V221

Special Maldives
Aug 3-13 Issue
MV Carpe Novo
43 Meter Liveaboard
S t .
SomeTimes
The life and times of Greg Lemoine, International Educator since 2001.
V221
MALDIVES #4
11 DAYS ABOARD THE CARPE NOVO
A DIVING DREAM
9 full days of diving at 3 dives a day
average. Two Night dives. Spacious
Liveaboard conditions for only 13
Divers. Excellence!
See more newsletters, pictures, Issue and 16 videos - September at www.itre.us / 2020

page 2
Thank You to the Entire Crew
It was a pleasure to be on the Carpe Novo
for an 11 day cruise. Not only is this ship a
dive Liveaboard, the crew makes it a Five
Star Cruise around the Maldives. So
thank you to the following:
Captain: Shareef
Chef: Kelum
Chef: Mulla Baaii
Rofiq: Room Boy
Faarooqu: Engineer
Paayaal: Emgineer
Ajith: Bartender
We spent a lot of time diving,
but we spent even more time
onboard the Novo. Our trip took
us from the capital Malé , south to
Vaavuu and South Ari atolls and
then far to the North to dive in
Shaviyani Atoll. You can check out the maps
on the next few pages. The whole map takes
four pages from North to South.
Back to the crew, they really make guests
feel like they are on a cruise. If you need
anything, they make it happen. Your bed is
often made fresh before you return from the
first dive or finish breakfast. Then you go on
the next dive. The cruise really is Dive, Eat,
Sleep, Repeat.
This is my second Carpe trip in two years.
Both the Carpe Diem and the Carpe Novo
are very special experiences because of the
crews on board. Without the crews, they
would simply be great ships with a lot of
room. The crew makes it both a Diving
Experience and a 5 Star Cruise. It is all in the
details.
Dive, Eat,
Sleep,
Repeat
Watch how easily Doc parks the
dohni right next to the Novo
in gusting winds. Rofiq
leaves a fresh towel in
a new creative shape
on a freshly made
bed every morning.
Chef Kelum works
all hours of the day
to provide your
m e a l s a n d
remember specific
food needs.
Farooqu and Payaal
k e e p t h e m o t o r s
purring. Shareef keeps
the ship moving to each
atoll. If we aren’t moving, he
may be teaching a few novices how
to catch our next breakfast off the stern. No
matter what, Ajith is ready with a beer, glass
of wine, or a fancy umbrella drink to
celebrate the day’s dives.
The Carpe Novo Dhoni crew thinks always of
safety. No one jumps in until there is a clear
signal from Doc and the dive guides. Dive
briefings are clear and drawn out. The guides
really know the fish behaviors and where to
find the pelagics. Most of all, the dive team
pays attention to their divers and meet their
needs.
Thank You to the entire crew!
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us Carpe Novo

Maldives
Trip #4
page 3

page 4
A
KIKO AND FRANCESCO?
WHAT A COINCIDENCE!
It All Started in the Philippines
Francesco and Akiko are a wonderful couple that
I dove with on the Infinity Liveaboard in the
Philippines. Take a look back to V211, December
2018. What a surprise when Francesco comes
up and gives me a hug in the Malé airport. I had
no idea they were signed up for the same
Maldives trip I was signed up for. As I often say…
What a Small World!
Where to Next?
I had no success trying to talk Francesco and
Akiko into another trip. Like me, they would like to
leave it up to fate and another surprise in the
future. Who knows where it will be next? There is
a list of places I have not been to dive. See you
another time F & A!
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

