Maaya Thila

The pinnacle starts at about 6 metres, slopes gently to 12 and then drops below 30, so almost any profile works on it. The sides are cut with caves, overhangs and swim-throughs, and much of what lives here is tucked into that structure rather than sitting out in the flow. Work down one flank and back up onto the crown: there is no ground to cover on a thila this compact, only a rock to circle.

Maaya Thila is dived in daylight and after dark, and the night version is the one that made its name - it is regularly called the number one site in the Maldives. Whitetip and grey reef sharks are permanent residents, often numbering into the teens, and after dark vast numbers of fusiliers arrive on the pinnacle crown to feed. On a rock this small a torch turns the caves and overhangs into the whole dive rather than one feature of it.

Slow down and the smaller things arrive: nudibranchs, frogfish, honeycomb and zebra morays, octopus and turtles, with teira batfish, blue-faced angelfish and clown triggerfish over the coral and spotted eagle rays out in the blue. The current is the thing to plan for. It is very changeable, and the usual answer is to shelter from it where you can and end the dive with a gentle drift; when it runs strong the thila is recommended for advanced divers only, who deploy a safety float before the stop.