Male is the capitol of the Maldives and the Maldives is an archipelago of about 1190 islands grouped in natural coral atolls. The Maldives straddle the equator and lie just outside the Indian Ocean Cyclone belt. The Indian Ocean has two seasons the North East Monsoon and the South West Monsoon. We are right on the cusp of the season change... On our Max Sea Electronic Chart Program I am looking at my latest downloaded GRIB weather forecast model. In about 5 days from now a strong low pressure system is set to develop just over the route that we have sailed and in its path the Monsoonal prevailing seasonal winds appear to change. What this means is that we just made it! If we waited another week to leave Thailand we would be pounding and beating into strong headwind's and seas to make our South Westerly target of Male. I love it when a plan comes together.
This trip is special for me as my brother Chris is aboard as our fourth crew member. Its been about ten or fifteen years since we have really spent any quality time together. The last time we sailed together was when Chris crewed for me delivering a boat from St. Thomas USVI, to Los Angeles California via the Panama Canal. So we have had a great trip bonding and learning to sail together again.
On this Indian Ocean passage have been treated to an small Owl landing on the boat for rest and shelter
a pod of about ten 15 meter whales, several dolphin encounters and escorts, and our share of thunderstorms, squalls. This trip is 1600 miles and we pretty much had to motor sail the whole way as when we had wind it was light and dead behind us. Our range for motoring is 1400 miles.... so we needed a pit stop and Galle Sri Lanka was right on our rhumb line to Male. Sri Lanka is an experience. The Galle harbor was attacked by Tamil Rebels in 2006 and then of course the kamikazi attacks in Columbo last month so they have a very heavy military guard up now. This is evident by the Gun Turrets and barricades to the harbor entrance.
We arrived at 1300 and by 1700 and refueled from a motorized cart with 5 barrels holding 1000 liters of fuel that was hand pumped into Vivid. An painfully tedious process to say the least. We had a few hours on the town to get the feel. Our Tuk Tuk (three wheeled taxi) Abdul shared very emotional stories of the Tsunami that hit here a few years ago. He spoke of how 2000 of the cities residents where killed that day including 7 of his personal family members. He took us to his house that is in shambles from the waters force and told us of how the United States military helped with the recovery effort. While at ground zero for the Tsunami landfal we where lucky to watch the local villagers hauling a net in. An amazing sight to see everyone pulling and chanting and anticipating the size of the days fishing effort.
0700 We are entering the Male harbor. On the port side is the city of Male. It is a compressed little city with as many high rises as Downtown Toledo, all compacted into one square mile. The huge Maldivian Flag flies high with the Gold Dome of the Cities main Mosk in the background. We anchor in the quarantine anchorage and await the immigration, customs, health and navy to come aboard and do the required checks and paper work authorizing our stay in the Maldives. We'll get to work on cleaning up and then get some rest tonight!
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