Most people come to the Andamans to go to Havelock Island. That’s tourist central, such as it is. There are about, I’d say, 200 tourists there, mostly stretched out along a main, one lane blacktop road on the east side of the island. That’s where Lonely Planet said the diving was, and that’s where I went on the ferry from Port Blair as soon as I arrived there back on the 18th of January.
From reading LP, I thought diving would be more of a big deal than it was. Most of the people there are there just to hang out at the beaches and cottages, eat and drink, maybe snorkel a bit. There are three dive outfits there. Each can accomodate four divers. That means there are about 12 divers a day. While I was there, the writer for South India Rough Guide was staying where I was. He asked me to write a bit about diving from Port Blair, the capital and only place in the Andamans that would pass as a city. I wrote a bit about Havelock too. I’ll post that later, when I get confirmation that the info I got is correct. I’m having trouble getting the dive shop in Port Blair to come up with a useable email address. Suffice it to say here that the diving at Havelock is generally uninspiring. But then again, I’m of the school that all diving is good diving.
As I was there for the diving, that’s what I did almost every day. There was the first day, when there was no space on any of the boats. Then there was the last day, when I didn’t dive because it’s not recommended to fly within 24 hours after diving. Other than that, my day consisted of showing up at the dive center at about 7:30 AM, making two dives before 1 o’clock, then sometimes hanging out with my dive buddies, and sometimes returning to my hut and rinsing off the salt water. In the evening, I usually hung out with the folks at the place I was staying, had dinner and a couple of drinks. Not exciting, but laid back for sure. As I said, most people there were there to mellow out. So that’s the scene. Here’s the hut I stayed in.
There’s my towel I still have from Sharm al Sheikh. Boy, I still haven’t dived anywhere like that since then. Here is one of my dive buddies on the boat. As you can see, these are not luxury rides.
Here are a couple of shots of the scenery. Havelock, as well as the rest of the islands has mile after mile of just this, beaches alternating with forest, often mangrove. The beaches are romantically numbered. This one is beach No. 7, popular by Havelock standards, meaning about 10 people a day go there. It’s about 10 km from the main strand. There are frequent busses. Those are work elephants I ran across on the path to Beach No. 7. The mangrove trees are by our cottages/huts, maybe 100 meters up the way.
Actually, Beach No. 7 is a series of small beaches like this, so not all 10 people crowd onto this one.
It’s typically “island” in the Andamans. I’d write what went on, but there’s not much to write about. You catch up on your reading there, be romantic if you’re with someone, party if you’re with a group, or take up beachcombing. There is no internet, barely phones, no entertainment, no nothing. If that life is too exciting for you, you can go to North Andaman or one of the other remote destinations, and write that book. Here’s a kid.
There are other islands south of the Andamans, the Nicobar Islands, but regular tourists aren’t allowed to go there. The Indian government has minimal presence there, it was terribly devastated by the tsunami (which is mostly cleaned up in populated parts of the Andamans), and several of the islands are inhabited my tribal people who do not welcome outsiders. Some, in particular, greeted Indian relief helicopters after the tsunami with a hail of arrows.
After about 6 days on Havelock, I returned to Port Blair to dive from there. The diving is much better. Neither place is good for big animals, though I did see the biggest, most beautiful, charcoal with purple trim sting ray I have ever seen. It’s about the coral and the little fish that hang around coral. you know, “Nemo” clowns, tetras, angels, parrots, napoleons, butterflies, etc.. The usual only biggish ones are little tuna, barracuda, jackfish and bumpheads. There are sharks, but I didn’t see any. Lots of turtles. The visibility is ever so much better out of Port Blair and a village about a 45 minute bus ride away, Wandoor. Wandoor would be a good place for a non-diver to go. It fronts the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park. There are very pretty views of dots of islands surrounded by blue-green reef. the diving there is said to be not so good because outside the reef is mud instead of sand, which usually means the visibility is murky. Sometimes the visibility is no more than 5 meters anyway, though at the good loccations south of Port Blair/ Wandoor, it’s usually 15-20 meters, which is fine. The water sure is rough sometimes, though. Rough water isn’t a problem once you are in, but getting out to the sites and getting in and out of those fishing boats in 5 foot chop are not for those prone to seasickness or concerned about getting bashed against the hull getting back in.
There is nothing to do in Port Blair, and Wandoor is sleepier than Havelock. Time there got sucked up because sometimes you don’t get back till 6. All you want to do after two dives and 2-3 hours of rough going on the surface is rest and get something to eat.
So, that’s about all I have to say about those places. I flew to Chennai from Port Blair, and immediately took a bus to Pondicherry, south of Chennai. I’ve been here three days, and will write about it before moving on.
- Be well, all of you. Enjoy the Super Bowl. It’s on TV here, but at 2:30 in the morning. I’ll read about it.