With the stormy weather continuing, Elaine enjoyed a lazy morning yesterday catching up on all her correspondence, while Roy continued his efforts on the repairs of the float switch; what a mission that turned into, but he eventually completed the rewiring and got the bilge pump operational again. Adding biocide to all the jerry cans and resealing the emergency hatch completed his latest To Dos List, but not before he’d dinghied over to Golden Spirit to re-gas their freezer, which had stopped working a few days out of Malaysia. Unfortunately the leak identified could not be repaired, so they remain without a freezer; not the best situation for any passage, especially when most of the contents had to be disposed off en route to the Maldives.
As the weather deteriorated, making Roy’s return to Paw Paw in the dinghy a little precarious, once safely back onboard, we spent the afternoon reading our books, catching up on some world affairs and enjoyed a movie night; the perfect pastimes for an overcast, rainy day!
This morning Roy was up early to dinghy ashore to collect our pre-ordered baked goods from the bakery, although the conditions were still a tad on the rough side, but not wanting to let the baker down, he ventured out nonetheless. However, it turns out this effort was in vain, since the baker had not prepared our order. Rather than waste the trip, he then visited the local “grocery“ store and managed to get some bread rolls, butter, cheese, yoghurt, veggies and chocolates to replenish our ship’s store.
After breakfast onboard, we dinghied back to shore to enjoy a walk on the beach and what a fabulous walk it was, on fine white sand, lapped by various shades of blue and turquoise water; the scenery alone was worth the effort and we definitely weren’t expecting the lush vegetation, accompanied by butterflies, that we encountered en route to the beach, along with a few more telltale signs of what life on the island is like, reminding us of our hikes on St Barts in the Caribbean. Sadly, there was also evidence of the scourge of the earth’s oceans; plastic waste!
By the time we returned to Paw Paw, however, we both needed a midday nap, having had an interrupted night’s sleep with the weather and an anchored fishing boat dragging precariously close to Paw Paw in the middle of the night.
After lunch, given that the weather had settled, it was time to enjoy our first snorkel in the Maldives and our first snorkel in months; again, well worth the effort. Although that the reefs are badly bleached, the variety of fish was delightful to see.
By this evening, Elaine had enjoyed a quick chat to Justine in England, who was shuffling horse poo at the time and the anchorage was starting to fill up, with four more yachts arriving today. Our day was sealed with a video call to Keenan and the grandsons, given that Brooke was on a road trip to Michigan.
