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