5/9 or5/11 elf

Cool cheers for that.

Always good to hear other peoples feedback.

I can imagine the ELF going really well in some long walling points straight top to bottom stuff!

PRJ,

Iv been twice and done quite a lot of research leading up to both trips and in general I think your looking at maybe £400-500 a week on a boat per person. You can get a private boat or get on a shared trip. land based camps are also an option.

North Male atolls (possibly the best set up?) would not require an internal flight so maybe add on 600-700 for the international (I did 14 days in north male for £1450 - 5 years ago) honkies, cokes, jails, chickens all fantastic perfect waves. Best months for clean easy waves i belive are march/april/may. I went in april and it was waist to head and half the whole time. Crowds were medium but the waves cranked all day so we got a fair few quite sessions and the vibe was fun even with 15-20 guys out (probably worst crowd we had).

Central atolls (where i went this april) - roughly same price but we had to pay a fuel surcharge (www.maldivesurf.com does regular trips organised by anthony yep best place for instand info on the area) - We spent 8 days here and about 3 back in north male. For 11 nights (choice of any breaks between central atolls and north male) with 8 people on a boat that could take 11/12 we paid about 1000 quid each including the fuel surcharge to get the boat down to the central atolls, we bought a one way flight and cruised back. The waves never really got above head high the whole time in the central atolls (compared to the last trip to north male id say a bit smaller for sure), I thought they were faster and definelty shallower (knee deep at times but not scarey, just fun!). The best bit was we didnt surf one other session with another boat, it was a great adventure, we only passed 2 boats crusing in 8 days. There were a few stand out spots like machines and hadigilla (you can goggle search for pics) which were easily as good as cokes/honkies/chickens, but some of the other waves were not as good quality and the cruising was longer between. we had to buy an interal flight for around 100 (whole trip price for 11 days was around 1900 i think inclu internation flights).

Southern/outer atolls, think its just between feb/april, best and biggest set up i hear but i havent been, used to be uncrowded but I think everyone heads down there now in those few months to get away from the crowds that are suppose to plague north male atolls. But to be honest with you i dont see the crowd problems in north male atoll, espeically in april as loads of boats are down in the southern atolls thining the crowd. Even this year i was expecting the crowds to be bad, but we had to head up to honkies to surf it again after the first trip. We surfed with something like just ourselves to maybe 20 guys in the 3 days we surfed there and the vibe was totally cool, I was on a constant conveyer belt of waves and im by no means a great surfer, so many waves to go around, the waves were a bit overhead and had a good bit of power, super long rides.

I think if you want good overhead waves go to outer atolls in april (but you will pay a couple hundred extra for return internals and fuel surcharge) if you want isolation go central, if you want perfect fun waves with less hassel (no internal flights) go north male.

You can also stay in a guest house near cokes which might even be the cheapest option, you can goggle it for set prices, basically you can get a local ferry out to cokes island once a day for like $3 or something and stay in a guest house near the break AUD110 http://www.cokessurfcampmaldives.com/cokes-surf-camp/

might be not quite as fun as a boat trip as you would be limited to surfing just cokes and dont get the fun boat trip lifestyle (and chickens across the channel) but I think it would be really fun anyway

I booked my boat through tim at lineup explorers, german based company (you want to get a trip that charges in euros or us dollars as aud is a bad exchange at the moment) totally nice guy who will price match if you find a cheaper option (as he did with us) super on it with communications and very knowledgable/honest about the maldives.

let me know if you got any more questions about it if you do decide to go for a trip, i highly recommend you do it at least once!

Yeah it sounds really good. I'm going to look into it for sure. Was looking at other options like Costa Rica/Sri Lanka etc that I've done before for <£1000 but with the price of most longhaul flights at the moment most places seem to be pushing the £800 mark before you've even taken board fees etc into account...

Hey prj, I'm heading there in 3 weeks with Liquid Destination (Australian). Check out their website and Facebook page. They have an awesome reputation and are not afraid to travel to get away from any crowd probs. We are going Central Atolls and will go south if the weather suits. Reading this thread has me PUMPED for our trip. Thanks for your help on the fish page too mate, I ended up tracking down a 6'2 retro. Firewire quiver complete.

^^^^^^ remember TK. Photos or it didn't happen.

Stoked for you mate.

Man I'm jealous! Maldives does literally look like paradise.

Hi matt
most likely the central and northern atolls
What boat charter were you on or land based
The boats we are looking at are handufali`cobia and handu
if anyone has got any feedback on what is a good charter that would be great

PRJ - Yeah iv done sri lanka twice and costa rica once (got unlucky in costa rica somehow! storm stalled off the coast and brought messy waves for 2 out of 3 weeks!!) I think if you shop around you could probably get two weeks out of it for 1500 (north male atoll) - in my opinion if you can push for the extra 500 for funds over sri lanka you will get waves that are more than 50% better - the trip is a little pricey but with what a lot of surf camps/charters charge these days I recon its a good deal overall and you will come away feeling like its well spent. Sri lanka is also one of the most fun places i have ever been as an all round trip/experience, i guess a great trip would be get a flight with sri lankan airlines to the maldives with a stop over in colombo, do 7 -10 days on a boat charter and then spend a week or two in aragum bay. that would be an awesome trip!

Remedy - i went with lineupexplorers and we had the boat MV swell, it was a good boat overall but the AC was broke which I have to say equalled a lot of bad nights sleep for me, but in the end it didnt really bother us cause the crew were absolute legends, 5 of the nicest hard working guys ever. I think cobia and handu, handufali, I dont think you can go wrong with either of the handu's, saw them cruising and they looked nice, I think getting either of those if you can would be a good move, just shop around a get which ever one looks good there are a lot of different boats, 4 seasons explorer if you have unlimited funds (way out of my price range hah). You will enjoy both the northern and central atolls, plenty of perfect set ups

Tallkook - check out Machines in lammuu, best wave we came across in the centrals! call it machines because its like a machine makes the waves I recon

I really want to go again :/

thanks for your feedback matt. Thinking about going in june .What have your experiences been on what is the best time to go regarding crowds and quality waves plus favourable winds

Hi guys!
I have the same question! The board size.

I am 35 yo, 1,72m and 71 kg. Been surfing for 4 years and I put myself in a beginer-intermediate level.
I've been looking an ELF 6'1, but after reading preavious posts, i'm afraid that is going to be to big for me!
What do you think?