Stuart Philpott is wined and dined at the five-star Lily Beach Resort, but finds that the underwater delights can easily match the topside temptations, making this a match made in heaven for those who enjoy the finer things in life
Blowing bubbles by day and drinking bubbly by night! This summed up my action-packed week at the five-star all-inclusive Lily Beach Resort in South Ari Atoll. Prodivers management couple Ludwig Hofmann and Svenja Ostertag guided me around the local dive sites with non-stop mantas, whale sharks, turtles and yellow snapper encounters, followed by an unlimited supply of champagne every evening! What a perfect combination -I had never seen so much bubbly consumed at a single resort.
Five-Star Luxury Meets South Ari Atoll Diving
Current GM, Laurent Driole, said more than 20,000 bottles of champagne are polished off each year, and we are not talking cheap plonk. European clientele seemed to favour Taittinger and the Asian market preferred Moët & Chandon. I’m not really a big champagne drinker, but after a few days I began to get a taste for it. Parents would often drop their kids at creche after breakfast and spend a few quality hours by the poolside catching rays and downing a bottle of champers or two. I watched one happy couple from Dubai enjoying a sneaky tipple at 7am in the morning while waiting for their seaplane transfer back to Malé!
Laurent was probably the most ‘hand’s on’ GM I have ever met, always welcoming guests on arrival and departure and constantly active throughout the day, asking for customer feedback on the facilities, food, staff, etc, as well as offering information on day-today activities. Laurent was also a keen scuba diver. In 2025, his mission was to attract more divers to the resort. He had already won my vote!
Resort Upgrades and Villa Comfort
Lily Beach celebrated it’s 30-year anniversary last November. Laurent said they were currently going through a refurbishment phase, discretely updating villas, restaurants, renewing furniture, and repainting and renovating the two swimming pools. This didn’t affect my stay whatsoever; in fact, I couldn’t find any major issues with the resort or the dive centre. I really did have a ‘whale shark’ of a time. My luxury beach villa was strategically located two minutes’ walk from the dive centre in one direction and two minutes’ walk from the main Lily Maa buffet restaurant. Could life get any better?
Lily Beach Resort, aka Huvahendhoo island, is roughly 600 metres long by 110 metres wide lying in an east-west direction. The length is almost doubled by an additional 40 overwater villas bringing the total room count up to 125. It’s located in the South Ari Atoll roughly 80km (25 minutes by seaplane) from the international airport based at Malé. My only slight niggle was I arrived during school holiday period and there were quite a few families with young kids. Even though there is a separate adults-only bar/pool area called Aqua, children are still allowed into the bar under the supervision of an adult but thankfully not in the pool. Human nature as it is, there was always someone flouting the rules.
Meet the Prodivers Team
Ludwig and Svenja had previously worked for Prodivers at Kuredu four-star resort followed by a stint at 3.5-star Innahura, located in the Lhaviyani Atoll. After a two-year break from diving they returned to manage Lily Beach in June 2024. Svenja was happy to be my guide/model but halfway through the week I was introduced to Valerie Ponocny, who lived in Switzerland. Valerie was one of many satisfied repeater guests that came back to the resort several times each year. Full of energy and enthusiasm, Valerie was keen to help me with my pictures. Valerie loved eagle rays and during our dive at Noo Giri, we encountered a solitary juvenile ray that allowed us to get very close. Valerie was so blown away by the experience a few weeks later she added a tattoo of an eagle ray to her upper arm!
Lily Beach Resort has a very nice house reef which is extremely popular with divers and snorkellers. Regular sightings include morays, nurse sharks, turtles, rays and jacks. The wall maxes out at 22m and then gradually slopes down to 40m. Ludwig said qualified divers can dive with or without a guide. He also mentioned there were plenty of interesting macro subjects, including harlequin shrimps, ghost pipefish and frogfish.
