We finally got away from the "resort" at Dholhiyadhoo and headed south east but not before going over to the main jetty and getting our water tanks filled with great water and it was free! Ali Sajid or just Sajid offered us all the water we wanted. With two big desalinators on the island(only one hooked up) he has a tremendous amount and it very happy to share. Sajid has been a great host taking care of just about everything we needed while we were there. When we arrived at Uligan, we got 14 gigs of internet to take care of us for a month. Well, two weeks in and 12 of the 14 gigs were gone. We needed to get "topped up". We asked Sajid where the nearest town was where we could get it taken care of and his response was that they could take care of it right there. They have a man on the island that sells the "topping up" service to the men that work there and there would be no problem getting us taken care of. The remarkable thing about it was that the price he charged for it was the same price the company would charge us if we had been in one of their stores. We took Puff in yesterday and got it all taken care of and while we were there, Sajid took us to lunch. They have an area set up to feed all the employees and so off we went and had a great lunch of two different types and styles of cooked fish. One was deep fried and the second was steamed. Both were excellent. Add in rice, fish soup, potatoes in a curry sauce and a side dish of sausage and broccalli in a sauce and it was wonderful. They even served slices of watermelon for dessert. We even had what they called Lime Water, we call Limeaide to drink. The picture on todays post is of the turtle farm the resort maintains raising turtles till they are big enough to exist in the wild. Three different tanks with turtles in different sizes in each of the tanks. This place is truly "Cruiser Friendly!! If you are heading south, please stop in here for a visit. Now timing is everything. Sajid takes off to visit his family in Sri Lanka every two weeks and he just left yesterday, Wednesday March 25 and will be back next Sunday the 29th and leaving again on April 8th so plan your stay accordingly. If you should miss him ,ask for Mohammad, his right hand man. Another great guy.
While you are there, walk along the north shore and poke through the huge piles of coral that have been dredged from just off the island. These mounds are full of sea shells. Maybe not the newest and prettiest but some great shells ripe for the picking.
To repay his kindness, we took them in some DVDs and magazines for them to read. Out here in the middle of no where, entertainment is great to pass along.
We pulled up the anchor, got our water and headed out for Dheefram(05 53.175N 073 18.935E), a lovely looking circular island with sandy beaches all around it. We pulled in on the west side and dropped the anchor in about 20 feet of water. It was deserted! I put on my snorkeling gear and jumped in. I needed to check the anchor to make sure it was set. What I found was our anchor had slid through the dead coral and down the slope of the reef. We'd started in about 20 feet of water and it was now in 50 feet and not attached to anything. When I surfaced, I told Tracy we needed to pull it back up and go in further and drop there. She looks at me and tells me two boats are headed our way. I swam back to Zephyr and once aboard, we saw that one boat had gone to another island and the second was about to pull in beside us. It was a "dive" boat from one of the local resorts with about 6 people on it to go snorkeling. Nothing worth diving there that I saw. Well we decided to just pull up the anchor and try another island since we were encroaching on these people or more like they were encroaching on us. With the anchor up, off we went. As we left, the dive boat fired up his engine and quickly moved to exactly where we had dropped our anchor. He sat there while his guests worked their way toward shore.
We were off in search of another place to stop. Farther south were two islands--Orivaru and Loafaru. We stopped at Orivaru(05 48.295N 073 17.560E) and dropped the anchor and when I dove on it, it has wedged itself onto a small coral bommie and we were fine. Now I might not trust it in a 30 knot blow but since the winds for the day are supposed to be about 5 knots, I'm not worried. I took a shower with some of our new water and had another great lunch of Tom Kha Gai soup left over from a few days ago. This afternoon, read and maybe a game of Scrabble. We will see. Tomorrow, off to the next Atoll south of here. We will see what it brings.