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.