Mula.

Mula runs from 28 November – 10 December, the first of the nine nakaiy of Iruvai and the first of twenty-seven. The nakaiy are the traditional Maldivian almanac, about thirteen days each and named for the stars; fishermen still read the weather by them. The last Hulhangu squalls fade, the wind settles into the north-east and the seas calm. Fishermen traditionally read Mula as the return of steady weather: sunny days, lighter winds and only the occasional shower left over from the wet season.

Iruvai is the dry season: mostly clear days, a north-east wind and calm lagoons, and December to March is the busiest stretch on the resort islands. Planning is about heat and wind rather than rain: shade and water for guests, florals kept cool until the last hour, anything tall weighted against the breeze. Seaplanes fly in daylight only, so arrivals and set-up are scheduled around the light. We still hold a covered venue, rarely used in Iruvai; how we plan for rain explains what we hold.

Clear evenings come back. A ceremony set for about an hour before sunset, which falls between 17:50 and 18:20 all year, gets 30 to 40 minutes of low golden light. Dinner can sit on the sand under an open sky, and set-up runs through dry, warm afternoons. At four degrees north the length of the day barely changes and the golden hour is short, 30 to 40 minutes rather than sixty. We time the ceremony to it, and Golden hour in the Maldives explains how.