Ellaidhoo House Reef

Of all the resorts in the Maldives, Ellaidhoo has one of the best, beautiful and most convenient house reef dives. Divers can literally step off the jetty or swim from the beach to a 750 meters long wall dive studded with caves full of sea fans, hard coral, sponges, crinoids and soft coral. For most part, the reef here is a wall from the surface all the way down to the sandy bottom at 25-30 meters. Most of the caves are between 10 and 15 meters, some being just big enough to swim into without damaging the coral.

Near the jetty is a 15 meters long wreck laying upside down with the bow facing west in 32 meters 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 meters, two of which are 20 meters long. One has a great number of large sea fans and whips.

Many of the caves are full of Soldier Fish, Squirrel Fish, Masked Banner Fish, Long-nosed Butterfly Fish, Moorish idol, Blue Trigger Fish, Oriental Sweet-lips, Black and White snappers as well as the Blue-Faced Angelfish, just to name a few. Both the west and east ends of the reef have got glorious acropora and porite corals on the reef top and they are ideal for a safety stop rich in colors; at the west end in four or five meters of water there is also a large school of banner fish.Divers can also see Lobsters, Napoleon Wrasses, Stingrays and Morays.

This is a dive that is never boring due to the immense variety of life. Ellaidhoo house reef is an excellent and relatively easy drift dive and is everybody’s choice on days with a strong current.

Source: TDI Diving Maldives