Kihaadhoo
One reef, shared by 2 properties on Kihaadhoo. Measured from satellite — the same water whichever of them you book.
Generated 2026-07-18 · Modelled from satellite · No in-water survey yet
6.0Very Good
The reef at Kihaadhoo’s island — shared by 2 properties here. Every guesthouse on this island snorkels the same reef, so we score the island, not the doorstep.
This is Reef Conditions — what a satellite can measure. The full Maldives Index, which adds fish life and big-animal encounters confirmed in the water, has not been awarded to any property yet.
What this is, and isn’t. Measured from the Allen Coral Atlas benthic and geomorphic maps (CC BY 4.0) and NOAA Coral Reef Watch heat-stress records (public domain). Its benthic class is “Coral/Algae” combined — a satellite cannot tell live coral from algae — so this is modelled reef cover, not verified coral health, and never a substitute for being in the water. Imagery vintage 2018-2021; heat stress since then is applied as a penalty.
3species have published seasonality for this atoll — Reef manta ray, Reef manta ray, Whale shark. Timing is monsoon-driven and cited.
Against the rest of the country.
The national median across 297 measured reefs is 6.
Marine life
Kihaadhoo · Baa Atoll · a shared island reef
Reef manta ray
Overwhelmingly a southwest-monsoon animal here, on the atoll’s eastern flank. Over 95% of acoustic detections at eastern Baa fell in the southwest monsoon, with near-zero activity in the northeast. Across more than a thousand survey days at Hanifaru, feeding was recorded on roughly 62% of them. Hanifaru alone accounted for 64% of detections in its site cluster.
Reef manta ray — the feeding window
Within the season, the timing is tidal rather than merely monthly. Mass feeding is driven by zooplankton concentrated by a back-eddy that Hanifaru’s particular reef shape creates, so spring tides around the full and new moon are the windows that matter. The largest “cyclone” feeding events happen only a handful of times a season.
Whale shark
Feeds here in the southwest monsoon alongside the mantas, drawn by the same plankton — but in far smaller numbers than South Ari: on the order of 95 sightings of 53 individuals across a decade.
Turtles — no atoll-level seasonal study exists; treat them as year-round residents rather than a season
Reef sharks — no atoll-level seasonal data
2 properties on this reef.
They share one reef, so they share one score. Which you pick changes your room, your dinner and your budget — it does not change the water.
Where this reef is
5.21531, 73.12474The pin is the island centroid from our geocoding — this is an island reef, so every property here shares both the reef and this point. Satellite imagery © Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics.
Pack for this reef.
Chosen from what we measured here — not a generic list.
The Reef Code
Non-negotiable. These reefs take decades to grow and seconds to damage — the same rules apply on every reef in the index.