Fesdu Wreck

The wreck lies about a kilometre southwest of the resort on Fesdu Island, at the southern end of North Ari, on a sandy slope between 20 and 30 metres. It is a compact hull, small enough to circle on a single dive. The wheelhouse top sits near 24 metres and the propeller near 27. Holds and a bridge area can be looked into from outside. Current regularly washes the site, running from mild to strong, so the same wreck is a relaxed potter on one tide and a brisker drift on the next.

Beside it rises a thila, the Maldivian word for a coral pinnacle, at roughly 12 to 25 metres. Anemones cover it and shelter several kinds of anemonefish, with basslets massed over the top. This is the macro half of the outing: nudibranchs, rock cods, morays and lionfish in the coral, and octopuses working the hard coral on top. Back on the hull, an emperor angelfish patrols, trevally and barracuda cruise the slope, and a resident frogfish sometimes turns up.

Fish have taken this hull over. Cardinalfish fill the water around it in schools dense enough to screen the steel, thickest at the black coral trees, so the wreck's outline shows in the gaps between them and slow finning along the hull shows you more than a quick lap. Under the schools the steel is heavily overgrown with soft corals, sea whips, gorgonians and thorny oysters, which are one more reason to keep hands and fins off the structure. A coastal fishing trawler about 30 metres long, sunk deliberately as an artificial reef, it pairs a small overgrown wreck with a living pinnacle a short swim away.

Plan the dive around the tide, because the current is the one thing that changes the experience from day to day. The whole hull lies below 20 metres, so this is an Advanced Open Water dive on the wreck. Holds and bridge are overhead spaces, and entering them calls for wreck-penetration training and a torch. Agree the profile with your guide at the briefing, including which structure you start on.