Below the seas - Around Havelock

Corals at Sebastian hill

MV Mars

 The main purpose of my trip was to learn scuba diving. After half a day of theory and a lot of shallow water practice, on the third day was my first dive. The boat trip to the dive site was a really long one. After taking some time to adjust on the first dive, I was finally getting comfortable handling the scuba gear. The first dive was to a wreck (Inket wreck) of an inter-island cargo vessel which struck the bottom and sank. Saw a stonefish, and groupers but the main attraction were the huge propellers.The second dive was nearby at whitehouse rock with loads of corals and fish life.

Jellyfish

The next 2 dives on the following day were again on the same lines at MV Mars (a smaller fishing boat wreck) and the wall (one of my favorite dive-sites). Both these places had abundant fish life and the wall has a lot of variety. I did dive again at the wall on my night dive a day later and saw things completely different. Interesting sights were batfish at the wreck and crocodilefish and schools of giant trevally at the wall. On my night dive at the wall was a different experience. We saw siltfaced and giant puffers, clearfin lionfish and of course the plankton glowing in the dark. The night dive is a totally different experience following a small torchlight 18m undersea in complete darkness. Would like to do that again.

The next 2 dives were the starting of my advanced open water at Dixon's pinnacle. Lots of jellyfish, barracuda, shrimps, snappers and even a lobster were seen on the dive. Part of the dive was looking at colors underwater. With the water absorbing colors, a tomato looked like a potato there. Also had some fun when someone broke an egg at 30m below sea level. The yolk can be safely juggled under water. The depth however does affect the visibility and things look quite different.

Kuhl's Stingray

Wrapped up my course with a couple of dives at Johnny's gorge. A rock outcrop surrounded by sand all around, it supports a lot of activity. With stronger currents, these were much more tiring but did manage to see a giant moray eel, barracudas, bannerfish and a sea turtle. Couple of other divers even saw a shark but it was gone by the time we got there. Again one of my favorite dive sites.

Octopus

The final 2 dives, based on everyone else's opinion was at South Button island and nearby Sebastian hill. Since it was a fun dive, there were no skills to practice and this gave me about an hour at 17m in both places. Saw atleast 6 octopuses on both dives and a Kuhl's stingray on the first dive. Other wildlife at Sebastian hill included some pipefish, shrimps, sweetlips ad snappers. Also saw a siltface puffer on the first dive. Now with 11 dives done I would like to add more soon. As a final icing on the cake, on the way back from South Button, while lazing on the boat, we also saw dolphins swimming around the boat.

Havelock - above the water

Havelock is every bit the idyllic beach paradise it seems to be. Arrived by the morning 9 AM private ferry from Port Blair to Havelock on the 30th itself as soon as I landed in Port Blair. The ride had been really good but soon as we arrived there, it started pouring. Since I was going to be doing the theory part of my scuba course, it didn't bother me too much. Most of the other days though it was quite sunny and although the weather can change in a span of ten minutes, it was mostly perfect weather to explore.

Our general plan would be to wake up really early as sunrise would be at about 4.45 to 5.00 and drive down to the elephant training camp. We could watch the sunrise on the beach by the road and the camp itself is a fantastic site for birding. Unfortunately there were always clouds on the eastern sky when we tried this. We did see a lot of birds near the camp though, longtailed and red breasted parakeets, Andaman wood pigeons, green imperial and pompadour green pigeons, emerald doves, white headed starlings, collared and stork billed kingfishers, Andaman woodpecker, brown shrikes, Andaman hawk owl and White bellied sea eagles. 

The other places of interest are Radhanagar beach and elephant beach. Radhanagar beach is one of the best beaches in Asia and due to the off season it was mostly empty. There is a lot of bird life in the forests around as well.Sunsets here are visible only during a couple of months around November. Elephant beach on the other hand is a little difficult to get to. The only routes to it are trekking through the forest or by boat. I did not go there but Hemant did snorkeling out there.

Since there are only three roads on the island, it is quite difficult to get lost. Staying on the barefoot resort on beach 3 was also quite centrally located to the jetty, Radhanagar and Elephant camp. Beach 3 is also nice but how much of the beach you have depends on the tide. During one of my dives, we went down to South Button as well. This is again a very good place to shoot white bellied sea eagles, Andaman serpent eagles, pacific reef egrets and black naped terns. The boat journey till there though is quite long.