10 Things: Maldives

An informational piece where you can pick all kinds of esoteric knowledge to baffle your friends in the pub… Or win pub quizzes. Or not. This one is about the oh-so-ruddy-lovely: Maldives. Check out other 10 Things for Hawaii and Yorkshire.

1. Mount Everest they aren’t

The highest recognised geographical point in the Maldives is, astonishingly, an unnamed point on Villingili Island in the Addu Atoll. This relative mountain, for the near sea level country, stands at a massive 2.4 metres tall. This is the world’s lowest national high point. You’d think they would give it a name or something, Hill Island for example. The lack of hills has severely limited the development of hang-gliding and mountain sports in the Republic and they have yet to pull off a Jamaican bobsleigh team style coup at the winter Olympics. As 80 percent of the land lies under a metre above sea level more tsunamis and sea level rise due to global warming are a real concern.

2. There are a lot of the little buggers

1190 islands. Count them. Not many are inhabited and many are little more than a cat litter tray of sand that sticks above the water at low tide. Eighty have fancy arse resorts on them and another two hundred or so are inhabited by the real people of the Maldives; who fish, dodge falling coconuts, eat fish curry and fish a bit more to fill their days.

3. It’s a fair and reasonable democracy

Ahem. Yes. Err. Yes…

4. There’s no such thing as going feral

In Indo and most other island chains you can turn up, board bag in tow and bum your way around on local boats, stay in local accommodation and generally spend five quid a day and live like a king. In the Maldives tourism is carefully controlled. No backpackers, no turning up and seeing how things turn out. You will stay at a fancy resort, costing lots, and have no contact with the locals or you can bugger off. The plus side of this policy is there is none of the crass commercialism that’s blighted Bali and the like.

5. It’s a really crap place to pull

Nearly everyone there is on their honeymoon, but apparently it’s still considered bad form to drop in on another dude’s partner when they have been married less than two weeks. If the object of your affections partner is a room bound with third degree sunburn from overdoing the bronzing and you’re leaving the next morning then go ahead, pull in.

6. Tony Hussein Hinde doesn’t exist

He does, sorry, that was a lie. But we had to shoehorn the legend in somehow. Good old Tone (R.I.P) got shipwrecked in the ‘Dives in ’73, met a local lass, got married, went native and kept the surfing secret to himself and a mate for 15 years. Then took his secret hideaway public by starting Atoll Adventures. Pasta Point is his legacy.

7. The names of breaks are real adventurous

Cokes is so named because of the Coke factory on the island. Chickens is named after the chicken farm on that island. Jails is by an island with, you guessed it, a jail on it. As for Ninjas, well, if the name scheme is correct then I don’t really want to find out what’s on that island. Unfortunately there is no surf spot called Palm Trees, which is surprising.

8. There’s more to the Maldives than the North Atoll

Everyone knows Pasta Point, Sultans, Jails, Lohis and the rest. Trouble is everyone is now going there. The last few years have seen a massive surge of surfers heading for the soft Indo, tempted by tropical waves and the exotic experience without the smell, hassle and danger of Indo. It’s the number one spot for honeymooning surfers. But there’s more, there are waves all the way down the island chain that stretches to the equator. The southern atolls have some cracking waves, which are hollower, pack more punch and are empty; no hotels and only a couple of boats down there see. But I didn’t tell you that.

9. The immigration is weird

When you land in the Maldives you’ll present your passport to one dude who’ll look at it, stamp it and give it back to you with a little white immigration form inside. You then pass it back to another person, sat four inches to the right of the first dude, who takes out the immigration form and stamps it. There is sometimes a third person supervising as well. Kinda overkill on the staffing front really.

10. They really do mean it when they say ‘Just Say No!’

As the dude in South Park says ‘Drugs are bad, mmmkay?’ The ‘Dives have a real zero tolerance policy towards any drug. You will get chucked in prison. Any prison is unpleasant but one with a tin roof, equatorial sun and no air-conditioning equals sweaty as all hell. Suffice to say, the Maldives Bastille is not anything like the swish B&Bs that masquerade as prisons in the UK: no Sky TV, no ping pong and no flushing toilets. You will languish there for years, wondering if life really means life while all your family bankrupt themselves trying to get you out. Don’t risk it. Leave the jazz fags at home.

