Marooned in Male

We got up early and had checked out of the Flora Airport Hotel by 07:00. The hotel ran a free shuttle taxi service to the international terminal which was very convenient. We had completed online checkin yesterday, but although I was able to forward my boarding pass email so that the hotel could print the attachment, we couldn't manage to do the same with Christine's. Luckily by getting the airline to resend the emails we got hers to display on the tablet. Both the paper and tablet versions were scrutinised and checked four times by security officers before we even reached the baggage drop. Cochin may be a very modern airport, but the procedure to get airside was painfully slow and took the best part of an hour.

The flight to Colombo was short and uneventful, leaving us a couple of hours in the airport to catch the connection to Male. It was after we boarded the next plane that things started to go wrong. First it was the plane itself, a technical problem was resolved, unresolved itself, then needed another hour and a quarter to be finally resolved again whilst we waited patiently onboard. Finally the captain announced that we could now take off very safely. Welcome though this information was, it still meant we were an hour and a half late arriving in Male.

This was then compounded by the luggage taking a further full hour to unload from the aircraft, so we were two and a half hours late as we walked out of the terminal. Imagine our happiness to find a representative from the Eriyadu Island Resort waiting for us. Not so happy, however, when he explained he hadn't been able to hold the transfer speedboat for us. And even less than happy when he eventually divulged that the next boat wouldn't be leaving until just before midnight to accommodate a group of tourists arriving from Singapore.

Given that the resort was 46 watery kilometers away, the prospect of having had to travel for the best part of 18 hours to reach our destination was not appealing to say the least. We sat in an overpriced waterside coffee bar where a croissant and two coffees cost USD14, feeling hard done by as darkness fell and people, buses, boats and aircraft came and went around us.

We didn't need to break the third country rule to eat as the Maldives has no indigenous cuisine to speak of, so we dined on Thai food with a clear conscience. Then I overdid it by eating an ice cream and a dumping episode ensued. About this time there was a torrential downpour hammering on the metal roof above, and I wondered why we had ever come here in the first place. Then sleep overcame me as I lay across a bank of seats and the next thing I knew was being woken with a start surrounded by Singaporeans.

Our boat was a thirty foot speedboat powered by two hefty outboard motors and capable of zipping through the waves at about thirty miles an hour. We were strapped into life preservers, a bottle of ice cold water thrust into our hands, and off we roared. The hull leapt from wave to wave, occasionally crashing into troughs and throwing up mountains of spray, but mostly although there was a lot of pitching, there was little yawing or rolling so the ride although jarring wasn't that uncomfortable. We have been on far worse. It was like being on a seemingly interminable log flume in the dark. The moon was partially obscured behind clouds and apart from occasional distant lights we were alone on the blackness of the ocean.

After about an hour the lights of the Eriyadu resort appeared before us and on disembarking we were given a welcome drink and a couple of sandwiches. The manager said that to try and make up for our delayed journey we had been assigned the best room in the resort, and because we had missed dinner we could have lunch next day even though we were staying on a half board basis. We eventually crawled into a very comfortable bed with the sound of waves lapping outside the door at one o'clock in the morning.