not care (and in other words, enjoyed) about feeding, the dive guides needed to operate feeding dives. I think this often puts them in a dangerous position because some divers and sharks get too excited and are not always in control. But I read lots of reviews elsewhere, and it seems in a regular trip, each day all divers will discuss preferences for the dive sites and the type of diving, and whether people wanted to do feeding dives, so I think it’s just that we didn’t know the larger group’s preference before we joined them. Our mistake.

One interesting fact is we wanted to chat with the guide a bit more last night and before departure, but they were already gone! To prepare for their next trip with a different liveaboard vessel. I was very surprised but this is probably just how things work in Maldives.

The liveaboard crew operated in a way that you couldn’t tell that they were on board. They took care of clothing articles left outside when it started to rain during our dives; cleaned the deck consistently, and offered helping hands for us to get to/from the tender (only visible task!). When we interacted, they were nice, but the interaction was quite minimal. For some reason, they were very particular about meal time, which I found odd.

Final Thoughts: I will be back, but differently

I think in a broader sense, across all divers on board, we weren’t with the most compatible diver groups, so something was left to be desired, either on the logistics side or the dive planning and enjoyment side. But I love Maldives’s biodiversity and its calm seas (at least for the central atoll; most of the time I didn’t even feel the boat moving when it was anchored), and I am very prone to seasickness.

On the plus side, I’m happy to find out my above-water friends of a lifetime and I have compatible diving mindsets and can dive together from now on!

But I love what Maldives has to offer, in terms of coral and underwater creatures. I will be back.

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1. Video courtesy of other dives who participated this dive ↩︎
2. Picture from liveaboard.com. ↩︎
3. Picture from liveaboard.com. ↩︎
4. Picture from another diver in the trip ↩︎

Editorial disclaimer

Please be aware that scuba diving is an inherently risky activity, even with certification and experience. The content on this blog reflects my personal opinions and experiences and should not be considered instructional. Always prioritize safety, seek guidance and certification from qualified diving professionals, and carefully consider the risks involved in any dives.