Maldives Water Play

 

We've started our run north to south down the 466 miles of Maldives chain of islands and atolls. Above we are anchored in Kanamanu (06* 42.393N, 072* 54.080E in 25ft of scoured sand) . So far this is best place we've been. Clear water, some live coral and lots of fish.

We stayed here for three days. The little island was normally empty, except for a local boat that would come over with a shovel and load sand bags. He would send a few hours filling the sand bags until his little boat was almost not floating then head off toward the north. On the weekend (Fri/Sat) a group of locals with a lot of kids came over to the island to play. You can see the women of the group dressed very conservatively in this pic. No burkinis here.

No shortage of fish color here. A Regal Angelfish posing for her close-up.

These guys were hiding in the underwater rock shade. Two Moorish Idols and a small Peacock Grouper.

Gotta love this gals name: Oriental Sweetlips.

Some Giant Clams having taking on the brown lips of their chosen location.

Too many fake eyes on this Peacock Grouper. 

It is really nice to see some living coral among all the dead coral rubble(more about the coral situation in a later blog).

A couple of days in a row we came across this large Cowtail Stingray (can grow up to 6 feet across) well hidden under a layer of sand. 

He was a thick one with maybe a 3-4 foot wing span.

He finally decided I had gotten too close and exited with a highspeed spurt of energy to fly out of the sand. I think we were both a little spooked.

Another large shade lover, a big Star Puffer fish.

After a nice snorkel I was below when I heard the call of the wild from Chris. On our swim step was this snake!

I quickly and might I say bravely grabbed the fully loaded boat pole and went to the aid of my beloved.

Even after being evicted from the swimstep this evil, attack snake wanted back on.

With the magic of photo enhancement and the Google search it turned out to be a harmless, land based Indian Wolf Snake. (Sea snakes have extremely deadly venom  but their mouths are so small it is almost impossible to get bitten). OK, maybe not so brave... The question is how, and when, did he come aboard??

Paul

Almost All Cleared In

 

You are required to use an agent when clearing into the Maldives. Probably just as well, given the amount of paperwork. The agent came out to our boat with 37 pages of documents for us to sign and use our boat stamp on. We are still waiting on our Cruising permit, which maybe here today. Even with a Cruising Permit we are very limited on where we can actually go in the Maldives. They divide the islands up into 3, somewhat unnatural, categories. Inhabited, Uninhabited and Resort. We are allowed to go to any Uninhabited island. We are allowed to go to a Resort island if we get permission from the resort prior to arrival. We are allowed to go to an Inhabited island if it has an airstrip, a guest house and we get local permission. The Maldives are not really interested in having tourists mix with locals. It is a conservative, Islamist country.

The country has around 400,000 inhabitants, most concentrated on two islands, Addu and Male. The islands are flat and low. Low enough to be concerned with sea levels rising. The highest point in the country is the 8th tee on the golf course in Villingi Island. It is about 15 feet (5 m) above sea level. The majority of the land is just a few feet above high tide.

As you can see above, the shell collecting has begun. Including a couple of nice Cowries from the Indian Ocean.

The water is warm and clear here. Its really nice to be able jump in anytime and see some decent fish, a few corals and even smaller Giant Clams.

There are 6 boats here at Uligan now. Three of them are leaving (or just left) to head up the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The others will cruise the Maldives. One just came in from Dubai. Our agent, Asad, setup a beach dinner on a small, uninhabited island nearby for all the cruisers. It was good to meet the crowd: Swedes, Australians, Scots, South African, French, and US (us). 

Paul

Maldives Arrival

After our 36 hours of rambunctious sailing from Sri Lanka to past the tip of India the seas went flat and the winds went light. A welcomed sign by all the crew onboard. We arrived near the Maldives on Tuesday afternoon, but too late to make it into the anchorage before dark. So we left up our small sails and had a pleasant overnight sail toward the entrance, making adjustments every once in awhile to slow down. Just before sunrise (as seen above) we turned on the engine and started motoring to our approach.

We anchored next to our friends on Time Bandit, the go-fast catamaran. They arrived on Tues. We are now waiting on our clearance agent to bring out the officials so we can get cleared into the country.

(Just a quick note so I don't leave our reader hanging)

Paul
 

Enroute Maldivs - Day 8 and 9

Well, al good sails must come to an end. We motor for about 4 hours in h lee created by the bottom tip of Sri Lanka. Then the wind filled in, as expected. The GRIB forecast showed the winds getting channelled down the slot created between India and the island of Sri Lanka. GRIBs had 25kts, but closer to 22ks in h section we were crossing.
The last day and half has been some of the most uncomfortable, "why am I here" sailing we have done in the past 10 years of cruising. The winds were steady for awhile at 35-36kts, the illformed seas were 8-10 feet on the beam. We ended turning south of our course a fair amount to stop most of the waves from crashing over the starboard bow and sliding back to the cockpit.
All and all, a most un-fun few days -- it will be interesting how the trip sounds when I tell the story over a beer two weeks from now: fast, rambunctious seas, great passage???
We will arrive at Uligan, Maldives tonight and probably have to wait offshore for most of he night to make a day light entry on our Wednesday.
Day 8 noon-to-noon run 170nm
Day 9 noon-to-noon run 207nm, new record for us!!!!!

