Woke up quite tired listening to pouring rain, the bad weather (all relative) hasn't blown away. We do breakfast. 
(if you look carefully you can see water and sand through the trees).
The weather clears and we hire snorkelling equipment and take to the water around the main jetty. Almost straight away we spot a school of squid -- we haven't seen squid at all yet [in the Maldives]. The jetty area is home to dozens of types of fish. We proceed to snorkel around the island. The parrotfish are the most noticeable not only because of their size and colour but because they eat algae off the coral by scraping it off with their beak or teeth. Every few yards you hear more scraping and look up to see one or two parrotfish munching on coral. There's usually a goatfish(?) in tow snuffling through the loose sand at the bottom.
We end up taking 2.5 hours to go round the island at sea level. Only a couple of times do we visit the edge of the island reef where it plummets to 25 or 30m.
After lunch we get a few quick shots of "sharkey" patrolling before the rain sets in. The afternoon goes by watching rain or asleep (mostly asleep). I discover I've burnt myself snorkelling again. D'oh! When will I learn that my US$ 1 Maldivian T-shirt isn't a good sun barrier?
Afternoon coffee (no free refills) is followed by some more filming of Sharkey and crabs at dusk. There's a good shot of the glows of torches eerily lighting the surface from below but the camcorder is having a hard time focussing in low light levels.
Naturally, I eat too much at dinner so we try to walk it off [on] the 50 yards to the jetty where we see Sharkey and his mates swim up and down in the handy downlights. We retire early where I take to bed to sleep off my full stomach.
Embudhu Village N4.08428 E73.51318 Elev. 50m!
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.