TRAPPED IN PARADISE
“Whiskey Jack, Whiskey Jack, this is Uligan Coastguard.”
We’re immediately on high alert. The coastguard is calling the yacht anchored right next to us.
“Coastguard, this is Whiskey Jack. Go ahead.”
“Whiskey Jack, this is Uligan Coastguard. We suggest you raise anchor and leave the Maldives, and find another country to go to.”
And there it is. The call we’ve been dreading for the past four weeks. With those 16 words, our worst fears have become real.
Immediately, the WhatsApp group that we set up with the other 11 boats in our anchorage in March starts pinging.
“Did you hear that?”
“Did I just hear what I thought I did?”
“Does that mean ALL of us?”
Clearly, everyone is listening in. And we all know the implications: our world is about to be turned upside down.
WHERE WE ARE AT
It’s May and we are anchored in Uligan, the second-most northern island in the Maldives. We left Sydney in July 2018 to begin a five-year circumnavigation and sailed through south-east Asia visiting Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka before arriving here in the Maldives in
