Ellaidhoo – Snorkelling provided a good workout

Position           03:59.829 N 072:56.668 E

Date                 1400 (UTC+5) Thursday 24 March 2016

Distance run    30.8nm over the ground

Yet another day of motoring with no wind, following Flomaida west towards the Ari Atoll and an anchorage close t a resort at Ellaidhoo.  The entrance into the lagoon is narrow shallow channel.  Leave the island to port and the posts to starboard and keep in the middle of the channel.  We saw no less than 1.8m under the keel (3.8m total depth) on the way in at around high water.  We anchored on sand in about 8-10m.  We snorkelled over the reef and along the outside coming back through the entrance channel.  At that time the water was flowing out at quite a rate and we definitely had a work out swimming against it.  At slack water you would not have the problem but there again if it was low water slack you would not get over the reef without being keel hauled.

The channel is close to the island at Ellaidhoo

The lagoon is used by sea planes and boats appeared from quite a distance fetching and carrying their customers.  We understand that the nearby resort welcomes yachties but we did not put this to the test.

We had a visitation from Flomaida to celebrate sunset.

Ellaidhoo – the route in and out.  The electronic chart is way out for this anchorage.