Founder of Duiksafaris.nl is Ruud Paesie who has been active in diving from 1994 as a dive instructor and safari leader in the Maldives. In 2007 Duiksafaris.nl has been taken over by Bas van der Mee (PADI MSDT # 950202) and who due to demand by our international customers started TheTrueMaldives.

Bas van der Mee:

Since I started diving this has become my biggest hobby and since then I have been diving all over the world. The most beautiful location is definitely the Maldives. Because of the enormous versatility, there is something in it for everyone. Big fish, macro life, deep, wreck, night, current, reef, for everyone there is something to explore.
2007 was a turning point in my life, I'd had it with the fast and stressful IT life and decided to do fun things for a while. My idea was to travel a while as a dive instructor and I started working on Koh Samui (Thailand) and later in Perentian Besar (Malaysia). At that time Ruud decided to stop with his dive safaris and asked me if I was interested to take over the company. After being on trips with him for the past 7 years it didn't take me a long time to think it over. Since then I continue to organize these dive safaris in spring and autumn in virtually unchanged formula.

The dive safaris are organized together with my girlfriend Nienke and good friend Christian who are both dive instructors as well. Christian and I will be the dive guides during the safaris. In 2010 we looked for expansion of our team and we have found this in Fevzi an excellent and very experienced dive professional we have met on our previous travels.

The dive safaris are being led by Christian or myself with one of us as the 2nd (also diving) instructor on the boat. This means we have always 2 instructors on the boat who both dive along.

We are very excited about diving in the Maldives and think this is reflected in the dives we make.