Goodbye 2025!
What a Year 2025 was!
With so much success and change we would like to share all our updates from the past year.
First to mention it is our honor receiving the five-star rating at our dive center. Proving our standard of safety and commitment to give our divers the best experiences. We proudly represent another year as a PADI Eco Centre, and strive to keep updating our Green Fins progress.
Starting off with PADI Certifications. Teaching all sorts of people, from entry level open water to brave hearted rescue divers! We had 37 divers complete scuba courses with us, and 15 Discover Scuba Divers try diving for the first time! As well as lots of enthusiastic snorkelers joined us to marvel at some of Lhaviyani’s marvelous Marine Life.
On that note we also have taken pride in recording all the megafauna we saw in 2025. We recorded 336 turtles, 552 sharks and rays, and 560 dolphins sighted! around Lhaviyani whilst diving, snorkeling, on boat trips and even from the Naifaru shoreline.
Throughout 2025 we have made many contributions to citizen science through Coral Watch surveys, REEF Fish ID surveys and weekly Dives Against Debris. Part of our contribution to the PADI Aware Blue Print for Ocean Conservation meant we have adopted our local sites for clean up dives. In 2025 we had 150 people join our dives, collecting 12 356 pieces of debris and collecting 981.3 Kg’s in total!
With the help of our expanding Coral Restoration Volunteer Program our Coral Garden has diversified with many different structures. We currently house 30 artificial dome frames, 2 table frames, 10 coral trees as nurseries and 12 coral ropes. Each growing a range of different species that encompass mostly coming from Acropora, Pocillopora and Porite families.
In the new year we aim to keep expanding our coral garden, adding more fragments and working towards our goal of out planting to degraded areas around our neighboring reefs. We also have exciting news about becoming a PADI Aware Foundation Grantee for a project called Sea Knights. This allows Aqua Dive and Water Sports to teach a chosen 36 kids from Naifaru to teach them Open water and Dive against Debris scuba courses. Inspiring ocean advocacy in the youth of Maldives and opportunities to see their local reef systems.
Lastly we had welcomed Jade, a South African Dive Instructor, who helped run our operation and start new projects, including the Sea Knights Program, during her stay on Naifaru. Although she will be saying a sad goodbye at the end of January 2026, it will be for a new adventure to pursue a bachelor’s degree in environmental science. It is with much anticipation we will be welcoming our new team member Mariette. Arriving end of January from Netherlands to take over Aqua Dive and Water Sports daily operation. She has a background of working in Coral Disease treatment and Dive Instruction. We look forward to all she will be bringing with her into the new year!
May 2026 be an ambitious, successful year, filled with incredible marine sightings and exciting new divers in the making!