Underwater Photographer, Stuart Philpott, Visits at Jawakara

Acclaimed underwater photographer and journalist, Stuart Philpott visited Jawakara Islands Maldives a few weeks after the resort opened and was thrilled with what he experienced:

“Prodivers, based at brand new 5-star resort Jawakara Islands Maldives, had only been open a week when two orcas were spotted hunting and killing a tiger shark. They even managed to capture drone footage of the whole ‘never seen before’ event and post it on social media. Dive centre manager, Mosti Ruffian, said during my visit, ‘I am so excited to be here, we are located close to a deep-water highway. Anything can turn up. We recently had a whale shark passing by and pilot whales were sighted too’. The team had already identified a number of local hot spots including channel crossings, a manta cleaning station and a reef where divers regularly encounter more than 50 turtles on a single dive!

“The dive centre is a large ‘C’ shaped building with a central decked area furnished with chairs, tables and palm trees ideal for divers to sit, relax and fill in logbooks. Facilities include a shop/reception area complete with office, classrooms, compressor room, service/repair workshop, toilets and a huge wet area for washing and storing dive equipment. There are currently 50 dive sites on offer, boat journey times are between 15 minutes and one hour. The boat jetty is just a short walk across the beach front. Prodivers also offer the full range of PADI recreational training courses including Apollo scooters, which are a must for channel crossings and reef exploration.

“Turtle Rock is without doubt the best dive site in the area. Located on the outer reef just 15 minutes boat ride from the dive centre. Hawksbill turtles are everywhere. Maybe they should consider renaming the site Turtle Soup! On one safety stop I counted 6 turtles passing below me. Divers and underwater photographers don’t seem to bother them so it’s possible to get very close. This site is packed full of marine life including nurse sharks, moray, puffers, barracuda, shoals of snapper and many more reef fish species. It’s also possible to see reef sharks, dolphins, tuna and sting rays patrolling along the drop off. I also dived a site inside the lagoon called Haleemu Giri which was also packed full of Hawksbill turtles. Marine life sightings included trevally, batfish, glassfish, pufferfish, butterfly fish and shoals of fusiliers and snapper.

“For a change of scenery, we ventured north to explore two wreck sites and brought the Apollo scooters with us. The boat journey took about an hour, but we were entertained by a pod of spinner dolphins along the way, riding our bow wave. The first site called Shipyard was actually two wrecks Skipjack 1 and 2. Mosti guided us down to the prop of skipjack 1, which is the smaller wreck lying on its port side at a max depth of 30m. The colourful coral encrusted prop made a good backdrop for pictures. We moved across to Skipjack 2 which lies perpendicular to the reef. Originally the bow used to break the surface by a good 5 or 6m but this has now broken off and lies next to the hull. Conditions couldn’t have been any better. There was virtually no current and clear blue water. A huge shoal of batfish encircled us on the safety stop.

“There are thousands of anemones plastered over the seabed at Anemone thila. But trying to find an anemone showing some of its colourful outer casing, with and anemone fish and a diver looking in the right direction was a little trickier to co-ordinate. I circumnavigated the thila and found a few anemones tightly closed up exposing the brightly coloured outer casing but alas no anemone fish inside. There were so many different shades of purple, red and pink to choose from. Eventually I found an ideal subject and after 10 minutes taking pictures got the composition I wanted.

“Jawakara Islands is the fifth Maldives resort designed and built by the Swedish/Maldivian owners and they have focused all their previous knowledge and experience into building the ultimate 5-star resort. Mosti at Prodivers has already found some great dive sites and with manta cleaning stations, channels and the amazing Turtle Rock already on the schedule I’m sure Jawakara will soon be a favourite for divers.”

Thank you to Stuart Philpott for sharing his article and incredible images with us.