2 April Dhiragu diving

The diving in Dhiragu was good. On our first day we, us and three other dinghies, followed a local dive boat two miles out to Kudurah Thila, a submerged reef. The boat handlers invited us to tie our dinghies to their diving dhoni and the dive guide said we could tag along behind his guests. The topography of the thila is interesting with caves, over hangs and swim throughs. There was a light current sweeping across it, but so nice not to have to tow the dinghy and to know it would be up top when we surfaced.

Early afternoon we were sitting in the cockpit and saw a number of boats put snorkellers in the water a short way across the lagoon. Friends came back to say it was a manta cleaning station and the mantas were there now. Quick as possible we grabbed our kit and scooted over to the site. I was in first with direction to take the anchor and position it safely with David to follow on when he was kitted up. The depth was 13m and for five minutes it was just me and one manta sweeping over my head. Soon David glided down to join me on the sand, just relaxing and enjoying the show. After half an hour everyone, snorkellers and mantas, had left and we ascended.

Later in the afternoon we did third dive of the day. As a group we'd hired the guide from the morning's dive to show us his favourite site, Seventh Heaven. Again four dinghies bashed out through a lively sea to anchor on top of the thila. It is in the middle of the sea, no visible reference on the surface until you are directly over the shallower top. David went first and secured the anchor. The rest of us followed down the anchor line in a bodice ripper current. The dive guide had no kit so stayed as surface cover. It was a beautiful site but the strong current and lack of local knowledge hampered our navigation around the bommie and we surfaced after 45 minutess.

Next morning we did a drift dive along the south wall of the pass towing our dinghy. This was close to the anchorage on an incoming tide in calm conditions. We saw sharks, turtles and lobster and finished our dive on top of the reef in 5m close to where we had crossed with Jackster.