Huvadhoo Journal - Part II
We're docked in Gadhdhoo's harbour and by the time I finish some urgent work, everyone's gone off to the mainland.
Chatura makes me an omelette, which I eat on the stern. It's typical Chatura excellence.
"Why didn't you go?" asks Chatura.
"I had some urgent work," I tell him.
"What urgent? You're on holiday," he says.
"I still have to pay rent Chatura," I say and he grins.
"Buy a house," he replies.
Huh.
Chatura goes to the kitchen, and Sadies, the young bartender looks at me mischievously.
"Want to get some, brother?" he asks.
"Maybe later," I tell him. "I have work, brother."
Sadies nods, smiling. From this angle, you can tell he is related to Vijay somehow, there’s a family resemblance. Vijay is actually Sadies’ father. Imagine that, a father-son duo from Sri Lanka working on a boat in Huvadhoo.
--
Around 9:00am, Mike returns with the entourage of guests.
"Have some," he says, handing me a drink. "Hold your nose, just swallow."
It's toddy, fresh from the island.
"Not bad, eh?" he says. I tell him I've had toddy before.
"Sure," he says, smiling. "We're getting ready to catch some fish, do you want to come?"
"I can't, I gotta do some stuff," I tell him.
"Well, if you change your mind, ask Malli to bring you near the yellow buoy."
Mike, Dr Hoo, and Cleg go off in the rented dinghy. I return to my cabin to finish off some work for a client in Male.
--
It's almost time for lunch. I head up to the kitchen where Chatura is busy frying up some fish and chips.
There's quite a feast on hand. Red rice, tuna fried noodles, a chicken curry, a salad, chips, and fish.
"Wow," I tell Chatura. "You've really gone hard."
"Have some," he says. So, I pile on some noodles and curry on my plate. It's really good, the chicken curry is classic Chatura, thin and soupy with a lovely layer of spice, but it's low on heat, respecting the sensitive palates of the Aussies. I steal a few chillies from the fridge.
Outside, on the stern, Jeff is leaning against the railing, his left knee in a black knee guard.
"What happened there?" I ask.
"It's my arthritis," he says. "I looked it up on ChatGPT [my enemy] and it didn't give a definitive answer. Could be the food, could be the environment, the weather."
Andy goes to the bar and returns with a wearable cold compress that he hands Jeff.
"There ya go ya old bugger," he says. Jeff wears it and lets out a sigh of pleasure.
“It’s amazing, thank you Andy.”
"How did you guys like the island today?" I ask them.
"It was very insightful," says Jeff, walking over to the sofa and sitting down gingerly. "It's very clear how some people live comfortably with very few material possessions."
He feels his knee gingerly.
"We're so used to having things to do, whether it's work or some form of entertainment, whereas here, there's literally nothing to do, very little distraction," he goes on. "There’s more time to reflect."
"You'd think, right?" I say.
"One thing that struck me was that people keep their yards very neat but there's a huge garbage problem," says Jeff.
Ah. It seems almost treasonous to talk about the ills of your country in the presence of foreign guests.
Luckily, the wind picks up, and Chatura, Malli, Sadies and Vijay all scramble to remove the padded seat covers. And not a moment too soon because the sky lets loose a total deluge, so powerful that you can barely see the harbour.
"Wow," says Jeff. "I have never seen a storm like this."
"It'll clear up," I tell him. We sit quietly, watching the rain pelt like little pebbles on the surface of the sea.
--
I am napping inside my cabin when I feel the boat bounce hard. Are we moving? Then the boat lurches. It swings madly from side to side. What the hell is going on? Things start crashing around me. The cabin creaks. Something falls and clatters on the floor. Above me, I hear screaming. The boat stops. Someone must have fallen out of the boat. More screaming. The boat begins to move. Maybe they rescued him. I look at my phone but there is no reception. I can't even call Mike to see what's up. I don't want to get out of bed lest I fall and injure myself. I may be from the Maldives but the sea isn't exactly my home. I'm a landlubber, through and through.
In the dark cabin, I try to meditate to take my mind off what is happening. I don't get seasick in the normal way, I just get an awful headache.
After what seems like hours, the door to my room crashes open and Dr Hoo pokes his big head in.
