3 Best things to see & do in Maldives

Growing up to 9m wide, these elegant but harmless plankton feeders are a spellbinding sight for the diver. Hanifaru Bay, a huge lagoon on the Baa Atoll Hanifaru in the Maldives, has become renowned as a global manta ray hotspot.

Mantas gather here in their hundreds, along with whale sharks and other big pelagics, to engage in a feeding frenzy on the unusually-rich plankton blooms that appear here each year from June to October.

Diving is banned in Hanifaru Bay, but if ever you wanted to snorkel with mantas, this is just about as good as it gets.

Everyone’s idyllic archipelago is also beloved, it seems, by whales. They’re here year-round, but different species appear at different times; blue whales (November to May) and humpbacks (June to October) are the headliners, but minke, fin, sperm, melon-head and Bryde’s and beaked whale can also be spotted. Organise tours through your hotel.

The warm tropical waters of this dreamy archipelago are one of the few places in the world that’s home to whale sharks all year round.

They tend to favour the western side of the Indian Ocean archipelago from May to December, when plankton blooms in Hanifaru Bay, then head to the east until April.