Upselling!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 7 May 2011 04:26
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Friday 6th May 0910 Local 0410 UTC
03:15.483N 072:55.842E
I am rewriting this from memory as it seems that my
blog of yesterday has disappeared off the face of my hard drive!
When I last blogged we were anchored at a stunning
sand bar on the west side of South Male Atoll. We stayed a couple of days then
we headed West to the south of Ari Atoll.
This was directly upwind and about 30 miles away as
the crow swims, so we set off in the morning beating into 15 knots of wind
and although we sailed well averaing about 7 knots against wind and current
we sailed 50 miles to complete our short passage. So it was when we arrived
we were into a sinking sun and this does not make for good
visibility.
An added problem we have is that our electronic
charts have lost all the detail of names and depth contours. The colours are
still there but limited detail. In North and South Male Atolls the Satellite
positioning of us on the chart was good, however here it is considerably out and
I am having to work out a chart offset to correct positioning. We of course have
paper charts but the scale is not good enough for anything other
than general positioning. Navigation is again like so much of the Pacific done
by Mark 1 eyeball. For that you need the light behind you. Depths
inside the Atolls is generally over 40m but reefs come off the bottom right
to the surface from these depths. Outside the Atolls it falls away immediately
to two to three hundred metres.
The first night at Ari we anchored up beside an
island and had to call out to several boat people to get the name of the island
as the name was missing on the electronic chart and it was quite inaccurate
positioning us on the north side of an island when in fact we were on the south
side. The names on the paper chart were different than the resort name of
the island we were looking for. So it is a little strange to have
navigated most of the way round the world and to have to ask a local "what
is the name of this island" as if we were lost or something!
The channels in these atolls are nothing like as
closed as those in the Tuamotos and the in and outflows are irregular, and
certainly not diurnal.
And so it was at 0200 (when else) I was awoken as I
sensed a strange motion in the boat. We were anchored in 30
metres with over 80metres of chain out. You might question this ratio of
rode to depth but as depths get greater I reduce the ratio down as ultimately
swinging room needs also to be considered. For the same wind conditions and same
swinging room in 5m of water I will put down about 40 metres of chain to leave a
boat length and a half on the ground. In 30 metres of water I will put at least
70 metres of chain to leave the same length on the ground, though if possible
I always prefer to have more chain. Anyway what woke me was the slamming of
the waves from the prevailing wind up our stern with the boat having swung round
with an incoming current. The boat often was not held to a loaded rode as
it was balanced between the forces of incoming current and westerly wind.
This causes the yawing and pitching motion together with associated slamming
under our transom.
The next moring we moved to anchor at Ranvelli
resort island whose anchorage was much the same and I spent a couple of
hours up each night on anchor watch. However we came for the
diving...
I am sure my surgeon said that diving twelve
weeks after my operation was good providing I did not go much deeper than
30 metres... The awkward bit (apart from filling in the disclaimer form) was
getting from the boat to the water. The technique was to sit by the "door" of
the Dhoni (the traditional Maldivian boat used for these trips) get my kit on
and get two of the guys to lift me up taking all the weight of the bottle,
which I would not try no matter what my surgeons advice, then throw me
overboard. Once in the water there was no problem. Getting back up onto the boat
however even after stripping all gear off was painful until my body got
reused to the compression load on the spine.
The diving was great and we saw a lot of turtles,
some of the biggest we have seen. However what we came to dive with was the
Manta Rays and we saw lots of them soaring above us like stealth bombers.
They were huge and magnificent. Trish did an extra dive and was delighted to got
diving again and photographed away to her hearts content, though the visibility
was not good.
We spent a coupl eof enjoyable days there, though
uncomfortable nights, before heading south to the South of Ari Atoll where we
would go Whale Shark hunting. We spent Thursday afternoon hunting along the
reef but the visibility was very poor and squall after squall led us to head off
to a local harbour Maamigilee, to anchor up for the night. It was not
particularly pretty and the flies were at epidemic proportion depresing Trish,
but the sleep was excellent!
I went ashore on arrival to try to find some
supplies but there was almost nothing despite a quite a large population.
Eventually I spotted a barbers and decided to go for a trim.
This is the way to get under the skin of a local
place. The kind of place where everyone stops to stare at you as like the alien
you are, you stroll nonchalantly up the dirt street. People are friendly but not
open and welcoming like the Pacific islanders. The geography may be similar to
the Tuamotos but the culture is very different.
So, "Choi" indicated with his five fingers Five
Ruffiah (20p) for my haircut. He was very excited about cutting the token
westerners hair and no matter how many times I said "OK" and went to get off the
seat he reached for the scissors and shears and trimmed just a little bit
more. The haircut was a very smiley experience but I was not able to speak
Dhivehi and he had almost no English. So I was unable to fully express my
concern at him spraying my head several times with a liquid which said Glass and
Mirror Polish on the bottle. It smelt strange but seemed to think it was normal.
When the end finally came and I gave Choi his five Ruffiah he was able
aagain to hold up five fingers and say "fifteen" Ruffiah (60p). Then I had
nothing less than a 100 Ruffiah note to give him. Inevitably he had no change
and could only give me 80 Ruffiah back bringing the haircut price to 80p.
An expert at upselling! As a visitor and a westerner you should take these
things in good humour and remeber it is only a few pence and genuinely much is
lost to communication and cultural differences. Choi was happy with his deal
and I with my head smelling of windowlene, was happy strolling down the
dirt street, which apart from the headscarfed women could have been from B type
spagetti western.
Friday morning would be set aside for more Whale
Shark Hunting before moving south again to North Niandhe
Atoll
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