Close encounter with a green turtle | Rachel Imber
Blog home / Snorkelling the Maldives: 5 wildlife encounters you can only have from a small boat
The sun is barely up, the water is glass-like, and you're the only boat in the bay. You notice nurse sharks beneath and schools of fish swimming in circles. There are no other engines humming in the distance because your captain planned for exactly this tide, in exactly this spot, long before you woke up.
This is the beauty of a small ship expedition through the Maldives, curated for guests who want more from the water than just a view of it.
So if you love jumping into the water, here are five incredible snorkelling moments you can experience when travelling on a dhoni.
Manta rays gliding past the zodiac
While some marine encounters are hard to plan for, it helps when you have a tour leader who has spent years reading the atolls or has lived the majority of their life in the water. This knowledge and access are invaluable because they'll know where mantas like to pass through.
Our tour leader, Egan, who is an avid surfer and ocean expert, often takes guests on a zodiac to one of his favourite spots, where within minutes you could have two manta rays gliding past — slowly and completely unbothered.
Spinner dolphin pods
There's also nothing more incredible than when nature shows up unannounced. And when your captain can detour for dolphins (and actually does!), you know you’ve made the right call joining a micro cruise. So imagine when a pod of around 200 spinner dolphins fall into pace alongside the dhoni.
One of our travellers recalled how, in her experience, a mother and calf swam quietly together for a while before the calf broke into play, and the whole pod lifted into a display – leaping, spinning, scattering across the surface. The best part is that when aboard a small dhoni, it can position itself nearby without disturbing them.
Hawksbill and green turtles in their element
Drifting through the shallows over seagrass meadows by the house reefs, and out in deeper water around the coral atolls, you can encounter hawksbills and green turtles. With small groups of up to twelve guests, there's room to spread out so each traveller gets their own quiet moment with a turtle, rather than crowding a single animal. Across a week of sailing through multiple atolls, you start to collect more and more of these incredible snorkelling moments.
Nurse sharks at sunrise
The idea of getting into the water with a shark is not as scary as it sounds if it's a nurse shark. These suction feeders have only two small front teeth and a vacuum, so they are considered harmless when swimming nearby.
With the dhoni anchored overnight near a known nurse shark site, guests are able to jump in the water at sunrise — a full hour before the day-trip boats begin arriving from the islands. So by the time 30 or 40 other snorkellers are piling into zodiacs in the distance, you'd already have had the site to yourselves and are sailing on. It's often one of the most memorable encounters of the trip.
The coral ecosystem
Guided by a crew who know these atolls intimately, you'll find pockets of vivid, healthy coral. Coral gardens come alive with fish coming in every direction. There are parrotfish nipping coral heads, butterflyfish flickering past, and shimmering schools of fusiliers turning. In a small group, there is space to swim and quietly follow a school as it moves, while letting the reef carry on around you.
However, the Maldives' underwater landscape is still under pressure from coastal development, dredging, and the construction of new resort islands, and reef conditions can vary considerably from one site to the next. This is why our dhoni crew treat the itinerary as a starting point rather than a fixed schedule, so the reefs get a chance to recover between visits. The crew are often in the water at almost every stop, actively photographing coral and monitoring its condition, with the flexibility to reroute and rotate between sites when needed.
Why the small ship difference matters:
- Guests are first in the water. While day-trip boats run on schedule, the dhoni can anchor overnight near the next morning's wildlife and is in the water before anyone else arrives. This can mean On Water Expeditions guests are often the only people snorkelling at a given site — a rarity in a country that sees more than a million visitors a year.
- More time for activities. On a dhoni expedition, the vessel is your basecamp with the beauty of waking up somewhere new each day. Snorkelling, sandbar landings, beach barbecues, and visits to local island communities are part of the voyage rather than short side trips — giving you more time to experience the islands, above and below the water.
- Snorkelling is tailored to the group. Confident swimmers can head out with a guide to deeper sites, while less experienced snorkellers stay closer in with the crew among calmer water. With a handful of guests on board, there is a greater level of personalisation.
- The route flexes around reef health and wildlife sightings. Itineraries are flexible, allowing the crew to assess coral condition and rotate between sites to avoid overworking any one reef. This is part of On Water Expeditions' commitment to low-impact and sustainable travel.
With no more than 12 passengers and fresh onboard meals cooked by your personal chef, joining a Maldives Dhoni voyage is a truly intimate way to experience the islands, where adventure is built into every journey. View the itinerary →