Andaman Islands

  Port Blair, India
Sunday, April 9, 2006

To finish of this trip off with some Tropical islands seemed like a good idea, so here we are in the Andaman Islands for some snorkeling and diving. (and maybe Caroline's Birthday)
We flew in on Deccan Air, one of the fairly new budget airlines in India which run on a similar bases to the European equivalents Easy jet and Ryan air.
The flights part was fine, the Admin side was a little less organised which goes with the territory here we've now decided.
Our arrival was met by group of eager taxi/tuk tuk drivers telling us about the various accommodation options and how much they wanted to charge for the trip !
So after some negotiations we set off to look at a some of the options, the first couple were fairly nasty even though the lonely planet have given them ok reviews ! We settled on one the taxi driver suggested. (sometimes its worth listening to the locals, not always ! )
Our first evening here was spent looking around town (getting lost as usual).
Port Blair is larger than we had expected, and spreads in all directions from a valley leading down to the port.
This is definitely a place where mass tourism is expected soon, so fancy restaurants and hotels are starting to appear but still very much out numbered by small local café style places which we were more than happy with.
The following morning we got the ferry to Havelock island the place where the best beaches, snorkelling/diving were said to be found.
  
The ferry took us past a couple of other islands which were mainly mangrove covered coastlines with forested interiors, the occasional fisherman's hut were the only signs of settlement.
We had taken the slow ferry to Havelock we found out later, this ment that we were the only foreigners aboard, so we were watching everyone getting their stuff together ready to leave, at the same time we were looking at the island and seeing only mangroves !
After rounding a tiny headland we saw a narrow beach, it had a harbour arm and several wooden huts/shops, Village 1 the guide book told us.
There are 7 villages here, all fairly newly settled but for some reason no one has named them, so 1-7 they are known.
We chose to stay at no 5 as this village has most of the accommodation, the beaches here are as stunning as we had expected, but sadly all the coral reefs were to be found ether on the other side of the island or on one of the many tiny islands an hours boat ride away.
The small reef was very good on one particular island, we had taken about 20-30 minutes of snorkelling to circle the entire island, about half way round a dive boat turned up, and off loaded 6 or 7 divers, we thought this was a nice sight for novice divers as the maximum depth was less than 8 meters, it turned out later this was one of the favoured places for all levels of diver ! We were a little shocked at this but it was explained that access to most of the reefs around here are now controlled by the large naval base, and they are enforced so strictly no boatman would take us out to the any of the big reefs that we could see from our hotel beach, the waves braking over them on choppy days just to tempt us !!
The very laid back atmosphere here was about as opposite as you can get from some of the cities we have recently spent time in ! such a change is always welcome but mostly our memories are of the great friends we made here, a diverse bunch !(hello to all )
  
This reminds us of an outing we had to the beach/reef on the other side of the island.
We set off one morning to get the bus towards village no 7 ( the other side of the island ) 40 minutes later we get off in the middle of nowhere next to a wooden sign advertising the place we were after. 2-3 km up a dirt track.
Sadly this was the only sign ! We wondered off west ish in a direction we hoped was about right, past a couple of small holdings/farms.
As the dirt path lead only to the huts there was very little in the way of clues to our destination other than a gap in the trees, "that must be it" was concluded and off we all went.
Have you ever notetest that in a group, the short bursts of bravery/bravado from varying members of the team build a confidence that would definitely not be present alone or in pairs ! Well this was one of those times.
An hour later as we were crawling over fallen trees bridging the brown rivers, comments like "are there croc's or caiman here ?" were laughed off, but some doubt about the answer made us all more careful wading waist deep though further rivers !
Finally the sound of waves on a beach were heard, we new we were close even though all we could see was trees/mangroves.
We found ourselves at the edge of the mangroves and the sea, with no sandy beach in sight ! just a small sand bar surrounded by a mixture of brown river water and clear blue sea. Now what ?
We found a drift wood tree to sit/contemplate on.
Was the tide going out ?
As it turned out we were very near the place we were after, we discovered this by two small boats turning up with snorkelers ! And as the water level dropped a narrow strip of white sand appeared.
There is no debate about any of us getting here alone or in pairs ! Not a chance we all agreed we would all have bottled it after ten minutes.
We donned our snorkelling stuff an went off to explore.
It's was excellent, well worth the effort.
Three or four hours later the local boats have gone and a fancy yacht takes their place, there goes any chance of a boat ride home then ! So before it gets to late we pack up to make our return 'trip'
Well it couldn't have been easier, we just followed the now dry river bed that we crossed numerous times in various manners earlier, only the recognisable fallen trees etc made us sure this was the same route as before, it now all looked so different !
Many beers were consumed that evening as we further dramatised our days adventures to other guests.
 
After 10 days or so of enjoying the islands, most of our new friends started making plans to move on, probably because of the lack of local diving/snorkelling we decided maybe I was time for us to go too.
Dubai was to be where Caroline wanted to celebrate her birthday !