These past few days have been a somewhat haphazard affair with arrangements changing, plans changing and scrambling to get organised again.

It started with our attempts to top up on our fresh produce at the local “grocery” shop on Friday morning, which fluctuated between Old Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard and a fair selection of produce, depending on the time of day that Roy visited the shop. We eventually managed to get everything we needed, however, including apples, mangoes, bananas, a pineapple, a pumpkin, a butternut, eggs, red onions, chocolates, biscuits and a few tinned items, as well as some buffalo meat.

The next event, which was a ramification from Thursday evening, following the request by the rally organisers to have all the yachts move over to the island of Hoarafushi. Since we were all concerned about this request, it was agreed that one person from each yacht would be collected on Friday morning to survey the anchorage. Before this could materialise, however, one of other catamarans had sailed over to the island and reported back that, not only was the anchorage on a leeshore, but it was too shallow, so an alternative arrangement was being made to clear out all the commercial boats from the little harbour, requiring all the yachts to then Med moor. Needless to say, by now, no one would entertain the idea of moving anchorage, so arrangements returned to the original plan of ferrying everyone in speed boats over to Hoarafushi yesterday morning for the rally’s Opening Ceremony.

Unfortunately, though, through all of this, Elaine had learnt that this was an inhabited island with a substantial population. A quick perusal of the COVID-19 situation in the Maldives indicated a rather bleak and indeed concerning picture, with daily cases ranging between 2,500 and 3,000 per day and confirmed active cases in excess of 17,000, with more than 5,500 awaiting test results, where the outlining inhabited islands had more than double the number of cases than in the most populated area of Malé, all extremely troublesome considering the relatively small population of the country. With that, our rally plans changed. There was no way we were able to participate in events interacting with locals either on Hoarafushi or with those flown in from other islands for the ceremony or indeed with numerous cruisers who had interacted with the locals, given Elaine’s underlying health conditions and being in the middle of nowhere to obtain hospital care if things went horribly wrong. Instead, as with our stay in Uligamu, we took the decision that we will cruise independently with cruising friends with whom we’re comfortable.

Of course, it’s very rare that a day on a yacht doesn’t involve some or other repair and Friday was no exception. Our solar controller circuit breaker had suddenly tripped. Further investigations revealed that a thicker wire was needed with the new lithium batteries absorbing the full power from the panels, a first ever event!

Our day ended on a good note, though, with another fun night of good food, good company and plenty of laughs on Golden Spirit, as well as receiving a message that our eldest grandson, William, had been awarded a “Super Job” certificate at school for his leadership and willingness to learn. Definitely takes after his Grandma!

Since we couldn’t attend the Opening Ceremony yesterday, we spent our day cooking, in order to use all our remaining fresh vegetables; potatoes, onions and carrots, supplemented with tinned mushrooms and green beans to make a number of meals to freeze, including our usual chicken soup, curry and spaghetti bolognaise sauce, but, instead of a beef stew, we used the buffalo meat for the stew; no idea what that’s going to taste like, but we decided to give it a whirl anyway. Guess we’ll know soon enough how that worked out!

Another dinghy ride ashore to stretch our legs was combined with collecting our fresh bread from the bakery, as well as our freshly made rotis, complements of one of the local ladies. Of course, back onboard, we then couldn’t resist enjoying some of the rotis, still warm, with the curry we’d already made. Absolutely delicious!

Our afternoon was spent snorkelling a different section of the reef and we were delighted to see a wider variety and larger fish, as well as lots of very healthy coral. It has been sad to see just how much coral has actually been bleached.

A quiet night onboard, watching a movie, wrapped up a busy day and, indeed, a busy few days.

Today’s start to the day was rather hectic, albeit a Sunday, primarily because we had provided the required notice period to obtain our paperwork in order to move on from Uligamu, but it wasn’t ready or rather, hadn’t been processed at all, causing a ripple effect of getting our paperwork in order for our next stops. Fortunately, no delays were incurred, but it did cause a mad scramble.

This afternoon Elaine prepared our contributions to a dinner aboard Talulah Ruby III this evening. Although we had to return to Paw Paw a little earlier than originally planned for our Zoom family get-together, it was yet another lovely evening with friends, followed by precious time with family, albeit remotely.