Everything grown here leaves on the produce boat, and the arrangement around it is the most argued about thing on the island, so it is written down.
The days are Monday and Thursday. During the harbour works the boat loads at the south point and leaves at six rather than five, because the carry is longer and the approach shallower.
Crates must be marked with the plot number. An unmarked crate is loaded last, which sounds harsh and is the only thing that stopped the marking problem.
The loading order rotates. Each week the plot that loaded first the week before loads last, down a list the office keeps and pins up on the Sunday. Before the rotation existed, whoever got there at half past four loaded first, which meant older growers loaded last every week and lost the best of the price.
More than fifteen crates: tell the office by Sunday night for a Monday, or Wednesday night for a Thursday. The boat has a limit and a grower who arrives with forty unannounced crates in the watermelon season leaves half of them on the beach. That has happened twice.
The cooperative handles the selling in Male for the growers who have joined it and takes a share agreed at its own meeting, which is the cooperative's business and not the council's. The council's part is the loading and the order, and it will not get involved in the price.