Addu, Maldives and Breakdown in the High Seas

The Addu Atoll is situated about 480 km south of the capitol Male and consists of 6 inhabited and about 27 uninhabited islands. Dams and bridges connect the 4 largest islands and are the largest land connection on the Maldives. The black top road from Gan to Hithadhoo is about 18.5 km. The total population comes to about 30,000 making it the second largest after Male. The Addu Atoll lies south of the equator.

Hithadhoo is the "capital" with about 10,000 inhabitants. There are schools and a hospital. The population lives mostly from fishing; the fish is processed here also.

The British Royal Air Force built an air base here during World War II and expanded it during the hot phase of the Cold War in 1956. They erected dams to connect the surrounding islands. The English trained and hired the Maldivians as service employees, giving them the possibility to earn an income. In 1976, the English relinquished the post and left the Maldives. The Maldivian service personnel moved to Male and the surrounding tourist resorts. Due to their excellent knowledge of the English language, they were very welcome. There is only one accessible tourist resort on the Addu Atoll: - the Equator Village.

We went there several times and enjoyed their all-you-can-eat buffet lunch for about $66 US for all three of us.  They also have a fresh water pool and we enjoyed swimming until they told us we would have to pay extra for that.  We were surprised since the entire resort only had about 12 guests during this low season.

Tom changed the engine oil and re-attached the bow deck box as we tried to get everything ready within the 7 days we were allowed before we would have to get a $1000 cruising permit.  We met Abdula and Mulla who are brothers and own two of the stores here.  We placed an order with Mulla for fresh vegetables and fruit and they agreed to deliver them right to our dingy in the boat harbor.

 

Tom noticed a little antifreeze puddle near where we have a coolant overflow bottle mounted for the main engine.  Since he had seen and corrected some small tubing leaks there before, we were not particularly concerned. However upon closer inspection in Gan, he noticed that it looked like a leak near the circulating water (coolant) pump.  It was quite a mess since the coolant was dripping on the belt and pulleys and flinging everywhere.  Tom could not identify the specific leak source, but assumed that it is the circulating water (coolant) pump.  Since the level in the overflow tank was only down about a cup, we decided we would start the passage to Chagos and top up antifreeze into the overflow tank if needed.  We hoped this would work until we got to a better port with qualified mechanics to help.

Discussions with Naiad determined that a relief valve was the most likely cause of the Naiads not working, but we had no time to wait for a replacement part to arrive.

So after our 7 days in Gan, we took on 2500 liters of fuel, spent a frantic 2 hours trying to exchange our Maldive money for US dollars, and left for Chagos.

Seas were calm and although we had some rolling, it was much better than the last passage.  Just before sunset, Tom was resting and the main engine overheat alarm started screaming.  We shut down the main engine and started the 37 HP wing engine while Tom jumped into the 130 degree engine room.  He could see the results of the antifreeze leak hitting the belts and slinging around but the overflow tank was still at ¾ full.  (Tom later found out that the coolant overflow tank fluid will not flow into a hot engine until after it is shut down and cooling.)

Since we were only 60 miles into our 300 mile trip and qualified help was more than 2000 miles away if we continued south, we made the difficult decision to turn back to north to Gan.  The wing engine ran fine but it took us 20 hours to backtrack the 60 miles that had taken us only 10 hours with the main engine.  On the trip back, Tom e-mailed Bob Senter (our engine guy) with our SSB radio and we had the replacement part already sourced and waiting to ship before we reached Gan.

We went through the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine dance again and decided to call a different agent for this stay in Gan.  By nightfall, Tom had another cell phone sim card and the shipping address for the parts.  Just at dusk, Tom called back to the USA that was just waking up and ordered both the replacement coolant pump and Naiad parts.

Time will tell how long it will take to actually receive the shipped parts and whether Tom will be able to repair the items without help.  Although this is not the best place for a breakdown, we are all safe and the girls are able to snorkel a bit and finish up home-school lessons.  There are enormous bats that fly directly over the harbor that have a 24 inch wingspan and perform for us each dusk and dawn.  Tom can rent a motorbike for about $10 to run errands or borrow Abdulas for only the price of a fill-up.  

 

Wish us well Dear readers that these repairs will go quickly and we will soon be back underway.

Tom