Haul Out

Well we hauled out last Thursday at Universal Boatyard on Thilhfushi island. It all went very well once they realised we had a fin keel, in fairness we were only the 2nd sailing yacht they had ever lifted there. It turned out I think the best of the 3 available yards to do the job. Super friendly, very helpful and relaxed, clean place to work that even had a good view. It's owned by a massive corporation called Universal that has 10 resorts in Maldives plus many more scattered around the world. A lot of the resort boats are refitted there as well as new builds and fishing and other work boats getting attention. The workforce is from all over the place, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India as well of course Maldivians. There is also a quite large engineering shop were they are rebuilding engines and doing stainless work so there is a fair bit going on. Ihusaan is the main man there organising most of the workers and goings on and is a super helpful fellow who went out of his way several times to get things done for us and offer advise on paint products ect.

When I last hauled out 15 months ago there was a little osmosis and unfortunately it has grown a little more and will need attention in the next few years which will be a bit of a job to dry it out completely, maybe for 6 months after stripping it all back and then once dry epoxy resin and bog it all back up. Anyway they do a lot of this work in the yard and it was good to hear how they tackle the job.

So basically for 4 days we worked like hell. Covered head to tow in old antifoul as well as epoxy and then finally new antifoul. Julie was a big hit in the yard. Firstly I don't think they had ever seen a woman doing manual work not alone in a boatyard! She was great, got stuck into it and the fellas loved it. Labour is cheap here so I think most people pay to have these jobs done so we were a bit of amusement for them especially the first day scrubbing of all the old anti fouling but they soon got used to us and came over for a chat.

We used 20litres of Transocean longlife antifoul which was one of the cheaper available but still has lots of toxins in and the locals seem to like it so we will see how we go with that. It's price was about $600US so not too bad if it does work?! Nothing is really cheap here in Maldives especially boat parts. A lot of people fly to Malaysia or Thailand and buy the parts they need and come back. There are loads of hardware stores in town and you can get pretty much everything you would need though and there prices are a bit better.

The yard bill was $700US for 4 days hardstand, pressure wash, 2t water and 3 days electricity. So it's not cheap but the cheapest available and a good service and if it has to be done it has to be done?!

So we went back in the water late Sunday arvo and headed 5miles back to Hulamalè anchorage to stock up and provision with as much as we can to last until we get to mauritius in mid may. Julie also kept dragging me around to every hardware store in town looking for parts to convert our dingy to a sailing dingy. I think we have everything we need and will hopefully have it sailing sometime soon! We also picked up a Satstaion Dock for our handheld Sat phone so hopefully we will be able to get it working and be able to download weather files on passages. It came from America and we had to pick it up from the airport and what a drama it turned out to be just to collect a parcel. Anyway we have it. Also managed to find 4kg of cheese which was a big score! Luxury. 

Our agent Muzhid from Real Seahawk also renewed our cruising permit and extended our visas so we are all good to keep on cruising in the Maldives for another while!

We left the anchorage lunch time yesterday and did an overnighter sail to were we are going now,Kolumadulu Atol in search of a nice quiet beach. We have 15 mile to go and have had great wind the whole night so made good time, life is good!

Check out the photo with Julie's shower!

Holiday is over!

Well we had been having a little too much fun hanging out on deserted beaches and catching fish so I have been a real bastard and decided to Haul out. Julie is very excited, almost as excited as me:) 

The slime in really taking over, it's outta control. We scrubbed the bottom 2 weeks ago and it's already 3 inches long and spreading everywhere. It's only been 15 months since I did it and was hoping it would be alright till the end of the year when we get to South Africa but no chance. 

We are now in Malé the capital of Maldives and there is a choice of 2 boatyards with travel lifts suitable for lifting yachts. We have chosen the smaller, cheaper one called Universal. The other one Gulf Craft,is very big and busy. Looks great, very professional but also straight accross from were they burn all the rubbish for the whole population here! Pretty rank to say the least. So we are going over to the other side and even have a good view to look at while we are sanding. 

We went into town yesterday for the first time and it's full on. Very hard to believe after being at the other small quiet islands. The island is just crammed with high rise buildings, no land left at all. Anyway we have worked out the city and found everywhere we needed to find to get paint and all the other stores we need. It's not all that cheap though but luckily we don't need a lot of stuff. We did manage to find a couple of good fishing tackle shops were we did spend a fortune!

So the past couple of weeks before arriving here we were just hanging out back at our favourite island Difuri for a week and then we did an overnight sail south to Thulusdhoo. Thulushdoo is a great anchorage, not to busy and there is also the CocaCola factory there which we had the grand tour of, pretty interesting. It's only 12 mile north of Malé so there were even a few tourists staying in guest houses and also on jet skis from the next island down which is owned by Club Med. 

I had a surf for the first time in 10 years at a left hander, didn't do much good and was pretty sore the next day! Hopefully find a nice right hander somewhere after we leave here.

We did also manage to buy drinking water from a hose on the wharf which was great. 600 litres for $5 so we even did some washing. The 2 pairs of boardies and 1 shirt I had been wearing for the last month were getting pretty sticky and salty!

So we will be hauling out in a couple of days and will hopefully be back in the water a maximum of 5 days from then. I'm sure we will appreciate the beaches that much more then!

This is Living

Well this is what it's all about, why I even started dreaming about a boat in the first place. Fish and rice! Wake up in the morning and quickly discuss what jobs we want to do for the day. Big things such as transferring fuel, clean the oven, tidy workshop, pack something away and most importantly what fish we would like to catch and how we will cook it. Julie is the fish killer. I just drive the dingy while she has the lure in the water holding onto the rod. It gets quite exciting at times with screaming and yelling when there's a big one on the end and the line is spooling out, especially when there's a big mackerel or trevally fighting for its life. So quite a buzz but we do try and get the smaller, tastier fish also around the reefs like coral trout and these other fish I think is a green Jobfish (looking in the book? Very tasty  anyway) so as you can imagine it is a busy day. Sometimes we have even finished ALL our jobs by 11am and then without even thinking its time to celebrate with a beer, well you have to because it just doesn't feel right cooking a fish BBQ for lunch without a coldie in hand??

Then we have the other big dilemma, like where do we go next? 1250 islands all beautiful but some are too deep to anchor and others have resorts. Apparently some of the resort islands welcome you if you call in advance but we would rather be on our own deserted island or maybe with a few locals that invite us in to share a coconut. Is funny, they are living so simple off the land and from the sea and happy to welcome us in and show us their digs and then they want to take a photo of us! They have better phones than we do! Great friendly people and don't seem to have any hang ups from the western world, just happy out. For the West Australian folk reading this place is like the Abrholas islands only greener. The same deal with  loads of reefs and bombies, clear water and marine life everywhere, only a hell of a lot bigger with a lot less wind. Same same but different.

Probably when we get to the capital Male it will be different with 200000 living like sardines on a small island??

Now we are at Fadiffolu Atol anchored off an island called Difuri. There are 6 people living on here that are slowly building a resort for a Swiss fella. We had the grand tour and it looks like if they carry on at the same pace it might be built in another 20 years. Then there is another island to the NW that's a lot smaller were we went yesterday for a troll in the dingy. We were greeted by a young guy that didn't speak a word of English but wanted to give us a borumba?? So we went for a look and he picked a couple of coconuts and we met who I think was his brother. Just the 2 of them living on this little island very self sufficient, growing capsicums and even a dozen turkeys with this picture perfect turquoise bay and their little shack and a couple of outhouse sheds with stuff going on. Anyway we caught a giant trevally today and took that to them and they were very stoked!