Dive Sites of South Ari Atoll
Prodivers offer 57 dive sites and regularly visit 20. The daily dive boat departs at 8.15am for the first dive and returns to the dive centre at around 10.30am to pick up any late risers for a second dive. After lunch there is an ‘easy’ afternoon dive departing around 2.15pm and returning at 4.15pm. compressor operator/equipment cleaner, but are looking to recruit two more diving instructors very soon.
Did you know?
Lily Beach is the second Prodivers dive centre in the South Ari Atoll, which is home to some of the most famous and well-known dive spots across the Maldives.
Wall to wall yellow snapper encounters are guaranteed with the added possibility of seeing whitetips, reef sharks and eagle rays
For guaranteed manta and whale shark sightings, South Ari Atoll is one of the best areas in the Maldives. September through to October is the optimum time for whale shark sightings although they can be seen all year round. Ludwig said on every trip there is roughly a one-in-three chance of encountering a whale shark. Mantas can also be seen all year round, but peak time is September. A few weeks before I arrived, they spotted 18 mantas on one dive. Ludwig booked me on the early morning boat to Madi Faru, a manta cleaning station located 20 minutes away. I was joined by Julie and Anthony, a retired couple from Kent, who were looking forward to their first-ever manta experience.
My camera housing is made of soft aluminium and as I tightened up the stainless-steel screws, one of the threads stripped and the handle literally fell off in my hands. We were less than five minutes away from the dive site and my housing was now virtually unusable. I was having an absolute meltdown. With Ludwig’s help, I managed to lash the handle with cable ties, and this got me through the dive. We saw two mantas at the cleaning station, and they stayed with us for a good 15 minutes. When we returned to the dive centre, Ludwig called the resort’s maintenance department and they managed to re-thread my aluminium housing for me. Crisis averted!
Complimentary water, soft drinks, fruit, cake and towels are available onboard. The diving staff prepare all the cylinders, regulators and BCDs. Divers just need to analyse and sign for their own gas mix if using nitrox. The dive boat is around 20 metres long, has plenty of shade and includes a toilet and freshwater showers. Ludwig said it carries a maximum of 12 guests and four guides. Usually, the ratio is one guide to two guests which is all part of the five-star service. Equipment is rinsed off in fresh water back at the dive centre, hung up to dry and then locked away in the storeroom overnight. I noticed the dive centre was also very busy with introductory and entry level courses. Ludwig said they currently have five full-time staff and one dedicated to courses.
Photography Challenges and Underwater Etiquette
There’s always some chatter about using strobes/flash guns in underwater photography and how it affects the well-being of marine life. Some individuals get highly emotional about the subject. Personally, if my flash guns are causing any physical distress, I will immediately stop using them. During my visit the dive centres and resorts based at South Ari arranged a meeting to discuss the rules and regulations for whale shark encounters.
After the meeting Ludwig explained they had made a decision to ban underwater photographers from using flashguns near whale sharks. But as far as I was aware, there were no rules regarding using flash with mantas.
Svenja, Valerie and I jumped in a few hundred metres away from Lily Beach Manta Point cleaning station and then drifted onto the site. I noticed that other dive centres and liveaboards chose to jump directly on top, which was not the brightest thing to do in a strong current! When we got to the pinnacle there were three mantas at the cleaning station.
I positioned myself at the base some 5m away and settled in to take pictures. The visibility was a little grainy due to a group of divers shuffling about on the seabed up current. As I started taking pictures some guy came over and started aggressively gesturing at me for using flash. I didn’t want to cause a scene so gave up and moved away. When I was at least 100 metres from the pinnacle, I looked behind and saw three mantas following me! Now, if my flashguns had in some way been harming the mantas, why would they be following? The chilled-out mantas stayed with us for the next five minutes circling and hovering overhead. As we contentedly made our way to the surface, I bumped into the same guy on his safety stop and he was still freaking out about me using flash.
