Not long after Grin enjoyed then reprieve of his smaller adventures, we received confirmation that the Maldivian government is going to allow us to move somewhere! “You ready to go, Sonrisa?” Leslie asked, voice full of I-Should-Be-Grateful-For-What-I-Get quarantine cheer.

An almost non-existent equatorial breeze lifts, then folds my limp Maldivian courtesy flag. Like a small jolt of static electricity through a balloon, I feel a short lived zing in my soul knowing water is about to pass beneath my hull - six nautical miles of water beneath my hull to be exact.

“I guess.” I grumble. Leslie pats my mast in response.

“I know, Sonrisa. I know.”

After more than a month of negotiations and discussions about equatorial weather patterns and the likelihood that our current anchorage will eventually turn to a lee shore, our immigration agents were able to get permission from the authorities to allow the Uligan, Maldives contingent of sailboats to sail across this atoll under escort of our Maldivian Coast Guard to the other side. There, we can test out the anchorage for viability in the SW Monsoon winds, and to the great joy of my crew - they will be allowed to visit Matheerah Fulhu - an uninhabited speck of land in the nearby area.

I admit, it is something. But, I also can’t seem to shake the heaviness of heart I feel knowing my entire reality has shifted out from under me. If things were going to plan, we would be in the Southernmost tip of the Maldives by now provisioning and preparing for a 500 mile trip to one of the most remote atolls on the plant - The British Indian Ocean Territory. That is not going to happen, and each day that passes I fear it will never happen.

Andrew is bustling around by my anchor. “Leslie! Should we try to sail off the anchor?” He asks. I raise my right eyebrow, and Leslie cocks her head to the side. I am sitting atop my anchor like a rubber duck waiting for water to ripple in an abandoned bath tub.

Leslie points up at my courtesy flag. “Uh, probably not, Sweets. I don't think there is much wind.”

Andrew deflates a little with this obvious bit of news. Leslie warns Kitty(Cat) of the impending onset of my engine, turns my key, and the beep whines. Andrew, Kitty, and I all scowl at the deep growl of my engine firing up. We would so much rather sail. Leslie proclaims “We’re going on passage!” a bit tongue in cheek.

I fight this mood as my chain links chug along the anchor windlass. As my hook is freed, Leslie turns my bow toward the deeper center of the atoll and pulls the lever backward to throttle up. I try to focus on the bubble and gurgle of the water moving beneath me, the blue sky over head. “This is nice.” I tell myself, but within thirty seconds my inner monologue scampers off on various topics of discourse: “What’s going to happen? Is this anchorage going to be safe enough? Can I keep Andrew and Leslie safe? Will we ever get to leave? In a few months? In a year? What happens if...? Why is this happening? It seems like every time I break into a new sea some disaster happens that thwarts my dreams? I want to sail around the world. All my sisters have gotten to sail around the world. Why not me! Why me?!”

“SONRISA!” I admonish myself. “Snap out of it. This is the first time we’ve been able to move at all in over a month. You’d better enjoy it!" I take three deep breaths and look out on the horizon to see if I can search out some dolphins to play with. But I fight this fight between worrying over the future and enjoying the present the rest of the way across the atoll. We lay anchor in water that is murkier than the other anchorage, and there are no colorful fish swimming beneath my hull. “Humph.” I say.

Andrew, Leslie and Grin go zooming off to visit land as soon as my hook is buried securely in the sand.

I’m left alone with my thoughts (who seem to be terrible company), and thankfully, Kitty(Cat). She rubs her cheek against my mast, pads her silent paws forward until she runs the length of her port side shoulder, then, belly, then hip along my mast. She curls her tail around me with her version of a soft, fuzzy hug. She flops to the ground, splaying her white belly open on my cabin floor trying to soak in whatever approximation of coolness she can find in this lower part of my living quarters.

“It’s hot, isn't it, Little Cat?” Andrew and Leslie were so excited to go to land, they left me baking in the sun without pausing to reinstall my shade sails. Salt crystals bake into the side of my hull; they will flake off on Leslie’s hand like kosher cooking salt when Leslie leans against me to tie up Grin.

“How long is this going to last?” I wonder. “What could we have done differently?”

“Mrow?” Kitty asks.

