After three months at the Maldives it is time to leave for a new place. We are really looking forward to our next destination. We will go to Chagos, British Indian Ocean Territory, the second largest marine protected area in the world. After a few last days in the southernmost atoll of the Maldives called Addoo, where we buy as much provisions as possible, go out for dinner and enjoy the friendliness of the Maldivians, the weather forecast predicts fair winds for us. This is not always likely in April because it's the change of the monsoon and therefor the weather is not stable. This means the wind can come from any direction or there is no wind at all, then there can be lots of strong squalls, possibly with thunderstorms. Some of those we enjoyed already at anchor in Addoo, where we had nights with lots of action and less sleep than we would have liked. Although our self made mooring plus two anchors! were fine in the squalls with over 40 knots of wind. Friends of us on other sailing boats decided to leave two days before us after bad experiences with their anchorages - and they are currently sailing towards strong winds and lots of rain. Hopefully we will be more lucky – we will at least give the rest of our equator sparkling wine to Neptune before we leave.
For the next 6 to 7 weeks we will be in an area with no infrastructure and no possibility to provision or have internet. But we are really looking forward to have a look under water and see how it looks like in a marine protected area. The Maldives already surprised us with unexpected encounters and some really great coral reefs, so we are expecting even more from Chagos. It's an area where commercial fishing is not allowed, as well as to collect or grow anything. In Chagos only a few sailors and scientists come each year and are allowed to stay for a few weeks at some places. The other area is reserved only for nature. Every sailing or research vessel, which wants to come here, needs a special permit and can only stay for 4 weeks before they have to leave again. Also the worlds biggest atoll is in this area – the Great Chagos Bank with a diameter from north to south of over 60 and east to west of over 90 nautical miles.
We are so looking forward and will get on our way today!