--short

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Enroute Maldives - Day 7

More ships, more miles long fish nets, good sailing.
All was good till early this morning - still dark. The winds picked up and the shipping traffic was tough to avoid. Too much of the worlds commerce flows through these waters. After dodging a few ships and heading around a net we ended up with the wind blowing 20-25 kts and a little in front of the beam. Making good time and relaxing as a large ship had just passed us as close as they like to get, about 1 mile away. A little while later we get hit with a slap on the bow and a wave launching into our open hatches. Nothing like salt water in your berth for grumpy crew. The wave was the unseen wake from the cargo ship.

Noon to noon run: 175nm


--short

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Enroute Maldives - Day 5 and 6

Yesterdays noon-to-noon run was 160nm. It would have been better if we had not had to take a detour around a 14 mils long drift net (or long-line??). We spotted an AIS mark with a fishing vessel name on it plus (3). I wanted to head well north of it, but the winds and currents were not cooperating. So we gybed and headed south. After a little while another AIS target showed up with the same fishing vessel name plus (2). This second one was attached to first and was 9.25 nm apart. Along the way we started to spot new, white egg-shaped floats with black lines tied on and leading directly down. After continuing south a third target showed up with a its name with a (1), another 4.5 miles away. Making for a 14 mile long way to clear cut the oceans. The fishing vessel itself finally showed up on AIS and I tried to hail him on VHF radio. I wanted to see what the path out of this was. After many calls the fishing vessel did not respond. I figure the reason he didn't respond was because he knew the first thing I was going to say was "No Hindi, English".

Next day was a big day. We reached the half way point and I had a shower. Pretty exciting.
162 nm noon-to-noon
--short

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Enroute Maldives - Day 3 and 4

Day 3 was a mostly slow day with a noon to noon run of 146 nm.
We did have an interesting encounter with a fishing boat. On the AIS I saw an 85 ft fishing vessel on a course that would take us less than 1/2 mile apart, a little too close for comfort. Watching them for awhile I could see their course was wavering a bit. Five minutes latter I hear a call on he VHF radio from Mountmary An to Georgia. Once I figured out that he was calling us, I responded. His first response to me was "No English, Hindi". I could tell his was going to be a difficult conversation. After a half dozen interactions I heard someone in the background say "Fishing line in water". Which could mean pretty much anything, including we have two miles of long-lines off our stern. We finally agreed to Georgia turning hard to starboard. About 4.5 miles latter we picked up a second AIS that was named Mountmary An Net. Most likely one end of a miles long drift name from the same boat.

Next day was fairly light winds in the morning. This caused us to have turn further north to keep he boat sailing. To deal with this we decided to put the whisker pole up and sail wing-on-wing more closely in the right direction. Lets just say the setting of the pole was typical of a speedy, efficient and graceful foredeck crew on a race boat. After getting it set things ran well for a couple of hours. Then the pole attracted a nasty squall. In came he head sail, reef in the main. Buckets of downpour - you could even call it a Monsoon rain. Winds in the low 30kts.
Squals over, genoa out on the pole again. Sailing well at our destination for a couple more hour. Then a thump and the jam cleat on the pole hat sets the extension length gave way. Roll it in.

Fortunately the winds picked up and turn further north, giving a fast run in the right direction overnight.
Noon-to-noon run 190 nm
--short

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Enroute Maldives - Day 2

The winds lightened up last night, making for a slower passage with a better off-watch sleep. We made 135nm noon to noon. Currently we are about 60 miles north of Sumatra. This end of the long island is Aceh Province. Known for it conservative Islam and he devastation from the tsunami a few years back. We are also about 40 miles from Great Necobar Island, the southern most part of the Andaman Islands. Sometime this evening we will leave the Andaman Sea and move into the north Indian Ocean.

Yesterday I took a look on the deck and saw that our port side jack line had chafed all the way through. The jack line is used to clip on our saftey harness if need to go on deck and move forward. he forensic sailing committee is still not sure how this happened.


--short

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Enroute Maldive, Day 1

We left Langkawi at 9:30am and motored for an hour and half to get in some decent wind. The winds stayed NE all day at 15kts or so, then picked up most of the night to 15-20 kts. It got pretty rolly last night, offering us a crappy off-watch sleep. We are settling in for the long haul.
A few fishing boats offshore along with some commercial shipping, but not much.

Our fiends on Time Bandit are on the same passage with us. We are talking with them on HF radio in the evening. They are a go fast catamaran, an Outremere 51ft. so they will do a horizon job on us soon.

Noon to noon run 162 nm

--short

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