I look down at her and worry. Maybe she would have been better off left in Langkawi. What happens to her? What happens when we run out of litter and cat food? What happens? What if Andrew or Leslie gets sick? Will they have to leave me? Is this the end of my journey?

Andrew and Leslie return, and their cheer lightens my mood a little. “Show me pictures of your adventure!” I ask Leslie, and she thumbs through the collection of images on her camera.

“Sonrisa! The sand over there is white and beautiful. Course, like crushed up shells.

We walked on a trail through a bit of jungle, and I could smell the green plants! Dirt! Rotting dry leaves! I wanted to plant my ankles in the dirt like the roots of this tree. It was awesome.”

Andrew bends down and offers Kitty(Cat) a bouquet of land greenery he brought back. She sniffs and sniffs, then paws at it a little.

“There is an old shrine on the island!” Leslie explains, “and Pete found a website with a small article written about it’s history. Legend has it that fisherman from a different island (Hathifushi) found a wooden box bobbing up and down in the ocean. One of the men hit the box twice with his oar, but on the third try he found he couldn’t lift his hand! The fishermen rushed back to their own island, told their friends, and a larger contingent set sail on a wooden raft to go find the box a second time. By this time, the wooden box had floated ashore and was buried in sand. Only the name ‘Shareef Ali Al Makhi’ remained visible. The tomb inside the island’s shrine is thought to be his, although no other information about him exists. Most of the buildings found in the enclosure were created with things that washed up on shore, including a huge wooden mast that was said to have risen upright all on its own!” Leslie narrates this report in her fireside ghost story voice, her hands sweep through imaginary smoke and mystery as she speaks.

“Hmm...” I say, looking at the photos of the shrine. “Interesting.”

“We circumnavigated the whole island, Sonrisa!”

“Amazing. I hope your legs weren’t too sea-wobbly. How big is it?”

“Point six miles in circumference!” Leslie says, cheering her great, sea level hike. “Then we all cooled off soaking in the water along the beach. I have such mixed feelings, though, Sonrisa. I’m certainly grateful we got to go walk around on this land, today, but it makes me sad. I’m probably not going to get to see much else of the Maldives, and it seems like such a proper paradise. Think of all we are missing!” I bob in place, understanding. I wanted to sail with the whale sharks!

They returned to the island the next day, and on the third day in this new anchorage, they took their adventure over to an old ship wreck on the outer reef. No one really knows how this wreck got here, but the equipment is huge. The propeller is under water, and spans fifteen feet tall and wide. The propeller shaft leads back to the old, rusting hulk of a steam engine. Andrew says the engine must be a hundred years old or more! There’s other hard to identify parts and pieces under the water. Leslie enjoyed a bit of a swim through the rusted holes inside a big circular drum.

On the fourth day, we returned to Uligan proper. There was wind. We could have sailed, zig-zagging up wind all the way back to our prior anchorage. Steel Sapphire did exactly that, and suitably “took the piss out of us” for tucking our heads and motoring a direct course. But, this particular day, I think we were all fighting the numbness, apathy and loss of creativity that seems to hit in waves. We are clinging to the Mattheerah anchorage like a little lifeboat, hoping it can keep our spirits afloat with its slightly different views and the feeling of movement. But, we are also attempting to sail through emotional squalls that soak us with what feels like torrential downfalls of fear, denial, and mourning that comes with this (hopefully temporary) interruption of our dreams, our regular life, and our illusions of safety.

Not long after my anchor is nestled in the sand of the Uligan anchorage, bad news hits. A Maldivian citizen in the capital city of Male had contracted Covid19. He or she had brief contact with approximately 200 additional people, and they had contact with people, some of whom boarded ferries and ships to go to their own outer islands. Now, one person has tested positive on Uligan.

We all watch, a bit somberly, as a sea plane splits the difference between me and Steel Sapphire, landing in the anchorage and anchoring on the beach to pick up the poor man and whisk him away to an isolation facility.

One thing I know for sure. My feelings of fear, sadness, frustration, loss, boredom, restlessness, anger, worry...I’m not the only one.

We are all in the same…no, wait…I am a boat. I can't be “in a boat” if I am a boat…

We are all miserable together.