Fushifaru Kandu

Fushifaru Kandu is a sandy-floored channel 0.7 to 1 km wide on the north-eastern rim of Lhaviyani Atoll, south of Fushifaru island, where the tide pushes Indian Ocean water into the lagoon and back out. Around the corner the bottom is at 8m and falls toward the channel to 30m. Fushifaru Thila stands at the mouth, a pinnacle with its top at 11m sloping to 20m.

The site holds two dives at different speeds. The channel is a tidal drift, where sharks, rays and schooling fish gather in the moving water. The thila is the slow half: reef mantas hover over the pinnacle while cleaner fish service them. Its slopes and plateaus carry fusiliers, angelfish, butterflyfish, barracuda, trevally, morays and lionfish, with the odd turtle passing through.

Fushifaru Kandu has its own IUCN shark and ray area factsheet, published in 2023, and the numbers in it come from counting animals on dives. Guides' surveys averaged 57 grey reef sharks per one-hour dive, the highest of about 1,110 Maldives sites surveyed.1

The same water is one of four key reef manta aggregation areas in Lhaviyani, with 771 sightings of 220 individuals logged between 2004 and 2022 and up to 27 mantas in a single survey. Adults and juveniles feed in the channel for several months each year toward the end of the southwest monsoon, and sightings peak at the start of the northeast monsoon. Spotted eagle rays and blotched fantail rays are recorded here year-round, the fantails often seen being cleaned.

The current is the organising fact of the channel. It is a high-flow passage, so the dive is a drift on the tide: stay with the guide, expect to be carried, and keep a surface marker buoy for the end. The Advanced Open Water minimum follows from that flow.

At the cleaning station, hold low and still, and let the mantas set the distance. Do not chase or crowd them, and never touch.