Monday, February 19, 2018

Feledhi Atoll - Hulhihoo Reef

 A large moray eel.

Hulhihoo Reef.


This little sandbar disappeared with the tide.


A heron.
John and I explore the island.


Taking dinner to the beach.
Our dinner on the beach.
Monday, February 19th.
After breakfast we sailed for about a half hour to a reef that Aman called the best he’d been on. They moored our boat and took us up wind in the runabout boat. We got in the water and basically floated with the current back to the boat. John and I swam together at the back taking our time. We saw a large moray eel and a large pink lobster, as well as some more anemone with clown fish. The reef did look pretty good with some soft corals. What I especially liked was the steep drop off from the coral to bottom about fifteen or twenty metres below. I kept looking for larger fish lurking down there, but no such luck.
Then we sailed a bit more to a little sandbar island and moored there. I put my old camera inside the dry bag and swam to the island with it above water. When we got there, we walked along a little sandbar that jutted out from the island and took some nice photos. I walked around the island a bit but discovered that it was covered in litter. Apparently, this is one of the islands that was abandoned after the tsunami and locals don’t clean up their picnic messes. When we went back John had a nap and I snorkelled along the reef around the island. Again, there were lots of beautiful fish to see.
We had lunch there too. Then we left and motored for another 45 minutes to our mooring place for the night. It is windier here and there is a pretty strong current between the islands, so they tied the boat three ways, left, centre and right. John went for a swim to the nearest island. I wanted to take my camera, so I waited for the shuttle boat. They took all of us there and we walked around for about an hour, before they took us back. We found out that the crew was organizing a dinner for us on the island. The chef had cooked everything and put it under aluminium and the rest of the crew had set up a little eating area for us. After dark they came back to the boat to get us. When we got there, we were surprised by the creativity of the crew. They had made a little eating area complete with candles in plastic bottles, other candles in cans in holes with a palm frond sticking out. There was a table made of sand and covered with a big board from the boat and surrounding by a moat and sand seats. There was a long serving table and we helped ourselves buffet style to chicken, pizza, fish, salad, kabas, cooked tomatoes, onions and eggplant. There were four desserts too, two different custards, a sticky pie and fruit salad. It was a nice setting and great atmosphere. Too bad about the Chinese wedding happening beside us, and their silliness of throwing each other in the sea, but thankfully they left and didn’t spoil our whole evening.
After we finished eating I wandered off along the beach in the dark, enjoying the waves, the wind, the trees, the stars, the crescent moon and the solitude. Really amazing. The others were busy discovering the bioluminescent algae.
At 9:30 we headed back to the back for the night.

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