"You alright there?"
"I'm dead Dr. Hoo, DEAD."
He laughs.
"We're anchoring for the night soon. There's a small island nearby."
With that, he's gone and I return to my attempts at meditation.
--
When the boat comes to a halt, I venture out to the deck. The sky is grey. Before me is a curious island, small, green, with a brilliant white beach. Birds cry overhead, white birds that go to rest on the shore.
"There are no coconut palms on this island," remarks Mike.
Of course, that's what's odd about it. It's just large trees. Not a palm in sight.
The boat still lurches occasionally. The captain is with us too, at the prow, looking at the island.
"It's going to get worse tonight," he says.
"Really?"
"Storm's coming in."
Jeff shows up and staggers towards us.
"Where were you all afternoon, Ablow? We thought you'd fallen off."
"Oh, I was just in my room being a grouch," I tell him, and he laughs. "Why were you guys screaming? I thought something terrible had happened."
"Ah, we just caught a couple of wahoo," he says. "We lost one, too. Tracy caught it. There was a lot of screaming when that happened."
I feel a bit silly for having my fears.
The dinner bell rings. I take a look at the buffet laid out on the counter. There's sashimi, likely wahoo, salad, fried rice. And lobster. Dr Hoo had caught them last night, I hear.
A few Aussies turn up and begin snapping photos of the spread.
"Where's everyone else?" I ask Cleg.
"Ah, mate, they're too sick to eat," he says.
I go to the kitchen to grab my last meal for the day.
"What happened to you?" asks Chatura. "Were you being sick?"
"Ah, no," I tell him. "It was much too rough."
"That wasn't rough," he says. "I've been on the sea with water coming in from the sides. When the fridge fell over."
"I have absolutely no desire to experience something like that," I tell him.
"You wait, tonight's storm is going to be something," he grins.
I have a modest meal of rice and chicken curry, then call it a night.
We're going to be docking in Villigili tomorrow morning. Golden Flower has traversed the width of the atoll starting from Thinadhoo in the Southwest. Isn't that something? I should try going in the water with the Australians. If only to hang about and see them in action up close. I'll have to ask Mike if it's OK.
There’s a knock on my door.
“It’s me,” says Dr Hoo. I let him in.
“Why are you sleeping so early?” he asks.
“I always sleep early,” I say. “What’s up Doc?”
“I haven’t had a chat with you in so long,” he says. He gets like that sometimes, Dr Hoo. He’s snuck in a coke, too. In a little while, the cola gets to my head.
“The problem is,” begins Boo. “People are afraid. Afraid of losing, afraid of trying, afraid of what people might think. So, you see. It’s fear that keeps you out of heaven.”
That’s Dr Hoo at his most simple and philosophical.
“Fear, and hope, and regret. These are our enemies.”
I can see why that may be – each prevents being anchored to the present. Even hope - it asks that you defer the present in favour of an ideal, an ideal tomorrow. Yet the ongoing wow is right now. There is a slap as a big wave makes the Golden Flower roll, and I sense something in my stomach contract.
My desperate roaming eyes fall on the large, framed photo on the wall. It’s a domestic scene of people tending to a pregnant lady, who lies in bed, in pain. It has the feel of an oil painting, which is why Mike has a whole series of them displayed in the rooms and in the lounge. I think the photos are a bit overwrought but Mike seems to like them because of this.
Hmm. Pain.
“What are you thinking about?” asks Dr Hoo.
“Were you frightened at any point, Doc?” I ask.
Dr Hoo’s face turns pensive, his eyebrows furrow slightly, and he takes a swig.
“I was very frightened when I was younger. But I learned to let go of that. I don’t want to get hurt, but I no longer fear getting hurt. You know? I’ll deal with the hurt in my way. There’s nothing to fear.”
“How did you do it?”
“You need to get over the fear of a wave to ride and enjoy it,” says Boo. “It’s a simple lesson that you learn in surfing.”
Simple stuff is sometimes profound.
“You know, I lost a lot in life, my business for one thing,” he says. “But I don’t regret it. I’m completely happy right now. Here in Huvadhu with Mike and you. I’m happy as fuck.”