Starring in the photos in order: Gracie Davies, Tassy Swallow, Robyn Davies, Jamie O’Brien, Tassy, Sophie Hellyer, Gracie Davies, Sam Lamiroy and a turtle.

10 Things: Yorkshire

In honour of the UK Pro Surf Tour returning to Scarborough for the weekend of October 4-5 here’s some useless pub facts about one of England’s finest counties.

1. Yorkshire puddings

The classic recipe for Yorkshire Pud:

INGREDIENTS:  Plain flour: one mug, Egg: 1, Milk: one mug and some beef fat.

COOKING:

1. Pre-heat oven to 220C / 425F / Gas Mark 7.
2. Put a little beef fat in 12 individual Yorkshire pudding tins or a single large tin and leave in the oven until the fat is very hot.
3. Place the flour in a bowl, then make a well in the centre and break in the egg. Add half the milk and, using a wooden spoon, gradually work in the flour. Beat the mixture until it is smooth then add the remaining milk. Beat until well mixed and the surface is covered with tiny bubbles.
4. Pour the batter into the tins and bake for 10 to 15 minutes for individual puddings, 30 to 40 minutes, if using a large tin, until risen and golden brown.
5. Serve filled with thick, artery clogging gravy. Yerrrrm!

2. Dracula

Lived in Whitby. No one knows if he slid out for a few sessions, he would of course have to drop a few coffin rides into the mix. More seriously Bram Stoker, him what wrote the book, hung in Whitby for a bit hence the inspiration. The whole coffins coming ashore from a shipwreck was based on an actual event when a ship named the Demetrius was wrecked and spilled its gory cargo. Locals were finding decomposed corpses all over the coast.

3. Captain Cook

Yorkshire’s most famous son didn’t technically discover surfing, officially one of his crew was the chap that noted it in his journal. He was, however, from Yorkshire, he did live by the surf, he did find most of the Pacific islands and he did become victim to the first recorded case of localism in Hawaii. For all you ship spotters out there his famous ship the Endeavour was originally a Whitby based coal-carrying ship called the Earl of Pembroke.

4. More Cookie business

The Ministry of Defence is responsible for the upkeep of the Captain Cook memorial in Hawaii. A local gardener is paid, via the British Defence Staff in Washington DC, to keep the memorial looking smart. It’s near Kona on the Big Island of Hawai’i. A more useless fact you’ll never hear.

5. You can go to Boggle Hole

A leafy valley that leads down to the sea, but you might not want to as it’s haunted. In case you were wondering a ‘Boggle’ is the Yorkshire term for a goblin. Who would win in a three-way punch up between a Boggle, a Cornish Piskey and an Irish Leprechaun is a moot point that has haunted academics for years.

6. It’s getting smaller

Home insurance in coastal Yorkshire must be sky high. In the 1680s the village of Runswick slipped into the sea over night, the next village south, Kettleness, followed suit in 1829 and in recent times the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough took the biggest drop of its life in 1993. So a nice gaff with a sea view is not necessarily the ideal bit of real estate to invest in; unless you’re really into living on the edge.

7. Have you been to Scarborough Fair?

Scarborough Fair was not a fair as we know it today, not much in the way of waltzers, goldfish-in-bags and suspect looking carnie types, but a huge 45 day trading event, starting August 15, which was exceptionally long for a fair in those days. People from all over England, and even some from the continent, came to do business. There is still a fair today, known as Luna Park, on the harbour side overlooking a mysto, rarely surfed, ridiculously dangerous left reef that breaks only on the biggest of big swells.

8. Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Sea bathing and the whole concept of beach holidays is said to have started in Scarborough. Who invented the bucket & spade, Punch & Judy, fish & chips and English Lobster Tan is a matter open to debate. Some of the finest fish and chips in the whole country are found on the Yorkshire coast, particularly in Whitby, where award winning chip shops see long queues.

9. It’s all in the name

Robin Hood’s Bay has absolutely nothing to do with Robin Hood. It was however a den of smugglers back in the times when Smuggler was a legitimate career choice that’s sadly not so popular these days.

10. A wet what?

Probably one of the best names for a village in the whole of the UK, lagging only behind the perennial number one of Twatt in the Orkneys, is Yorkshires finest: Wetwang. The legendary, and sadly now departed, Richard Whitely of Countdown fame was the honorary mayor.