Uligamu

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Wed 2 Mar 2022 06:37
07:04.91N 072:55.11E
Uligamu (Uligan) is the administrative centre for the north of the Maldives. Here there are immigration, customs, port authority, public health and agent facilities but as far as we can tell not much else. There is a primary school, three small shops, a bakery and small cafe/restaurant that serves as the social hub for yachties. Nevertheless 300 people live here although you rarely see more than a handful out and about. There are two mosques and religious solace may be taken four times a day from 0400 through to 1900.
This is not a resort island - there is unlikely to be anyone here apart from the locals and passing yachties. There has been an attempt to develop a basic resort at the south end of the island but the almost finished buildings are overgrown and decaying and completely neglected. 
Many yachts check into and out of the Maldives here because it is less expensive and bureaucratic than at Male. It is also the first port of call for yachts coming down from Sri Lanka and is on the direct route between the Red Sea and Thailand/Malaysia. We assumed it would attract yachts travelling down through the Maldives towards Chagos and Seychelles. However, apart from the three in our little group every yacht has been heading towards the Red Sea. There seems to be a widespread wish this year for yacht crews to get up to the Mediterranean as quickly as possible despite knowing the sailing and administrative difficulties this involves. After two years of Covid lockdown many sailors just want to get home. This will involve as few stops as possible to avoid the administrative hassle and corruption likely to be encountered. Egypt is now considered a country to avoid unless a stop is absolutely necessary.
Feeling we were a minority group I contacted Des Cason, weather guru in South Africa who many yachts use for passage planning (including ourselves), to see how many were heading towards South Africa. He has 46 yachts signed up for this year but most have yet to head across to the Maldives. I imagine we will all converge in the Seychelles later in the year.
On board Vega we have emptied 6 of our 7 spare fuel containers into the tank. About 115 litres that equates both with the fuel gauge and our motoring hours since refuelling at the Boat Lagoon marina at just under 2 litres per hour. We have also refilled the spare tanks although more for convenience than necessity as it seems fuel is available fairly widely in the Maldives.
Our two remaining unresolved issues are the plotter not displaying AIS and the Duogen regulator dumping output into the resistors. My plan is to put in a switch to bypass the regulator so that we can monitor the current going to the batteries and switch back into the regulator when the battery voltage reaches more than 14 Amps. The plotter remains a mystery.
When we first used the new water maker in Thailand we had an issue with air in the system that recurred when we used it again here on arrival. Furthermore the seawater filter was not filling so there was clearly a problem lifting enough seawater. So, I checked over the filter and then homed in on the impeller in the seawater pump. Given that the machine is brand new and we had made around 300litres of freshwater I hadn’t expected an issue with the impeller. I certainly didn’t expect to find the impeller in six separate pieces with five of the six arms broken off! Fortunately I brought a spare impeller and with this installed the machine has worked like a dream and filled our water tanks much more quickly than expected! The supplier is shipping out another impeller at his cost.
Colin and Izzi in Endorphin Beta have now arrived and are working on cleaning the dirt out of their fuel tank (they had to motor so much they were running out of fuel and the fuel filters were blocking from the dirt in the bottom of the tank). Their mainsail is stuck in the mast furling system and as the clew ring completely pulled off the sail they cannot pull out the sail until some high strength tape loops are sewn onto the clew. They think they can fix their water maker - all the retaining bolts were only hand tight after the “professionals” had worked on it!
Annie and I are getting anxious to move on and so after some birthday celebrations last night for Izzi and Jon and a search for some fresh fruit and vegetables today we will start to head south. Jon on Hecla is still awaiting packages to be delivered from Male so he will stay and help to get Endorphin up and running again. Annie and I have marked more than enough anchorages to get us all down to Male and we will share these with a view to meeting up again in a few days. An interesting mix of inhabited islands, resort islands and isolated uninhabited atolls……….




















SY Vega