Finally Off to Chagos

 

Finally after sitting in the anchorage in Gan for 6 days past our check out the weather gods are ready to let us start the passage to Chagos. The weather has been overcast, very rainy and occasionally windy. The view above is the reef sitting 25 feet of our stern when the winds come from the SW. It is an ugly reef that took out the rudders on an Outremer catamaran a few week ago. You might ask why are we anchored so close to the reef? I ask myself that question at least twice a day. In front of us are four yellow resort boats on moorings. When the wind goes NW I have to bring in about10 feet of anchor chain to avoid hitting the closest one. You might also ask why don't we anchor somewhere better? This is as good as it gets here.

The conflict between the weather forecast models has continued for most of the week. The GFS model ended up being the most long term predictive and the most accurate here. The predicted low made its closest approach to us in Gan yesterday daytime. Really odd to get the worst weather in the daytime. It usually shows up at 3am. The wind speeds predicted by GFS were pretty accurate and the directions varied 20 - 40*. The low will travel toward Chagos and then west into the Indian Ocean. By the time we get to Chagos in two or three days, its effects should be gone.

Paul.

Neptune's Tribute and Fauci's Ouchy

I'm not all that a superstitious person but when it comes possibly staying on the good side of those that control the ocean, I'm not going to take any chances. We crossed the equator, for the third time, heading North to South as we worked our way down the Maldives chain. This means we have one more time to cross the equator before we make it back to North America. Above is a shot for the Captain 

 

And the required shot for Neptune

Here's our Latitude and Longitude just as we crossed to the southern hemisphere. The .013 degrees is 79 feet past the equator. We went from a nice Spring day to a nice Fall day. It didn't really feel much colder. I knew to take the picture because I could feel the bump as we crossed over the equatorial line.

As we arrived at the next atoll, Addu, we were greeted by a large pod of dolphins while going through the cut.

One of the reasons we left our last anchorage early was because we had a possibility to get a Covid vaccination. When we were up in one of the northern atolls we met a local who was traveling island to island promoting Home Stay Tourism. This is tourism that involves the locals on the island instead of the large, planned and isolated resorts. He was interesting and enjoyed discussing his work. He mentioned h was friends with the Mayo of Addu and said he could help us get into a vaccination clinic there. A couple of days after we arrived and had contacted the Mayor, he messaged us that we should go to the clinic between 9 and 10 pm that night. 

Above is the clinic when we arrived at around 8:45pm. They were handing out numbers and told we had to get an appointment and come back latter. We mentioned that the Mayor told us to show up tonight. Instantly we they handed us our numbers and should us where to sit. There were probably 60 people waiting by about 9:30pm. The clinic was at night because we are in the month of Ramadan, where the faithful do not eat or drink during daylight hours.

 

By 10:30 pm we had our first jabs of Covishield. Covishield is the Indian manufactured version of AstraZenica. 

The way Covishield works is a little different than the other vaccines, such as the mRna vaccines in the US. After about 7 to 10 days this small shield show up. When walking around potential infectious people you hold it in front of you for partial protection. A few weeks after you get a second dose the shield gets much larger, much more protective and takes two hands to hold.

We are anchored in Gan, one of the towns in the Addu Atoll. The British were here just after World War II. They put in a long airstrip right next to our anchorage. They added bridges between the islands that connected the main towns. The main use of the RAF Gan was as a staging post for bombers, fighters and transports enroute to the Far East Air Force based in Singapore. Today Gan airport has a few passenger flights and is used by military and private jets as a cross Indian Ocean refueling stop. We watched a noisy, Australian C-130 take off for the Seychelles after refueling the other day. Gan is covered with old base housing and building in various states of disrepair. The old Officers Club is now the Equator Resort.

The anchorage is apparently also in the flight path of hundreds of Fruit Bats. We see them every evening.

RAF Gan supported flying boats too, such as this Short Sunderland RAF patrol bomber.

 

As usual when we get to civilization we start our project list. Here's the boat boy refueling in the midday sun. We have a few weeks to kill before our permit to enter Chagos is valid. As soon as we are allowed in we will start our passage to Chagos in the British Indian Ocean Territory. More on this next time.

Paul  

Some Live Coral!

 

Well we finally came across some reefs with some healthy coral. Its strange because we are now much closer to the equator where you would think ocean temperature warming would be worse. Perhaps the corals here have had more time to acclimatize to the warm temperatures. The reefs we've been on seem have more wave and current action, which also might cause cooler water to rise from the depths. Either way, we're pleased.

It was fun to show up at this anchorage and catch up the catamaran 'Perry' with Matt, Jen and their two boys, Mark and Conrad. We first met Perry in the Marquesas in French Polynesia. The last time we saw them was six years ago in Tonga. We were all on a Melbourne based boat 'Miss Behaving', doing a snorkel into the underwater caves there. Their boys have grown a lot!

