Swim with turtles in the Maldives: Turtle Reef off Rasdhoo

Two meters below me, a turtle is calmly chewing on the reef. It briefly lifts its head, looks me over, keeps chewing. I just hover there and watch. Nobody calls us back to the boat, nobody pushes, no one says we have to get out after thirty minutes. Just us, the reef and all the time in the world.

A quick word first, in case you’re planning right now: The reef lies ten minutes by boat off Rasdhoo and is booked through the hotels. We were in the water for an hour and a half and counted about ten turtles. The reef sits two to five meters below the surface, so you don’t have to dive. And nobody feeds there — that’s why the animals stay calm.

But one thing at a time.

It was our second tour from Rasdhoo, again booked through our hotel. First stop: a sandbank, simply in the middle of the sea. White sand, nothing but blue all around, and us all alone. (On a similar sandbank in Egypt there were once two hundred people. Here: nobody.) We stayed a while, took photos, our feet in the warm shallow water, and simply enjoyed it.

Then we went on to a reef, also in the middle of the sea. That’s where our snorkeling tour began, accompanied the whole time by the hotel’s dive chief. He didn’t just look out for us and tow a life ring behind him for safety. On the side, he took really good photos and videos of us underwater, and we got them afterward as a gift. (In Egypt I once paid over a hundred euros for something like that.) The reef lay two to five meters below us and was maybe twenty meters wide. To the left and right it dropped steeply into the deep blue. On this narrow but endlessly long band, everything was gathered: fish in every color and shape, moray eels peering out of their holes, anemones, corals. In between, a few blacktip reef sharks, maybe two or three the whole time. My new friends, as I call them by now (the story behind that is in my first shark). They too gave us a wide berth again. They don’t want anything from us, and we don’t want anything from them.

And then the turtles. With the first one there was nothing but joy and excitement. Over the hour and a half there were surely ten. There were six of us, and we simply swam along the long reef in one direction, and again and again one was lying or grazing there. They weren’t bothered in the least. And why would they be: we were all alone again, after all.

We watched them chewing on the reef. Some came closer out of pure curiosity. We tried to keep our distance, the way I always do, but they came to us anyway, and then we hovered side by side for a while. In between there were even little scuffles among them, maybe a fight over the best spot.

The most beautiful thing about the day, in the end, wasn’t any single turtle. It was the calm. Everyone relaxed, the animals, the guides, us. No one looking at the clock, no “we have to get out in thirty minutes”. Just lying in the water at leisure, switching off and enjoying it. That’s exactly why I go to the sea.

By the way, the biggest highlight of the day for our son wasn’t even the water. On the way back he was allowed to steer the boat, the whole forty-five minutes back to the island. Just him and the sea. To this day he talks about it more than about the turtles. The hotel and the crew: simply great.

And soon we’ll be back.

Turtle Reef in the Maldives: same reef, different angle

The reef has a name I didn’t know back then: Turtle Reef, the turtle reef. The name keeps its promise — but it keeps quiet about the other half. Along the same band, sharks passed by several times that day, and I have written a separate article about them. Anyone who only expects the turtles will get a fright when the first dorsal fin shows up; anyone who knows beforehand takes a look and keeps snorkeling.

A practical note on that: there is more than one Turtle Reef in the Maldives. A second one lies off Dhigurah, in a different atoll, several hours away. So when booking, ask about the atoll, not the name. All the readings for this spot are on the island page for Rasdhoo.

Why the turtles weren’t bothered

Looking back, I think the calm that day had less to do with the animals than with us. There were six of us on a long reef, spread out, without time pressure. Nobody swam after a turtle, because nobody had to — every few minutes the next one came along anyway.

What it feels like when this balance tips, I experienced later on a whale shark tour from Dhigurah: fifty snorkelers to one animal. The animal was magnificent, the rest a wall of people. And at a boat stop with fed nurse sharks it tipped the other way — there the problem wasn’t too many people, but too much food.

I later met turtles elsewhere too, for example off Mauritius. The difference wasn’t the species, but how much time you get.

What I took away

The hour and a half in one go is the real luxury of this tour. In Egypt I was used to stops of thirty minutes, with an eye on the clock. Here nobody called us back — and that’s exactly how “saw a turtle” turned into an afternoon in which you watch them feed.

It doesn’t take much. My gear is simple, and for a reef that starts two meters below the surface, it’s completely enough. How the whole week on Rasdhoo and Fulidhoo went is in the trip report; all the islands and seasons are in the Maldives destination guide.

A note for planning: visibility at Turtle Reef varies noticeably over the day — around twenty-five meters in the morning, more like fifteen in the afternoon. For turtles it doesn’t matter; they’re close below you anyway. For footage it does. The readings for each spot are on the Rasdhoo island page.

Swimming with turtles near Rasdhoo: good to know

• Where: Boat tour from Rasdhoo (Rasdhoo Atoll, Maldives), organized through our hotel, the Summer Vibes Beach Front. First a sandbank, then a reef in the middle of the sea.
• Conditions (April 2025): 29 °C water temperature, over 20 meters visibility, around 5 meters water depth while snorkeling. Values from my logbook.
• The reef: is called Turtle Reef (SSI spot no. 530005) and lies on the east side of the atoll between Madivaru and Veligandu. It starts two to five meters below the surface, is narrow (about twenty meters) but very long, and drops steeply on both sides. Ideal for snorkelers.
• What you’ll see: Turtles (for us around ten in an hour and a half), plus moray eels, anemones, corals, loads of fish and the odd blacktip reef shark.
• Escort: For us, a dive chief with a life ring for safety, who took photos and videos on the side, free of charge. Ask the hotel about it.
• Keep your distance: Don’t touch anything, give the animals their space — they get harmed, and so can you: a cornered animal reacts unpredictably, and on the reef fire corals sting. If a turtle comes closer on its own, just hover calmly and relax.
• Don’t mix them up: There is a second Turtle Reef off Dhigurah, in a different atoll. When booking, ask about the atoll, not the name.
• Expect sharks: Blacktip reef sharks pass by on the same reef, for us two or three in an hour and a half. Anyone who knows beforehand won’t get a fright — more on that in Turtle Reef: where sharks show up.
• Time is the difference: an hour and a half in one go instead of the half hour I knew from Egypt. When booking, ask about the duration and the group size.