The boat repair hell I mentioned last time went on and on. It took four weeks to get our old, leaky diesel tank cut out, and our shiny new tank in. The last five days of it, I spent laying in a tiny crawl space inside the hull trying get a filler pipe fitting to work. Sometimes it's not good being the skinniest one on the boat.
Me and the tank in one of our more exasperated moments. (Diny's pic)
In the evenings, we would take a little swim off the back of the boat, still at anchor in a harbor near the Maldivian captial, Male. Then dingy over to the island to get some dinner. We became regulars at the restaurants nearby. One of the great things about cruising is that being in a place with a boat (ergo, needing to fix something that is broken), we get to interact with the locals in a way that you don't normally as tourist, even a scruffy backpacker sort of tourist like I normally have been. We had to figure out (among other things), where to get a steel diesel tank manufactured to our specifications, buy lumber for mounting the tank, and get local weather reports.
Max buying lumber for the tank installation. Everyone we dealt with in Maldives was really helpful.
Finally, the tank was in, the various other jobs were finished, the pantry and fridge were stocked (halal chicken hotdogs, mmmmm), the diesel and water tanks were full, and we were ready, ready, ready to go. For the next 9 days, we sailed only in the daytime. Partly this was because there are many coral reefs that aren't marked on our charts, and it would be very, very bad to hit one in the dark. And partly it was because we wanted to enjoy these beautiful islands and rest up for the long crossing ahead to Arabia. At night we anchored at a convenient island. Sometimes these islands were inhabited by locals, sometimes by a resort, and sometimes completely uninhabited.
I won't bore you with details of each stop, but after making you glad you weren't along on this fool's errand when we were suffering on our passage from Thailand, the least you can do is let me make you a little green with envy now.
We spent two nights at our first stop, Thulusdoo. With 1200 inhabitants, the clean-as-a-pin town occupies pretty much the whole island. It has a Coka Cola factory that supplies the whole country (the only Coke plant in the world that uses desalinated water) as well as some boat building and paper recycling industries. Sounds industrial, but the impression is of a neat little town. We met some locals who showed us around, including a little park islet attached to Thulusdoo by a bridge with nice sunset views. We were told that the inhabitants spontaneously build benches and swings to make the area nicer, but I suspect they are mostly young men motivated by needing to have a nice place to court.
In the evening they took us fishing from a dark beach at one end of the island. With barely enough starlight to see each others' silhouettes, we were suddenly illuminated by a meteor turning, splitting, and crackling across the sky.
Shady and clean, the streets of Thulusdoo are laid out in a grid. You can stand in many of the intersections and see the sea in 3 or 4 directions. The longest street is probably about half a mile long.
From what I can tell there are about 2 cars, 2 motor bikes, and 5 bicycles on the island of Thuloosdoo.
Reflections at anchor in Thulusdoo.
Our second day there, we went out spearfishing with our new friends, Shaheed, Yusef, and Hassan. We (okay, they, but with our moral support) caught an octopus, a boxfish, some oysters, and a sweetlips, which is a yellow and black striped fish that to me says, "Danger, don't eat me, or you will bleed from every orifice and die." But they apparently eat it all the time. The octopus spearing was the most amazing. They spotted it in a hole about 5 feet below the surface and Hassan dug it out with the spear, a sharpened metal shaft about 3 feet long. The poor octo sent its 2 foot long tentacles out along the spear, trying to find something it could fight. Impaled, he filled the shallow water with his ink. When Hassan lifted it out of the water, it's tentacles kinked out in all directions, twisting like the fingers of someone dying in pain. It was gruesome. But delicious. I helped them clean the catch in the afternoon, and we (Max, Diny, and I) were invited over for dinner. The next morning we were sad to leave such a mellow, friendly place, but already about 5 weeks behind schedule, we couldn't linger any longer.
The town islands like Thulusdoo all seem to be places where people sit and talk to their neighbors while the sun goes down. They're not rich, but not too poor either. It seems like a good life, but they are pretty much trapped there. It's too expensive for most of them to ever have a chance to leave the islands.
One of the other inhabited islands was our last stop before departing for the long haul to Oman. Dhidhdhoo is similar to Thulusdhoo. I took the dingy into town to try and find diesel, water, and propane, and returned with a small local boat with a 50 gallon drum of diesel which we pumped into our tanks.
Normally working as fishermen, these guys used their little dhoni to bring us diesel. See the mobile phone? As it turns out, most of the country is covered by a mobile network, and on the islands where the towers are, you can get wireless internet as well, though there aren't too many computers around. Yet.
The pilot of our diesel boat.
Other highlights included anchoring off uninhabited islands and making a campfire for dinner. I wish I could report that we fished en route and caught a big beatiful tuna which we prepared over the coconut husk fire. But in fact, there were hot dogs going bad in the fridge, so we had hot dogs and some of Diny's excellent cole slaw.
Diny celebrates her birthday underway. She would like me to inform you that she is 26 and single. I would like to inform you that I don't know any man who could keep up with her.
We didn't see another yacht after leaving Male.
Generally, we snorkeled every day on reefs with more fish than I have ever seen, some of them so unbothered by us that they would swim within reach. One morning, after follwing a 3 foot wide manta ray around a lagoon for a while, I turned to head back to the boat only to see a school of 6 mantas swimming straight for me. They parted to go around me and let me follow for a while as they slowly glided down to the 50 foot bottom, wings motionless in the ultra clear water. I dove down to them from time to time (I've been getting to about 40 feet, not so great by skin diver standards, but I'm pretty happy with it). Another day I swam with a sea turtle who didn't see me for a long time, then suddenly started and dove down deep and watched me for a while. I thought my tattoo would get me a better reception, but I guess not.
There's really not much to say about these places. They are quiet and beautiful. The days passed in a long glow of deep water so blue it was purple, shallow water so turquoise it hurt to look at it, warm sun, cool breeze, bright stars, lapping waves. Here are some pictures that capture a tiny bit of it.
We snorkeled on this wreck. The bow sticks up about 25' out of the water and the stern rests in 100' or so. Although it looks creepy and decrepit above, below it's a wonderland of coral and fish. Just as I swam around one corner, a school of foot-long fish darted by with two tuna in hot pursit. We scared the hell out of each other.
Max and Diny exploring one of our islands. This one happened to have a new resort being built at one end. We stopped by to see the construction going on (575 Bangladeshis are building the place and live on the island, but no photos allowed). Then we took the launch over to the untouched part of the island for an afternoon of book reading, sand castle building, and crab digging (unsuccessful, so thank god for Diny's unending creativity with what was in our pantry).
After nine perfect days, we headed out across the open ocean, course 300 degrees magnetic, making for Salalah, Oman. Obviously we made it, or I wouldn't be writing you, but not without some adventures. But that will have to wait for a later post.
Some of you have been asking to see what I look like without hair. I'm letting it grow back now, but at least I know I won't look too terrible if I ever go bald.
