NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES No. 254 September 1979 Page 5 
SHELLING IN THE MALDIVES (Part I) 
Reee Lock in 
(The following account comprises the first section of a letter dated 
April 10, 1979, from Dr. R. Plotkin of Johannesburg, South Africa, 
to our members Dottie and Bob Janowsky.) 
Were are some interesting points regarding the Maldive Islands, from 
the shell point of view. First, the islands are not as rich a shell- 
ing area as I had been led to believe. Although it is still primi- 
tive, there is a tremendous number of tourists pouring through the 
place, and they seem to have stripped the accessible areas pretty 
thoroughly. Scuba equipment is available at all the tourist resorts, 
but strictly under the control of the Barakuda Club of Germany, and 
they will only hire equipment to individuals diving in the group 
from the club. They do not permit any object on the reef to be 
touched, and therefore you cannot collect shells using their equip- 
ment. Collecting is therefore restricted to the areas of the reef 
accessible with snorkelling. The reefs themselves are very well es- 
tablished, with a lot of dead coral. Visibility is moderate, good 
to only about 40 feet. The fish life is superb, and I have not seen 
any other area in the Indian Ocean with such a huge variety of fish. 
The reefs are within a few yards of the beach. 
Despite the foregoing, I did succeed in bringing back a large number 
of specimens. About two-thirds of them I collected myself, and 
about a third I bought from native fishermen. They all have a high- 
ly inflated idea of the value of their shells, each person believing 
that sea shells come only from the Maldive Islands, and therefore 
they can determine the value of any particular species. From the 
local fishermen, I found nothing of any great interest, apart from 
one fairly good Conus auger. I have always previously seen this 
shell only from Mocambique, and the three or four specimens that I 
have are not as good as the one I was able to get from the fisherman. 
Subsequently I got a gem specimen in Sri-Lanka from a local diver. 
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