Himmafushi and Malé

Himmafushi

18 – 19 April

📍 Himmafushi · 004°18.168′N, 073°33.504′E · North Malé Atoll (Kaafu)

We motorsailed all the way to Himmafushi, dodging far too often local boats with no AIS and questionable knowledge of COLREGS. After squeezing through the narrow channel into the anchorage, turning left past the sunken sailboat and the other anchored boats, we found a spot to park up near the overwater bungalows.

Shaped like a kilometre-shaped thumb, Himmafushi might only be a few hundred metres wide, but it packs a lot into its relatively compact size. There’s a small fishing harbour, a screened-off bikini beach, a water bottling plant, and, improbably for somewhere this size, a juvenile prison and rehabilitation centre, which can push Himmafushi’s headcount well past 2,000. Ironically, or as a nod towards the island’s unwelcome residential centre, the main surf break, a five-minute walk from the beach, is called Jailbreak.

With excellent timing, our generator parts parcel arrived in Malé just as the Tadds were there on a day trip. They picked up the package and brought it back to Himmafushi, then we picked it up from them in the evening after Maria and I took a look around town and visited the oddly named Moscow store for provisions. Our accidental couriers even gave each of us a beer.

The next day, I changed the generator water pump with the newly arrived one and tried to fix the windlass motor, which has been whining like a 2-year-old child in a sweet shop ever since we installed it. The first was a success; the second not. So, we needed to get more electrical supplies to move on to the next stage of trying to fix a windlass while sweating in exotic locations. I booked the ferry for the next day.

Malé

20 April

📍 Malé · 004°10.792′N, 073°30.511′E · North Malé Atoll (Kaafu)

The booking system for Naseeb Express worked really well: Register, choose the time, opt to pay cash, then pay at the ferry. The ride from Himmafushi to Malé takes 15 minutes because it goes like the clappers, and it is driven by a bloke who drives it like he’s nicked it.

Malé is the capital of the Maldives. Here, around 230,000 people are packed onto an island of 8.3 square kilometres, and it is regularly cited as one of the most densely populated places on earth. The trading hub sits on the western waterfront: a fish market flogging tuna and octopus, a fresh produce market alongside, and rows of chandlers and hardware shops are nearby.

The chandlers are better stocked than you might imagine. We got what we came for (battery cables, lugs and heat shrink). And the food shops aren’t lacking either, with a large fresh market near the ferry terminal.

Actually, there are more shops here than you can shake a wallet at, but most of them seem to close between 1200 and 1330. To pass the time, we had lunch at a Sri Lankan restaurant where the service was good, the prices were fair, and the food wasn’t so bad either.

Our return ferry wasn’t until 1600, so we had plenty of time to look around.

We visited many stalls at the fresh market, but Mr Ali was the star. He introduced me to my new favourite fruit – mangosteen, the “queen of fruits”.

Back to Himmafushi  for more windlass fun

21 – 22 April

I tried the thicker cables I bought from Malé, and completely bypassed the windlass contactor. Each made zero difference.

So, I took the motor off the old windlass to make sure we could get the thing off before ordering a replacement. No one seems to have them in stock for the new version of the windlass (ones made since 2012), so I had to get a motor for the old one. SVB offered to expedite the order and get it out of the warehouse quickly, and they did – although at the time of writing, it seems to be stuck at DHL in Germany.

Later in the day, we did a bit of shopping in town just in time for the mosquito fogging.

And in one of the shops, the Moscow Mart, we met a child called Alisha. She spoke English better than most of the grunting teens back in the UK and insisted on helping us. Maria asked her if she worked in the shop, and she replied: “No, I don’t work here. I’m just a little kid.” Funny.

Windlass, underwater beach and dinner

The next morning, on my ongoing quest to get the anchor windlass working properly, I took the motor off again and, this time, disassembled it. What I found was pitiful – there was black everywhere. I cleaned it up with brake cleaner, compressed air, sandpaper and brushes, and it now sounds like a normal motor. It’s a pity Lofrans didn’t diagnose that as a potential cause. I feel another snotogram coming on.

In the afternoon, we took the dinghy over to the sand spit, which reveals itself as a beach at low water. It wasn’t low water, so it was just water. And the glut of water didn’t help – disappointingly, I drowned the underwater camera by leaving one of the ports open. It is now in the dryer, and we have no photos.

That evening, we went to dinner with the crews of Allora (Dianna and Marcus), Ruth (Claudia and Bertie), and Claudia’s mum, Sylva, who is in her 90s. Sylva speaks 6 languages, and is as sharp as a Japanese kitchen knife. Ruth unfortunately lost her mast in a collision with a commercial vessel near Sri Lanka, so it will take some time to get everything sorted. They are likely to be in the Maldives for some time and are hoping to have the post-90-day 50 USD-per-day charge waived. It’s a lot.

They even had beer at the restaurant. Non-alcoholic, of course. Dianna and Marcus kindly picked us up in their dinghy. Our electric outboard is great for many reasons, but it is not built for speed.

The next morning, we were off again to Huvafenfushi