Hanifaru Bay

Face-down on the surface, you watch the water column below for rays gliding in. A licensed guide leads a group of at most ten snorkellers from the boat to a drop-zone, and a short swim takes you into the bay. The 45 minutes your token allows run from there. There is no descent and no route to follow, and the mantas set the programme.

On a quiet day nothing comes, and groups leave without a single ray. On a good day reef mantas glide in beneath you to feed, mouths open, a handful or dozens. With dense plankton and the right tide, they barrel-roll and stack into spiralling feeding trains directly under the snorkellers, and a whale shark can cruise through the same patch. When the slot ends your group exits to make room for the next, with rangers watching over the bay.

A keyhole of reef little bigger than a football field hosts some of the largest gatherings of manta rays in the world. The inlet narrows toward the lagoon, reportedly twice as wide at its mouth as at its inner end. Strong lunar tides pull plankton-rich water in from outside the atoll, and a back eddy in the channel beside the bay traps it in the shallows. The denser the plankton, the more mantas arrive, and in the thickest plankton they feed in the spiralling cyclones the bay is known for. Photo-ID research has identified more than 1,800 individual reef mantas here over 18 years. Several cleaning stations lie in the shallow bay, where mantas are sometimes seen when they are not feeding.

Sightings are a gamble. One 2024 visitor entered the bay on a single day out of five and called it a lottery: days can go by with no manta inside, and that one visit brought 30 or more in a cyclone feed, plus a whale shark. Another reports crowds of first-time snorkellers sharing the water. People who catch a cyclone feed talk about it for years.

Local fishermen knew the bay as a rich whale shark hunting ground. Dive and snorkel operators began arriving in the 1990s, and as word of the manta and whale shark gatherings spread, the small bay was overwhelmed by boats and visitors. The Maldivian government declared Hanifaru a Marine Protected Area on 8 June 20091, and in June 2011 Baa Atoll became a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with the bay as a protected zone within it. Since 2015 rangers have been at the bay almost every day.

Scuba diving is banned in the bay, so leave the tank for Baa Atoll's thilas; no certification applies, and snorkelling needs none. Entry runs on a paid conservation token, currently around USD 20 to 30, bought online or at the visitor centre on Dharavandhoo. Each token allows 45 minutes in the water. The bay is currently capped at 45 visitors at a time, no more than five vessels may be in the protected area at once, and each guide holds a Hanifaru Bay Guide License and leads at most ten snorkellers. Liveaboards cannot enter directly, and their guests go by taxi boat from Dharavandhoo.

Monsoon chop, current through the funnel and plankton-thick water are the working conditions. Stay with your guide and on the surface and give the animals room. Aim for the full or new moon between late July and early October, when the odds are best, and plan on more than one attempt.