{"id":537,"date":"2008-05-14T21:12:07","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T21:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=537"},"modified":"2015-02-25T20:37:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T20:37:23","slug":"paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=537","title":{"rendered":"Paradise lost?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lord Dholakia has put a well-written piece<\/a> over on Lords of the Blog about The Maldives.<\/p>\n

Stand by for a memory…<\/em><\/p>\n

I was briefly stationed in The Maldives – at RAF Gan, Addu Atoll.<\/p>\n

When I was there the unit had 600 staff on the establishment.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the unusual feature.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incoming flights had to adjust their altimeters to a ground level of sea level plus six feet.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the unusual feature.<\/em><\/p>\n

The island had 12 bars – four of which were open 24 hours a day (the best was The Cricket Club!).<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the unusual feature.<\/em><\/p>\n

A married man could survive on his Local Overseas Allowance and send his entire salary back home to his wife and family.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the unusual feature.<\/em><\/p>\n

The length of a posting at RAF Gan was nine months.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the unusual feature. <\/em><\/p>\n

Women were not allowed on the island.<\/p>\n

Bingo! That was the unusual feature of the posting.<\/p>\n

So you’d think that there wouldn’t be a waiting list for a posting there, would you?<\/p>\n

Well you’d be surprised my friends, you’d be very <\/em>surprised!<\/p>\n

There was a – wait for it, wait for it – two year waiting list<\/em> for a posting at RAF Gan.<\/p>\n

And almost all<\/em> of the RAF personnel on the list were – you’ve guessed it – married men.<\/p>\n

Go figure.<\/p>\n

A two year waiting list of married men for a nine month, unaccompanied posting?<\/p>\n

What does that say about the married serviceman?<\/p>\n

Anyway the place.<\/p>\n

Heaven on earth, no bull.<\/p>\n

The prettiest place on this planet.<\/p>\n

The water that laps against the golden sand (really!) is crystal clear yet brightly azure (really!).<\/p>\n

The tall, rich, plentiful palm trees sway gently in a cooling yet warm breeze that almost swarms off the coral reef that surrounds the island.<\/p>\n

The reef protects the island from the choppier seas that the wind whips up, but occasionally an unwelcome guest manages to sweep over the coral on the crest of a breaker.<\/p>\n

Pufferfish (also known as Blowfish) – the second most poisonous life-form on the planet – sometimes found their way over the reef in to the shallower waters; so too did the occasional squid but they were less lethal.<\/p>\n

While I was at RAF Gan one poor chap trod on a Pufferfish; the poison spines were extracted and he received medical treatment on the station, but he was put on the next through-flight where he received surgery and hospital treatment in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

While I was stationed at RAF Gan I learned to dive.<\/p>\n

And learned to sail.<\/p>\n

And learned to drink.<\/p>\n

Because these were the major pastimes at RAF Gan.<\/p>\n

It was, though, a fantastic posting.<\/p>\n

The shame is that The Maldives are now at significant risk of water-related disaster.<\/p>\n

And, with a height above sea level of a mere six feet, these beautiful places are at the sharp edge of climate change.<\/p>\n

Which is ironic really, because The Maldives has no manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n

We do.<\/p>\n

B<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lord Dholakia has put a well-written piece over on Lords of the Blog about The Maldives. Stand by for a memory… I was briefly stationed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}