A special and memorable day in life..... :)

After the Teaching Practice (TP) for almost 2 months, this Eid holidays is also my college holidays as I am not yet in Male'. Since I did the TP in Addu, some of my friends planned a fish trip. So here is the very different experience of us.

First, six of us could not get a Bokkuraa, (shame on us?) the wife of one of us arranged it for us.
One of the friends who was supposed return from Fuahmulak today noon delayed it to tomorrow. Meaningly? No more captain for the trip!!! Who else will lead. First problem. Hmmm its poor me. Me? Believe me, I went out on a Bokkuraa only 3times in life. That too as 'a boy'. Anyway, we did not give up. We decided we will go. There we go........................

Next, we packed up a lot, baits, lines, hooks, coke, water, biscuits and everything. Be frank, we didn't miss anything, at least not yet! Though we all are from Hithadhoo, we had to get on to Bokkuraa from Feydhoo since that is where we got it. Yea, there were a lot of people near the harbor. We loaded our stuffs and started with our business. This seems to be a good Bokkuraa. So is the owner of it since he was kind enough to give us the key of 'engine' too. I think that's not an engine rather its an outboard motor, which in Maldives is well known as Dhavvaa engine.(so I'd continue with that local name). The engine was pulled up and we had to push it back so that it'd touch the water!!! Problem two...we could not push it back.

So? The crowd was watching and there is no way we could stop over there even. We decided to 'go ahead'. Guess what, we started the journey with the traditional oar (fali). Oh my God, Six Maldivians who are said to be living in a nation with 99% oceans, yet unable to start an outboard motor? No comments..... After going out of sight, we tried and managed to push back the engine. Wow, congratulations. We did it. I been the only one who ever touched this so called engine started the journey from there on. Alas, just few seconds, it stopped. It was there that I made the very unfortunate discovery. The engine was there. Yet the oil tank, which has to be connected was nowhere to be found. Problem three. Shall we go back and get it? NO WAY. We'd rather go with fali (oar).

Then we tried to find a coral where we'd stop and start to catch fish. Excuse me. We are from Hithadhoo and now we are outside Feydhoo. How could we find one? Add to that, there is no one here with a good fishing experience, as our captain isn't here either. Problem four. If no place is found,then no fish. We tried here and there. Nothing. Just nothing. At last we found a guy, alone on a Bokkuraa. We decided to go near him as we can see him enjoying a good catch. Going to destroy his wonderful day even? Who cares. We went. Thank God he realized whats going on. Showed us the place to set the anchor, and offered to stay near him. Thank you that Anonymous man. lol. He even assured that we can get a good catch from there. It didn't take long to get the first catch of the day. No doubt, it was the last catch too!!! Don't ask me what type of fish we got. None of us knew and we asked the guy on the other Bokkuraa. He said he don't know the local name and told us a nick name that he uses. I am not going to mention that name. I respect ladies.

After 2hours, we decided it was time to go. Problem five. One fish? There are people who will wait to see how much we caught. Leave it. We'd make a good story. :) With a lot of struggle we came near Feydhoo. We had to enter from the "neru" (I don't know the English word for that). Suddenly came a wave. The Bokkuraa was nearly upside down. God! Please, we already had enough. Problem six. We found that with the wave we were nearing the reef. It should not happen. With lots of struggle and a collective work, we managed to enter without any problems.

Finally......hmmm a breath of relief. We tied the rope and started with cleaning the Bokkuraa. The finishing touches right? An Engine Dhaoni came before we left the Bokkuraa. Good for us. People will not ask us about our catch. Suddenly.... I don't know if it was bombs or bullets that were coming out of his mouth. Who gave you this Bokkuraa? Who Asked you to touch it? Who gave you the permission to take it? Thank God, there wasn't a bad word from his mouth yet, it was "shocking". Problem Seven. We were in the wrong Bokkuraa. Luckily, after we explained he also agreed that since both the Bokkuraa were identical and with same type engines its possible to happen as we were not from Feydhoo even.

This is our very special, memorable, frightening, and I guess enjoyable fishing trip. Hope you enjoyed reading the story of a day in our life.