The first island we stopped at with good corals was Lhassa near the top of the Huvadhu Atoll. (anchor at 00*49.34N, 073*12.299E). Nice anchorage in 32 ft sand among coral bommies. It's a little rolly with a small swell making its way in from the outer reef.

Parrot fish, the ones responsible for creating much of the sand. While snorkeling you can hear them as they crunch on the coral with their tough, parrot like mouths, biting off chunks coral and algae. They grind up the inedible calcium-carbonate reef material in their guts and then excrete sand. If you've ever felt the sand between your toes on a Hawaiian beach -- that was parrot fish poop.

This is a clutch of hermit crabs having a delicious afternoon meal of a washed up coconut. Not the parrotfish poop in the background.

Everybody knows the scientific name for this fish hanging in a protective anemone: Nemo

A little better view of Nemo's home, AKA Clown Fish

Nice to see a turtle flick by.

A sting ray having a lazy ay in the parrot fish's sand (aren't you glad I didn't say poop again?)

Moorish Idol

A Swollen Phyllidia nudibranch, aout 3 inches long. Basically a good looking, underwater sea slug, or more scientifically a shelless mollusk.

Then we moved down the atoll to the small island, uninhabited island of Fulangi. The island is in the upper center, we are anchored at the red pointer and the diving reefs all along the cut on he right with the yellow line. (Anchor position 0*40.794N,073*12.072E in 44ft, sand, along with some bommies) This puts us 40 miles north of the equator.

The island from our anchor spot

Even more healthy coral. I was going to photoshop this dark green and claim it was broccoli.

Nice reefscape with lots of live coral, with Chris diving down to give you some size perspective.

Most dives we saw turtles.

This is not a great shot, but I thought it was interesting. The turtle is sitting on he bottom in about 25-30 feet of water just keeping an eye on me as I swim down.

Lots of fish, most home schooling due to the pandemic.

A white tipped reef shark swims by us for a look.. This is first one we've seen here. We usually see black-tipped reef sharks. 

He was curious and kept near us for awhile. He probably thought we were fishing and he/she might get the spoils.

Clark's Anemonefish, similar to the Clown Fish Nemo, but lives among a slightly different anemone.

I was tying to get another reefscape shot when this parrot fish jumped in front for a cameo shot.

Everyday Chris was visited by these reef squid off the back of our swimstep. 

This is Chris' transport to the reef and dinghy driver.

Paul

 

 

Coca Cola Island and the Big City

 We finally made it to an inhabited island where, with a bit of work and begging, we were allowed to go ashore. Thulusdhoo is a half hour ferry ride north of the country's capital, Male. Cruisers sometimes refer to it as the Coca Cola Island, as they can't pronounce it anyway and it has the country's only Coca Cola bottling plant. The plant is supposed to be the only Coke plant that uses exclusively reverse osmosis water. The island supports about 1,900 people and is a hotspot in non-Covid season for the backpacker surfing crowd. There are two nice breaks, Hens and Coke, just outside the cut.

(not my picture, it was small when we were there: http://www.cokesbeach.com/surfing-thulusdhoo-maldives/)

We didn't actually anchor at the Coca Cola Island. We went in a small cut just north of it to a decent anchorage in front of a resort being remodeled (4*23.02N, 73*39.925E, 35 feet in sand).

First thing I did was get a cold one

While one of the many local island cats watched me

Kind of a self-explanatory sign

It looked like most people got around by walking or motorbike, but I liked this classic bicycle.

The traditional boats in the Maldives have this high, back curving bow. The outboard is not so traditional.

__________________________________________

Next we headed into Hulhumale. This is the manmade island built to help deal with the overflow conditions in the capital, Male. It is non-stop construction of residential high-rises and along with some parks. We're back to wearing facemasks and being extra careful around the locals. Many of the locals are pretty leery of us when it comes to contagion. The Maldives has had a medium amount of Covid-19, with the majority in the populated areas of the country, which means Male. They've done an excellent job of getting out vaccines in the last couple of months and the greater Male area case load is starting to decline.

This is the China Friendship Bridge that connects Male and Hulhumale. Built and partly funded by China.

And Male itself

The fishing fleet tied up in Hulhumale

The airport runway ends at the harbour entrance

The dinghy dock. You have to use an anchor to hold your dinghy away from the dock, as it is in constant use for loading and unloading.

And just in case tourists are not aware of the social mores here, a quick, multi-lingual reminder

Shopping and provisioning is good in Hulhumale. Most all of the fresh fruit and vegetables are flown in from Sri Lanka, with the eggs coming from India and the oranges from Egypt.

You can get most anything you need here -- perhaps more than what you need from this Covid-19 Essentials store.

We got to eat out a number of times in Hulhumale, which was a treat. But more important was a surprise party for Chris' birthday on our buddy boat, Time Bandit, with Stuart and Anne along with Michael and Priscilla from Hylite

______________________________________

Deep down inside almost all of us are the same

Paul