maldives best

Best house reef to see octopus in the Maldives

I was amazed after seeing so many octopuses in the reef. It did not take long to discover these creatures which are usually very difficult spot as they are blend to the surrounding. But, in this reef it took less than 15 minutes after I jumped off to the reef and I saw 4 octopuses in a small area. If I did more snorkeling I believe I would have found dozens of them.

Snorkeling

I saw octopus in my recently snorkeling trip to Kurumba house reef. I would say Kurumba reef is the best place to see octopus. Not all may enjoying watching octopus but I certainly do and I know I am not alone. Unlike other fish octopus does not have tail or fins to swim fast. They are a living creature that usually walks on the coral. They do swim as well but usually not very fast and definitely do not keep swimming around like other species of fish. Instead octopus spends it time moving on different coral, blending to the nature and waiting for its prey to come. They are very clever, they could change colour and adapt to any environment. After it just takes few seconds to do that and the way it blends to surrounding is amazing.

Instead of fins octopus have tentacles that have suckers on it. These suckers on the tentacles are very strong.

Octopuses are not friendly like turtles or box fish. They are shy creature that goes away if you get too close. Keep at least 2 meter distance and enjoy watching its movements.

I did not have much time, but I enjoyed watching them moving around in a tiny area. But, I didnt see them succeeding on capturing any prey. It seems quite hard to catch, despite good blending skills.

Kurumba Maldives is well known of its baby sharks in the lagoon. If you come to the lagoon at any time of the day there would be baby sharks swimming around. I enjoyed watching them swimming. At times there are schools of sardines, that's when it is really amazing to watch as these little sharks spend entire day and night chasing sardines.

In the house reef there are bigger sharks. They are dangerous to snorkel. They do not come towards you or even close. So, do not think of Jaws movies, that is just fantasy and not real for sure, that's not even Maldives. I could understand if there were great white sharks or tiger sharks it could be highly risky. But, in Maldives there are no great whites, tiger sharks are extremely rare and I have never heard of any such shark incident in the Maldives. Yes, there a person who got bitten by baby sharks when he tried to feed. But, that was his problem in the first place. He was feeding and after a while sharks mistakenly bit his foot. The guy was lucky as it was a shallow place and he quickly ran to the beach. Now, that involved only baby sharks, if you are thinking of feeding big sharks I am not sure such an incident would leave you alive. So, not feed sharks.



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