For travelers to this dreamy archipelago, helping keep its waters and beaches pristine is a vacation win.
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Sleek, black, and diamond-shaped, they glided on nine-foot wings, mouths agape, below me. The reef manta rays had congregated in Hanifaru Bay, a shallow inlet in the Baa Atoll, and were spiraling in a cyclone formation to feed.
They are one of the reasons the Maldives is such a spectacular destination for the style of tourism I love to do, which requires a wetsuit and fins. It doesn't hurt that this nation of 1,192 islands in the Indian Ocean is also home to the seventh-largest and fifth-most-diverse coral reef on the planet.
Author's summary: The Maldives offers a unique tourism experience.