Captain
“Doc”
Dive Service
Expert
Maahil
Dive Service
Expert
Ivan
page 5
The Dhoni Crew
Dive
Instructor
Kooky
Super DM
Iyaan
Dive
Instructor
Hussain
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 6
Manta
Rays
At Cleaning Stations
Where are they?
The Maldives are known for Mantas and Whale
shark sightings. There are numerous “cleaning
stations” where mantas go to get cleaned by
wrasse. Usually, such sights are shallow (15m/
45ft or less) coral mounds. The mantas get their
bodies cleared of parasites by the little wrasse
multitudes. Such a relationship between life
forms is called symbiosis.
You don’t always see mantas at the cleaning
stations. It’s wild ocean, not a zoo. But your
chances are very high. We hit pay dirt at our first
manta station. At least six or seven huge mantas
were coming and going. It’s hard to know how
many because no more than four were on the
mound at any one time. The Mantas are just too
big. It’s like a car wash that can only service a
specific amount of cars at a time.
What is the dive like?
Basically, when you are taken by a dive boat to a
cleaning station, the focus is just on the Mantas.
A lot of times, the coral mound is set off from the
reef in a sandy area so divers just surround the
mound to get a view of the mantas passing over
the mound to get cleaned. The main rule in the
Maldives is to keep a good five meters between you
and the station and NEVER float OVER the station
itself. Otherwise the mantas get scared off.
60 Minutes of Awesome!
A usual dive is 55 minutes and and 5 minutes for
ascent, including the 3 minute safety stop at 5m/15ft.
Cleaning stations are a different dive plan. We
descended well away from the mound and formed a
small group down current from the mound. I was
overweighted so I didn’t need to “hook” into a rock.
Others used their hooks so they didn’t have to fin in
the current or use their fingers to hang onto rocks.
(Hanging onto a rock for 55 minutes is very tiring.)
Anyway, we were the first divers to the station that
morning. One absolutely huge manta and two large
mantas were trading off time getting cleaned. They
would swoop in and hover so the wrasse could get
to work on eating parasites.
Surface Jumping?
Before any other boats showed up, we were treated
to a surface jump. The huge manta finished his
cleaning shot up vertically to the surface. He didn’t

page 7
just swim away. He breached
completely and crashed down
o n i t s b a c k ! T o t a l l y
unexpected. Totally awesome
to behold. According to the
DMs, they do this to show off
for the females.
Going to the Dentist and a
Flyby?
Mantas don’t have teeth. They
feed mainly on plankton and
small crustaceans and use a
filtering system like whale
sharks do. But they still have to
get the dead tissues and
parasites out of their mouths. I
was treated to the next page
photo op which I had never
seen before. It doesn’t get
He breached
completely and
crashed down on
its back!
Totally Awesome
to behold.

page 8
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 9
m u c h b e t t e r t h a n o u r
experience. Wait…it got
better. One of the larger
mantas passed a few
inches over my head as it
left the cleaning station.
There were no less than 40
divers circled around the
cleaning station by the time we
had used up our 55 minute dive
time. Of all those 40 divers, one
manta chose me to swim right over.
Fadiculous! That’s how I managed to get the
main photo above. Those are my bubbles!
Inches away man! Inches!
bay. The rangers blamed
it on the rainy weather
coming and informed
o u r d i v e t e a m n o
m a n t a s h a d b e e n
spotted in the past six
days. Our empty day
made it seven straight
days of no mantas.
I will just have to go back
again to see the manta schools!
Our trip also took us to an internationally
protected manta bay where schools of up to
50 mantas are usually seen. The local
rangers report sightings to the resorts and
liveaboards. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to
see such massive numbers on our dive in the
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 10
See more newsletters, pictures,
and

Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in
vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore
eu A feugiat Truly nulla International facilisis vero eros et accumsan Group et iusto
odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit
augue duis te feugait nulla facilisi.
of Divers
page 11
One of the most exciting aspects of my Liveaboard experiences is the international flavor of the
divers and the crews. This trip offered a variety of nationalities and the following spoken
languages: English, Malidivan, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, American,
Chinese, and Arabic. Of course, English was the language most shared between all of us.
Francesco Foghetti
Artyom Anikeyev
Akiko Shinko
Ming Li
Alain Vandersmissen
Xueqin Yang
Susan Welburn
Greg Lemoine
Tang Yan
Julian Manuel
Karolien Derwael
Zhang Tian
Gleb Anikyev
The crew came from Maldives, Sri
Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and
perhaps a few I did not find out. I
apologize if I didn’t represent any
countries or languages.

page 12
Calling All Nurses !!
Diving with hundreds of
nurse sharks at night is
like…
Night Dive. My favorite kind of diving. It doesn’t get much better than
this. The dive briefing is quick with very little information. The idea is
for most of it to be a surprise. I was not surprised because I had done
this same dive last year. It was even better this year.
We dove down to about 8 meters just after the sun set. The dive team
wanted to get us in place before all the other dive groups descended
and crowded us out. Spectacular. There were a lot more sharks this
year. Seeing them in the dusk allowed me to see just how many are
actually swimming around us. I would say, at least a hundred or more.
Every direction you look. Shark. Shark. Shark. Ray. Shark. They love
laying down in the sandy channels, sometimes right on top of each

page 13
Have you ever lain
down next tp several
sharks at night? I
have. Tian shot the
evidence.
other in piles. Once in a while, a
ray with come flying close to the
sand.
Every once in a while, if you are
kneeling on the sand, a nurse
will sidle up next to you and give
you a nudge - like it’s saying
“move over, this is my spot”.
That is a crazy feeling. It gets a
bit more enervating as the water
gets darker and darker. It seems
like more and more sharks
arrived as the water darkened
and all you could see was in
your torch beam or someone
else’s beam. Totally amazing.
According to local lore, the
reason Alimathaa in VaaVu Atoll
is so popular for nurse sharks
and rays, is due to local
fishermen cleaning their catch
along the shores of Alimathaa.
Now there is a resort and a long
jetty. Boats of snorkelers and
divers are perpetually visiting
and the resort (most likely) is still
feeding the sharks even though
it is now against the law.
This was my second time to
night dive in Alimathaa. The first
time was exciting to see the
ballet dancing of the nurses as
they attempted to eat or escape
from the small yellow fish. This
trip, for me, was enhanced by
the sheer numbers of creatures
below.
Iyaan took us down to depth and
let us take a lot of pictures in
one little area. As the darkness
closed around us, he led our
small group into other areas
nearer the jetty and farther out
into the sandy pathways.
Everywhere we looked, there
were even more sharks. Each
and every sandy area had
sharks. Unbelievable.
I got some excellent close up
photos and even tried a selfie
with a few sharks. Luckly, Tian
took the group photo you see
above. I just couldn’t fit all of us
into a selfie.

page 14
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 15
N
Type to enter text
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 16
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us
page 17

page 18
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us
page 19

page 20
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 21
S
See more newsletters, pictures, and videos at www.itre.us

page 22
2015-2019
Nikon AW130
4,000 Images
and Videos
PRO MALIS DETRACTO
AN MAGNA AUGUE
All of the photos and videos (well almost every one) featured in my newsletters, from
underwater in the past four years , have been taken with my Nikon AW130. After
almost 4,000 underwater images and videos, it is time to say “ma-asalama” to the
AW130.
PROS AND CONS
This light weight camera sells for about $350 without a case. Without
an underwater case, it can withstand 4 atmospheres of pressure.
That’s 30m/99ft underwater. The one and only CON is
if the door is not securely closed…
GAME OVER.
It happened on my second dive of the eighth day onboard the
Carpe Novo. I didn’t dive in with it. I didn’t put it in the
freshwater bath. I simply had it around my neck while I rinsed
off my hair to get it out of my eyes. Damn! After my shower, I
set up my gear and checked the camera door before I placed it
in the freshwater camera bin. Damnit. That was the first time I
had worn it around my neck before placing it in the bin.
Water got into the camera case. Game over. Of course, a bag
of rice didn’t work. Sun drying didn’t work. Packets from new
electronics (that absorb) didn’t work. Game over.
It’s a fantastic camera. The only way to water damage
the camera is human error, specifically not closing the
door properly. Even a grain of sand will do it.
I love this camera. It’s been a real workhorse. Amazon
still has them listed. Time to order a new one. Maybe I’ll
get the yellow one this time. Better yet, I’ll try the W300
that Nikon came out with.
See See more more newsletters, pictures, and and videos videos at www.itre.us at