HP Reef — North Male Atoll

Planning a trip?

Hotels, dive operators, gear, and how to get here are on the North Male Atoll location page.

Overview

Protected marine reserve also called Rainbow Reef for the dense soft-coral colors blanketing the pinnacles. Strong current funnels through the channel, attracting grey reef sharks and clouds of fusiliers. A swim-through cave at 20 m is the centerpiece.

What you'll see

4 species curated

Grey reef shark
year-round
Whitetip reef shark
year-round
Schooling fusiliers
year-round
Eagle ray
seasonal

Sightings evidence

1 record on file

Grey reef shark
high confidence
Last confirmed
Apr 2026
Recent records
130 within 10 km

Sources & methodology

How we summarise this

We aggregate confirmed occurrence records from GBIF and OBIS within a fixed radius of each dive site. Occurrence records confirm presence and reveal seasonality clustering, but they DO NOT measure per-dive probability — there is no eligible-effort denominator. We deliberately do not publish a numeric '% chance of sighting' from this data.

Sources

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — GBIF Secretariat
Ocean Biodiversity Information System — IOC-UNESCO
iNaturalist — California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic Society
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature
Wildbook (Sharkbook, Whale Shark, Manta Matcher) — Wild Me
OBIS-SEAMAP — Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab / OBIS
WoRMS — World Register of Marine Species — Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
FishBase — FishBase Consortium
Atlas of Living Australia — CSIRO / GBIF Australia
REEF Volunteer Fish Survey — Reef Environmental Education Foundation

Conditions

Month	Water	Visibility	Current
Jan	27–29 °C	20–30 m	strong
Feb	27–29 °C	25–35 m	strong
Mar	28–30 °C	25–35 m	moderate
Apr	28–30 °C	25–35 m	moderate
May	28–30 °C	15–25 m	moderate
Jun	27–29 °C	10–20 m	moderate
Jul	27–29 °C	10–20 m	moderate
Aug	27–29 °C	10–20 m	moderate
Sep	27–29 °C	15–25 m	moderate
Oct	27–29 °C	15–25 m	moderate
Nov	27–29 °C	20–30 m	strong
Dec	27–29 °C	20–30 m	strong

Season calendar

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Peak season highlighted · current month outlined

Gear for this site

Beyond the basic kit

Reef hook — Hooking onto barren rock in the channel keeps you positioned for shark traffic.
SMB — Drift exits over deep water mandate a surface marker.

Next step

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