Iconic Sites: Kuda Rah Thila and Beyond
Kuda Rah Thila is without doubt one of the most-iconic dive sites at South Ari. Wall to wall yellow snapper encounters are guaranteed with the added possibility of seeing whitetips, reef sharks and eagle rays. I’ve visited the site several times in the past and there is always more marine life action when the current is running, although this does make it more difficult to take pictures. I wanted to get a dramatic shot of the snapper swirling around Svenja. We were lucky enough to have the site all to ourselves before the liveaboards and local dive centres turned up. Conditions were a little dark and murky, but this just made the shot more atmospheric.
Anemonefish and turtles turned out to be my ‘meat and potato’ subjects for the week. Every dive site we visited seemed to have a photogenic anemonefish and several hawksbills nibbling on the sponges and corals. Noo Giri was an absolute ‘fest’ with enough fauna activity to keep my camera busy for the entire dive. Valerie was taking her modelling role seriously, changing hair styles and showing off tattoos.
Prodivers offer whale shark expeditions once a week. Boat journey times to the marine protected area take about one hour each way so it’s promoted as a full-day (two-tank) excursion. Our trip was slightly different to the norm as GM Laurent had loaned us a company speedboat.
Within 15 minutes we were on site scouting for tell-tale shark fins. We spent the next two hours patrolling up and down but disappointingly couldn’t find any whale sharks or any mantas in the shallow lagoon. As a consolation, we stopped off at Seventh Heaven on the return so I could get some shots of the colourful soft corals. Again, the current was running, but Svenja and I managed to reach the wall and get the job done. I visited the same site with Valerie a day earlier and we saw stingrays, turtles and whitetips.
Final Thoughts on Lily Beach Resort
My week at Lily Beach resort absolutely flew by. There had been so many effervescing moments in and out of the water, I wasn’t ready to leave and even considered stowing away at the dive centre. Apart from the elusive whale sharks, I managed to see all the other underwater favourites, including reef sharks, mantas, stingrays, snapper, turtle and anemonefish not forgetting the incredible sea fans and soft coral gardens. Prodivers really looked after me, and the other diving guests I met were friendly and sociable (the champagne had definitely helped). If I wanted to take a break from boat diving, there was always the superb house reef to explore with plenty of macro and wide-angle opportunities for my camera. Going all-inclusive makes a huge difference, especially peace of mind, knowing everything has been paid for upfront. I didn’t have to worry about my drinks bill for starters! Lily Beach has one of the best buffet restaurants in the Maldives. There is a massive choice of food, including a dedicated sushi bar, pizza/pasta station, and daily fish grill not forgetting the cheese counter offering more than 40 different varieties.
My newly refurbished beach villa ticked all the right boxes, it was clean, comfy, had a sea view and a pair of very inquisitive white-breasted waterhens peering in through the windows (these little birds are real characters and often seen around the villas). I really can’t see that GM Laurent will have any problems fulfilling his goal for 2025.
Guaranteed marine life encounters combined with a plush five-star resort and free-flowing champagne – what diver could resist?
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Lily Beach Resort a top choice for divers in the Maldives?
Lily Beach offers easy access to mantas, whale sharks, vibrant reefs and more than 50 dive sites, supported by Prodivers’ expert guides and five-star service.
When is the best time to see mantas and whale sharks in South Ari Atoll?
Peak manta season is September, while whale sharks can be seen year-round, with September–October offering the highest likelihood of encounters.
Does Lily Beach have a good house reef for diving and snorkelling?
Yes. The house reef features morays, nurse sharks, rays, macro species and a sloping wall from 22m to 40m, ideal for both divers and snorkellers.
What dive services does Prodivers at Lily Beach provide?
Prodivers offers guided and unguided dives, nitrox, courses, macro and wide-angle opportunities, and boat trips to over 50 sites across South Ari.
What marine life can divers expect to see in South Ari Atoll?
Expect mantas, whale sharks, eagle rays, turtles, reef sharks, yellow snapper, anemonefish, macro critters and spectacular soft coral gardens.
This article was originally published in Scuba Diver Magazine
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