Maldives: We left Sri Lanka on March 1st 2006 and arrived at the Maldives on March 4th and it seems the three nights and four days journey were doomed for failure from the word go. The first night we ran into a fishing net and took several hours to break free. Then we had to navigate around all the other shallow tuna nets on the way out of their waters. The second day the toilet broke twice at the most inconvenient times. In the toilets defense though, it would be pretty hard to find a convenient time for the toilet to break. And to top it all off, on the third day we ran into a swarm of bugs of biblical proportions! Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but the whole boat was suddenly covered in thousands of bugs in the middle of the night 200Nm from dry land. All ranging from moths to stink bugs to grasshoppers, flies and mosquitoes. Ah yes, and then there was the wind heading in the wrong direction. According to the weather chart there was a less than 1% chance that the wind would go in the direction it did, so we had to motor most of the way. On the last day the wind swung round, and we where finally doing good speed when a few hours later, at around 2pm, we where hit by a storm with winds reaching 37knots... with full sails up! But after arriving in the Maldives it was all worth it. Tropical Islands, Coral reefs, wine and Dire Straits blaring on the speakers as the sun was setting. The first few days in the Maldives where spent on a cruising permit sailing around Male Atoll. The Islands in Male Atoll where nice, and would probably have been even nicer if there weren't resorts on all of them (that also goes for the rest of the Maldives though). The Metropolis of Male Island was a nice change after Asia, and it makes you think how well society works without the lubrication of alcohol. Still would’ve been nice if they had a pub there =). With agent fees and taxes etc it Maldives was and extremely expensive place to visit. My advice, if you ever find yourself cruising through there... Check in, fill up water and diesel etc, stay the night anchored outside Hulumale Island or stay in the customs port in Male Island, sign out the next day and spend a few weeks working your way north through the Maldives. That's the only way to do it if your on a budget. Four days cruising permit cost us $300, and they would have gotten away with more had it not been for Olivers temper. After spending our money, we signed out and spent a week heading North and stopping at all the Islands along the way that (according to our book we got from our agent Ahmed) didn't have resorts on them. All of them either had a standing resort or a development for a resort. Big bummer. But as you can see from the pictures, we had an awesome time anyway. "Gallery 1" is from our first days on the cruising permit and "Gallery 2" are pictures from our heading out of Maldives. Thanks for visiting my site. I hope you enjoy the pictures!