When you think about the Maldives, there are a couple things that come to mind, white beaches and azure waters, you have to go deeper to see why tourists keep coming back to the Maldives. The real beauty of the Maldives is its rich underwater marine life that can’t be rivaled by other tourist destinations. This small country in the Indian Ocean has over ten thousand different species of rays that call its water home.

Mantas are year round residents in the Maldives, they travel across the 26 atolls together with the changing seasons of the Maldives, they go where their food source go. These waters are rich in nutrients no wonder we find a huge number of marine life in waters of the Maldives, rays and whale sharks would go to shallow waters and feed together. These feeding between two amazing creatures is an underwater spectacle that everyone wants to see, a large number of tourists come to the Maldives to see this.

Tourism contributes heavily on the national income of the Maldives. A lot of tourist come to the Maldives wanting to see marine life at its finest, a recent study showed that manta ray diving and snorkeling bring an estimated $10 million each year. Despite this, manta rays are not yet a protected specie in the Maldives.