Dholhiyadhoo Apr 2015

Another one of our anchorages.  Such pretty water.  So nice to have shallow sandy bottoms to drop the hook into.  We didn't go ashore, though, as we were moving nearly every day and spent our energy snorkeling the waters.  We found a huge, anemone-covered bommie with 6-8 huge lobsters tucked back into a crack in it.  Safe they were as we didn't dare brave the poisonous anemones to try to get them.

We reached this tiny crescent of an island called Dholhiyadhoo, with a defunct resort on its sands.  We anchored as close as we dared to get to the steep shelf of sand.  You can see the deep blue of the waters beyond the lagoon in the background.

These over-the-water luxury bungalows never got finished.  The resort stopped building about 2 years ago, we were told, and the resort island is for sale for $60 million with a 50-year lease.  An absolutely stunning locale, but it now just houses 57 workers who are keeping the place from being taken over by the local fishermen.  They were very friendly and welcoming of us in our yachts.

YOLO anchored at Dholhiyadhoo in the Maldives.

One of the unfinished bungalows.

Jason and I went ashore with the folks from Zephyr to explore the defunct resort.  You can see our boats anchored in the background.

The back side of the bungalow beach, facing the open waters from the north.  We found lots of shells here on the beach, the first good shelling we'd seen in the Maldives at all.

One of the bungalows on land.  The fancy imprinted concrete walls look nice.  The thing hanging on the wall is a bundle of wires for the electricity here that never got connected.  So much money tied up in an unusable project now.

Sajid, on the left, is managing the workers and maintenance folks here keeping the island resort from crumbling into the sea.  He wanted to give us food and water and fish.  We took the free water from this jetty before we left and he buzzed off on the motorcycle and returned with this worker and the seafood from their freezers.  Two bonito, a huge red snapper and a lobster.  He would've given us much more but we demurred.  Such friendly folks for a resort island here.  We hear stories of resorts running yachts off as they don't want us around their guests, so it was nice to be welcomed here.  Look up the place on GoogleEarth and you can see what a gorgeous setting it is in.