We spent a lovely three days at Olhuhali swimming and snorkeling. It was a nice place to stay even if there was construction going on at a nearby island. While it started about 0600 and went sometimes till midnight, we rarely heard it or tuned it out after a while.
We launched Puff the first day and hung her from the side the rest of the time we were there. That allowed us to keep the hatches open and get more airflow below decks. We put up our big tarp to keep the Sun off most of the decks. The bad thing is the dark blue hull we have. It absorbs the Suns rays and radiates heat into all the storage areas behind our cushions.
After three days of having fun, it was time to move on.
We pulled up our anchor(no problems with coral this time) and took a different way out of the atoll. We'd followed a channel that can be seen on Google Maps in but found that there was another way out. It's deep enough around the east side that we skirted over the coral with about 6 feet under the keel. That shortcut saved us about an hour traveling time.
We motored south east as the sea was flat calm with barely a ripple in it. The Sun reflected off the water and the clear skies gave it an amazing shade of dark blue. We watched for a small sandy circle that Google Maps showed along our way and once past it, we entered right through the cut in the north side (04 36.888N:073 30.016E)of the atoll. We headed for the eastern edge and dropped anchor at 04 36.795N: 073 30.624E in a nice sandy spot about 40 feet deep with the water so clear, I could see the anchor as it dug in. I wouldn't need to go swimming to check it out. As for other places to anchor, Mr John dropped at 04 36.799N: 073 30.400E and Yolo dropped at 04 36.100N: 073 30.016E
We settled in quickly with me turning off the water maker and then we put up our tarp again as the Sun is painfully hot out here and with darn near no wind at all, it really heats up the deck and boat.
The atoll we are currently in is called Maahaa and it's a coral ring with no islands involved. There is a sandy spit along the north side that we passed beside as we came in. We plan to only be here one day and then head for another atoll farther southeast of here for another day. Our time is getting short to be in Male to get our new cruising permit. The first one is only good for 30 days and while it's hard to believe we have been here that long, we have.
Today for lunch, we are having steak and potatos!!!! Nothing special but after being on board here for a month plus the fifteen days it took to get here, we are slowly clearing out food from under the floorboards, and settee storage places. When we left Phuket, we had more food on board than when we left Mexico four years ago and we thought we had a ton then but we knew that provisioning out here in the Indian Ocean would be hard and probably quite expensive.probablpquiquitexpensive. --------------040002090505020704010707--