Weather stops play in the Maldives

Adina rafted up for bad weather with anchors out

Adina is now in Gan in the Addoo Atoll, the most southern atoll of the Maldives. And it is here we are firmly parked and will remain parked as bad weather halts play, preventing us from moving on to our next destination of BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory). The anchorages here in Gan are deep and many boats have dragged due to the poor bottom holding. Our agent spoke to Customs officials here and with very strong winds forecast it was arranged for the three yachts here to raft up alongside the Coastguard wall inside a small lagoon to sit out the bad weather.

It was quite an effort to get us all alongside and many valuable lessons were learnt on rafting for strong winds – more about that to come in a later blog. Looking at the photograph, on the inside is Inspiration Lady owned by Gary and Jackie King, we are in the middle and on the outside is Tin Tin owned by Kevin and Jacqui Enright. Each boat is pretty weighty in its own right so with all three being blown onto the wall together we have renamed the boats Feeling Squashed, Sandwiched and Squishy!

We are all working hard on our boats either repairing them from our last tough up-wind passage down here or preparing them for our next passage which is bound to have its own challenges too. In between we have been enjoying each other’s company and the local Coastguard boys have been kindly helping us all and looking after us. While the GRIB files (weather reports) have not been overly accurate we are all hoping for a break in the bad weather at the weekend and hope to be out of here. Please cross your fingers, toes and if possible the top of your ears too!

Adina, AKA Sandwiched, standing by.