Andaman alone!

After we had sadly waved farewell to our long suffering crew Giles and I still had almost two weeks left on our permits, and were looking forward to exploring more of the southern group of islands, which are largely uninhabited with landing prohibited, then head on to Little Andaman, some 65 miles from Port Blair, and the furthest south of the Andaman chain. Beyond this are the Nicobars.

We jumped out of the Crawley's taxi, at an appropriate moment, hastily reprovisioned at Aberdeen Bazaar, and headed back to Brother Wind, arranging to fill up with water from the rusty barge to the north of the harbour before leaving, and set sail for Chiriyutapu, where we arrived with just enough light to locate the off lying rock-awash on the southern headland of South Andaman.

A narrow strait, the McPherson Strait, separates south Andaman from Rutland Island, which lies immediately to the south, and our anchorage lay at the east end of this. We had worked out that the falling tide would be flowing westward through this strait the following morning, so it seemed a good opportunity to tackle it.

We shot off through the six miles of McPherson Strait, carrying between 2 and 2.5 knots of tide, which was very satisfactory, trying however to keep our speed down for once, as we had scant information except that it is navigable! The Island of Jolly Buoy lies on the far side of the strait, and as we could see a local tour boat, we decided to anchor in the transparent water nearby, and do some snorkelling, but before we'd had a chance a launch came roaring up to warn us in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed to anchor there, as we were in the Mahatma Gandhi National Marine Park.

A very flustered ranger came on board, and rang headquarters, where they told us we had to return to Port Blair, 25 miles away by now! However, after a lot of wheedling, and a couple of beers in his pocket, he agreed to let us leave without having to pay an enormous fine, but insisted that instead of continuing south on the west of Rutland Island we must retrace our track through the McPherson Strait.

We were not best pleased, the only redeeming feature being that the tide had slackened, and was just beginning to turn eastwards to help us back the way we had come! We'd lost heart for the day, so decided to go back to Chiriyutapu, as Giles needed to investigate our battery charging problems. Later a swim and a walk ashore revealed lots of crocodile warning signs!

On we went next day to North Cinque, where we had taken shelter with our crew two weeks earlier. It was much more tranquil now, and the water crystal clear. We decided that we might as well move on to South Cinque for the night, as next day we planned to set sail for Little Andaman, 50 miles to our south, but on leaving the anchorage were
hailed by a British boat, who had spotted our RCC burgee, a fellow member, John Sharp was on board!

In spite of the wind perversely shifting to the south and a knot or more of tide against us, we still managed to sail for all of the 50 miles south to Little Andaman. It proved just as well that we'd left early, as we arrived in the large west facing Hut Bay, worrying about where we would find any protection, only to find an enormous breakwater, over half a mile long, which doesn't get a mention on either the chart or our sailing guide, it is only lit by a very tiny light which one could easily have missed on a dark night!

Very few yachts make it down to Little Andaman, we were only the second this year, so the authorities in true Indian style felt they needed to check our permits and paper work, but they could not have been more charming. We were invited to leave our dinghy on the police pontoon, which was a luxury, a very pleasant change from our frequently wet confrontations with surf and waves when landing! The harbour was the calmest we had the whole time we were in the Andamans.

Both Little Andaman and the Nicobar Islands to the south were badly affected by the 2004 tsunami. No westerners have been allowed into the Nicobars since to see what happened there, but the people seemed happy to talk to us about what happened in Little Andaman. The visible legacy of broken trees has left its mark on the landscape, and many new villages have been rebuilt on high ground. Certainly arriving as we did from the port, we walked through an avenue of giant concrete triangular propeller things, which presumably are some kind of tsunami protection, they would certainly break the flow of a tidal wave, and would be the same shape whichever way up they rolled.

We were restricted to Hut Bay as an anchorage on the east coast, most of the island is a reserve for the Onge Tribe. The main town, the run down scruffy Indira Bazaar, is a couple of miles from the port, and tourists are a rare species, just one or two hardy back-packers seem to make it there. We hired an auto rickshaw for a morning, who took us northwards to their pretty waterfall (no swimming because of crocodiles), and then along the coast as far as Butlers Bay, a stunning arc of white sand and turquoise water, with absolutely no one there except a couple of surfing bums, and a few local lads trying to net fish off the beach. All this area has a wilderness of swamps behind it, which are home to salt water crocs, but we felt it was safe enough to swim!

Bicycles are the primary form of transport for the locals; there are buses, jeep buses, and auto rickshaws, but almost no private cars. The following day we managed to hire some very ropy bikes. The little Indian who hired them to us took no deposit or any payment in advance, and did his utmost to virtually rebuild the bike in order to get the saddle to move up for Giles's long legs!

We wanted to try to get into the hinterland to see what went on, which proved worth the effort, we found a Christian village with very overgrown paddy fields, and a large white church perched high on a hill above it. After a morning biking about 15 miles in searing heat, we needed to collapse swim and siesta on Brother Wind, before setting off on our tortured bottoms to bike southwards later, finally returning the bikes in the blessed cool of dusk.

The wind of course had shifted into the north for our return sail, but luckily we carried a bit of fair tide to help us on our way, and gave ourselves time to stop off at the beautiful Sisters Islands. Two lumps of rock joined by a sand spit made it one of the most beautiful of our Andaman anchorages, praise indeed with so many contenders.

Part of the Andaman bureaucracy, presumably something to do with being a restricted territory, meant that we were supposed to check in with the authorities morning and evening, giving our position and destination for our next move. However, we frequently failed to get through to Port Blair at the right time, but while we were in Little Andaman we could check in with their Port Control, and ask them to relay this information to Port Blair. We had told them that we would be sailing back to South Cinque Island, with an ETA of around 1700 hours!

We were very nearly tempted to stay the night at Sisters Island, which was a day time only anchorage, reasoning that no one would know, but it turned out to be just as well that we thought better of it. As we were coming into the wonderful bay in South Cinque, hauling a fish in as we came, (our first ever Rainbow Runner), we could just see in the hazy distance a ship, which now called us up on the VHF. It turned out to be the Coastguards who wanted every conceivable bit of information about us, and had clearly been checking up on our movements from Little Andaman, where they seem particularly sensitive that yachts shouldn't go south.

Rumour has it that they have been doing some nuclear testing, and were especially concerned about any sonar equipment we might have had on board. When we first arrived and I had explained a particular flashing light was for solar, several minutes were spent reassuring them of its innocence!

A night spent in a big sandy bay at the southern end of Rutland Island, where you are allowed to land and walk, proved very exciting. The beach is a favourite nesting place of many turtles, and we weren't disappointed by the sight of lots of tracks on the beach, but the greatest excitement here came just as dusk was drawing in, when suddenly I saw a very long narrow thing gliding through the water nearby. I could occasionally see its head and two eyes.

Of course my squeaks of crocodile brought Giles on deck fast, and we watched this long body turning and twisting back towards us, but every now and then a flipper would appear. Giles said it reminded him of Manta Rays, which are often seen in this spot too. However, we knew it was completely the wrong shape for a ray, and far too big, it was about 3.5 metres long. Out came the trusty fish book, and we discovered that what we were looking at was a shark ray!

We had watched the fishermen bringing in their catch at Port Blair and Little Andaman, and seen amongst the huge variety of fish were many young sharks, even one hammerhead, but a shark ray was gratifyingly different to anything we had seen before. Our dugong sighting in Havelock Island had been the other big excitement. Finally our trip near its end, we were back in Port Blair for all the checking out formalities, when again at dusk, I saw the long shape of what looked like a crocodile swimming by just where Henry, Char and I had all swum at the start of our trip four weeks before!