The last leg is the one most importers underestimate. Cargo reaches Male in a fortnight and then sits for nine days because nobody knew which day the boat goes.
We load to the scheduled cargo boats from the Male harbour and we keep the sailing days for the routes we use most. Tell us the island and the week and we will tell you the boat, the cut off for having cargo at the harbour, and what loading costs. That cut off is usually the afternoon before sailing, which means the cargo leaves our shed that morning, which means the paperwork has to be finished the day before that.
We prepare the manifest and the loading note, and we hand over to a named person at the other end rather than to the quay. Anything fragile is crated before it goes.
For a repeating route we will put you on a weekly load with other customers going the same way, which is how a single pallet reaches an island for a sensible figure.