I’d heard from Mike that Dr Hoo had a few speedboats and some serious money until a few years back. And in the weeks I’ve known Doc, he’s never once brought it up. And we have had long conversations that went on all night. I sense the weight of that statement – that he is happy right now. It feels true. It’s right there on his face. Dr Hoo is grinning, gap-toothed, like a kid. It almost seems the face of someone who’s seen past the veil into the other side of suffering.
--
The breakfast bell goes off, waking me up. I check the time: it's half past seven. I feel a little sore, though I don't know from what. We're still cruising, so we haven't reached Villigili yet.
After my routine, I stay in bed, reading the Surfer Magazine. It detailed some of the goof-ups they'd made over the years. Like omitting the redemptive arc of a Haitian surfer, so he just seemed an angry fella, and calling a Wayne Lynch documentary "meh." No, I didn’t know who Wayne Lynch was before I read it.
When the boat slows down, I venture out to the prow. Mike, Travis, Dr Hoo, Jeff, and Ted are out, looking at the island nearby. The sky is bleak, and there's a huge storm in the distance, dropping a curtain of grey rain into the ocean.
"We should anchor in Villigili's harbour and take the dinghy out to catch the waves," Mike tells Travis.
"Do what's best," he says. "Would be hard spotting the surfers from here though."
I go to the kitchen and grab some breakfast. It's a mashuni morning again, and Chatura's mashuni is almost as good as my mother's. I tell him as much. He laughs, but he seems tired.
"Didn't you sleep last night?" I ask.
"Too stormy," he says. "I'll try get some sleep later today. Or stay up."
While I eat, looking at Villigili's harbour that's lined with modern fishing vessels, Ted comes up to me. I ask him if he'd had a good sleep.
"Not much," he says. "The boat was rolling like crazy last night. How about you?"
"I missed all the action," I tell him. "I woke up to the breakfast bell."
"That's cool," he says. "The food on this trip has been consistently great."
"Ah, you have Chatura and Malli to thank," I say.
We spot Dr Hoo going about on the dinghy.
"He's like the head honcho round here," says Ted. "You see him all the time, and he's always on top of everything. Always around to help."
I laugh. Dr Hoo will be pleased to hear this. I tell Ted that I'd only met Dr Hoo late last month, when I flew down here. And that we'd spent a couple of weeks together before the Australians arrived.
"Two weeks?" says Ted, a little incredulous. "What did you guys even do?"
"Ah, we went snorkelling, fishing. I even tried bodyboarding for the first time, Doc pushed me into a wave and off I went. It was pretty cool."
Ted laughs.
"Sounds like you had a lot of fun," he says. I did.
Then, Cleg and Jeff come down to the stern.
"We caught a huge tuna earlier, Ablow," says Jeff excitedly. "Travis reeled it in. We're in for a sashimi lunch I hear."
"How's the trip been so far?" I ask them.
"Well, mate. We've had some fantastic waves all to ourselves. The crossing was a bit rough yesterday but that's part of the fun," says Cleg.
"The food's been phenomenal," adds Jeff. "It was really interesting visiting those island-villages, too. Very insightful."
I'm glad to hear this and I know Mike will be too. So will the rest of the crew.
"Well, there's still a day for you guys to enjoy Huvadhoo," I tell them.
"Too right," says Cleg.
When everyone's gone surfing, I go into the kitchen where Chatura is filleting a big yellowfin, the one that Travis caught. Sadies observes him.
"Chatura, the Australians love your food," I tell him. He shrugs and smiles and continues with his work.
"They haven't seen anything yet," says Sadies. "He's going to have a BBQ, and make pizza, too. And there's gonna be tuna sashimi today."
Chatura grins. They're playing baila in the kitchen again and he chops up some onions quickly.
"This is going to be my last trip on a boat," he says, rubbing the back of his hand against his forehead. "It's too much. Too risky."
I nod. It's true. And my dad, who was a seaman said Sri Lankans don't travel too well on the sea, unlike Maldivians who're pretty used to the waves. Not me, but Maldivians in general I mean. My dad is a bit xenophobic though, I must add.
"Chatura's gonna open a restaurant," says Sadies cheekily. "He'll be a rich man."
"I'll go to any restaurant this man opens," I tell Sadies. "I'll go gladly."
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