And, just like that (it seems), our three months in the Maldives is over and we head for Chagos. The weather and wind predictions are about as good as we can expect for this leg of our journey. We will probably have to motor at the beginning, until our wind fills in, and there may be some squalls. But we will be happy if we get some wind and not too many squalls.
Notice: Google has notified us that our email subscription service is ending in July and users will no longer receive automated notifications when we post a new blog entry. Bear with us as we try to figure out what we need to do.
If you haven't seen The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, I highly recommend it. This photo above is a shot from our own 'private' island (occasionally visited by locals but not since the start of Ramazan). Conrad is expressing himself using found objects, a.k.a. garbage, of which there is plenty unfortunately.
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| Auto-color in Photoshop gave this a weird look, but it's better than the original, washed out underwater camera coloring. |
Before we got to the Maldives, the few recent reports we read were not particularly positive. 'It's expensive.' 'The coral is dead.' 'You can't go where you want.' Of course, the most recent reports were from cruising friends and acquaintances that were here in 2020, which was a bad time for everyone.
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| The dodgy pier at the abandoned resort at Dholhiyadhoo |
Sometimes we play a game at
dinner where we say how much we think our entree would cost if we bought it in
a restaurant in the States (have I mentioned that we don't have a TV?).
Yesterday, Matt made a lobster risotto and we threw out some numbers, then settled on 'Market
Price' because of the lobster. It was good but could have benefited from some white wine.
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| Sachiyo looking like she's seen better days. But this was the best we ever saw her. |
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| Look! A sail! |
We made it to the Maldives, a year behind schedule. As we were checking out of Sri Lanka, our agent gave us our port clearance document and said, 'You're going to the Maldives so it's very important that you have this because they're all Muslim there.' We're still scratching our heads over that one (for the record, just about every place you go wants a clearance document from your last port).
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| You never know when you'll see a random cow |
We're about a week or so away from leaving Galle, after over ten months here. We have been fortunate to have a relatively safe place to weather a lot of the pandemic, but are definitely ready to move on.