Whale Shark Boutique
Guesthouse island in South Ari. Its reef is measured from satellite; guest reviews live on the booking sites.
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House reef & underwater
Whale Shark Boutique · South Ari · a shared island reef
Good house reef
Reef Conditions · top 53% of the 297 reefs we have measured
Shore entry Measured
~158 m across the lagoon to the drop-off — a genuine swim, not a wade.
Living cover Measured
About 32% of the mapped reef reads as living coral or algae from satellite.
Heat history Measured
Peak heat stress 5.99 DHW since the imagery, 2 bleaching-alert years on record (2016, 2024).
From satellite this reef reads Good — roughly 32% living cover. We have not surveyed it in the water, so fish counts and big-encounter ratings stay pending. We don't estimate them.
Reef data modelled from Allen Coral Atlas benthic & geomorphic maps (CC BY 4.0) and NOAA Coral Reef Watch. No in-water survey — every figure above is a measurement. Marine icons: game-icons.net (CC BY 3.0).
Whale shark
Present year-round — the single most widely mis-stated fact about Maldivian wildlife. The South Ari protected area works as a resting and development ground for juvenile sharks rather than a stop on a migration, so the population persists instead of arriving and leaving. The record runs to over 6,000 sightings of nearly 400 identified individuals across two decades.
Reef manta ray
A northeast-monsoon animal on this side of the atoll — the mirror image of Baa. Rangali Madivaru, on the western flank, sees mantas from about December to April, with courtship and pregnant females concentrated between January and April.
Turtles — no atoll-level seasonal study exists; treat them as year-round residents rather than a season
Reef sharks — no atoll-level seasonal data
Photos
Where it is
3.48928, 72.78453The pin is the island centroid from our geocoding, not the building — properties on the same island share it. Satellite imagery © Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics.