Male' Harbour is very deep at between 35 and 50 meters. We did find a quiet corner to anchor in about 10 meters, but this was only possible because it was calm. After clearing in we had a look around Male' which is not very large! We did some shopping and went back to the boat. On Monday 29 April we left Male' island and headed north to the island of Himmafushi, this is located on the east side of North Male' atoll. The island has a nice lagoon with anchoring in around 10 meters, which is deep for us but better than 35 meters! We had a nice clear night and we sat out for a long time watching the stars, until moonrise. This proved to be our last nice weather for some days. We encountered thunderstorms and wind gusting up to 30 knots from Tuesday afternoon until the following Sunday and this was only the begining!
It was on Sunday afternoon that the Southwest monsoon arrived violently. Up until then the wind had come consitently from the west and north west. This day it arrived from the south, during the afternoon we experienced gusts up to 30 knots. The anchor held well and had a loop of chain around a coral stone.
It was at 01.30 on Monday morning that we got the strongest winds of all. The gusts were to around 52 knots and the sustained wind to about 45 knots. During this blow our anchor came free and there followed an hour of extreme excitement bordering on terror! There was a lot of shallow coral all around us, it was very dark and raining heavly. Visibility wasalmost zero. We did survive and wqithout any damage to the boat, but it was a night that we would like to forget but probably never will!
The following day we moved toanother island that we thought would offer more shelter. This on called Thulusdhoo. The island is to the south of the associated lagoon and should have protected us! That night we were joined by three dive/safari boats and along with the two trawlers and a small tanker that were already in the lagoon we filled the available space! Once again the wind got up in the early evening, this time to only 40 knots, but from the south west and the island offered us no protection at all!
This proved too much for the trawlers and they dragged their anchors into one of the dive boats. It turned into another one of those nights, where amazingly no damage was done! We finally fell into bed exhausted at around 01.30 the following morning.
In the morning we found that our second anchor line had chafed through in the night and we had to search for our anchor and relay it.
After this things settled down a bit and we started to relax. We did no diving as the sea was churned up, but we met some nice local people and generally had a good time.
We departed Male' bound for Phuket on Sunday 19 May. Once clear of the harbour we stopped and had a swim and then set sail in a fair wind.
We completed our longest ever sail of around 1,120 miles and this got us in sight of Great Nicobar island where the wind finally failed and we had to motor across the Anadman sea to Phuket.
Arriving on Saturday 1 June after 1,500 miles and 13 days five hours at sea. The passage was fairly quiet and mostly we were alone. The one exception to this was crossing the very busiy shipping lane which runs between Sri Lanka and Sumatra. This took us one full day and most of the following night.
We are now back in Phuket and plan to stay for about one month, before heading south to Langkawi, where we are going to haul the boat out for a bottom paint.
All for this time.
