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!