8 February 2017 Beach#3 to Henry Lawrence Island , Andaman Islands
After a surprisingly peaceful night, we were up at 06:00 and dinghied ashore to go diving with Barefoot Divers. They took us out on an old wooden boat, which was sea worthy enough, but not very comfortable despite there only being seven paying divers - fortunately the sea conditions were benign.
The first dive was at Johnny’s Gorge (12°03.833N 093°09.431E), where there’s a strong mooring. Our party of four descended to 25metres down the mooring line because there was a strong current. The dive guide then took us on a whirl-wind circumnavigation of the circular reef - too fast in my humble opinion. However, the visibility was excellent and the fish life is extraordinary with huge grouper and snappers hanging in the current. There are lots of hard and soft corals, which escaped the bleaching event in 2010.
The second dive was at Broken Ledge (12°06.787N 093°08.716E), where there’s another mooring. It was a similar dive to the first one, but slightly shallower at 23 metres. There are some nice gullies to swim through and lots of coral. The visibility was good, but there was a fair amount of sediment in the water causing me problems with backscatter on my photographs. We saw some nice Hawksbill Turtles, large Clown Triggerfish and lots of Lionfish.
We were back on Alba by three o’clock, so we pulled up the anchor and moved six miles to a more protected anchorage at the south tip of Henry Lawrence Island, dropping the anchor in 15 metres at 12°05.05N 093°04.18E. It’s a nice looking anchorage in front of a fringing reef protecting a white sand beach and it’s well protected from the north. At dusk, a spotted deer came foraging on the shore.
9 February 2017 Henry Lawrence Island , Andaman Islands
Early in the morning, while the day was still cool, we went for a dinghy ride to explore the mangrove shoreline of the island. There’s a nice little bay next to the anchorage, but as we headed north-west, a very shallow reef extended out for hundreds of metres keeping us away from the more interesting mangroves. There’s a river mouth 2½ miles from the anchorage, but we gave up when we were halfway there and returned to Alba.
In the middle of the morning, we motored 6 miles to anchor off Inglis Island in 6 metres of water at 12°08.05N 093°06.51E. It’s a very pretty anchorage with beautiful water colours and a sand spit reaching out from the island. The beach is protected by a fringing reef.
After lunch, we went out snorkelling, first looking at the south-east side of the island, but it was all rock and not very interesting. I had a very brief glimpse of the back of a Dungong as it dived down under the water, but we couldn’t find it again. The south side of the island was all broken reef, but the fringing reef right next to the anchorage was very good - the best snorkelling that we’ve done in the Andamans so far. Some coral has survived the bleaching event and there are plenty of fish flitting about.
We invited “Sunchaser” over for a few beers - apparently they saw another yacht yesterday.
10 February 2017 Inglis Island to North Button, Andaman Islands
We were woken by the loud thump-thump of a single cylinder engine coming into the anchorage. I jumped out of bed and watched a fishing boat approaching “Sunchaser”. One of the fishermen had broken his forearm while hand-starting the engine and was asking for help. It wasn’t a compound fracture and his arm was still straight, so Peter reckons he’d broke either his radius or ulna. Peter bandaged it tightly; put it in a sling and the guys headed off to do some fishing.
After running the water maker for an hour, we headed north, first having a look at the anchorage off Outram Island at 12°12.38N 093°05.65E. It looked to be about 10 metres deep and well protected from the North-east, but looks like Crocodile country with extensive mangroves. We next looked at Middle Button Island, which is more of a challenge, with a seabed that slopes up steeply to the fringing reef on the tiny island. I think that the best place to anchor would be at 12°16.34N 093°01.35E in 15-20 metres, but there are coral heads about and it’s exposed to the north east.
We carried on to North Button Island and anchored at 12°18.82N 093°04.09E in a large patch of sand in 15 metres depth. There are coral heads around and the sea bed slopes off, but the island is bigger than Middle Button and the reef extends to the east giving more protection from the north-east. We’ve anchored next to some limestone cliffs and it’s a stunning place, with a white sand beach and beautiful water colours.
After lunch, we went snorkelling. There’s an interesting rocky reef directly in front of the cliffs in 6-10 metres depth - not much coral, but plenty of fish and some nice little caves and ledges to poke under. So far we have been spectacularly unsuccessful in catching any fish, so I grabbed my spear-gun and shot a couple of Sweetlips for dinner. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to use a spear-gun, but there’s nobody around.
We went for a short walk on the beach, but it was too damn hot to stay for long. Glenys found a few shells, but nothing spectacular. A small fishing boat chugged in at sunset and anchored close to the shore, other than that we’ve only seen a sport-fishing boat that stayed for fifteen minutes. Nice Anchorage.
11 February 2017 North Button to Long Island, Andaman Islands
We woke to find a 10 knot east wind blowing a 1-2 foot chop into the anchorage, making us pitch a fair bit. This was an unexpected wind direction, so we waited a few hours, but it wasn’t getting any better, so we ran away. We headed west and anchored at the south end of Long Island at 12°21.62N 092°55.55E in 4 meters (chart datum). It’s a very pleasant anchorage off a long beach and is protected from the east by a long reef.
After lunch, we landed the dinghy in the middle of the beach (where the local fishermen beach their boats) went for a stroll ashore. The village is spread out around a headland with a big jetty on the west side. Past the jetty, we found a couple of government run “resorts”, which were all closed up. At the point of the headland, there’s a large Cricket/Football/Village Green, which seems to be the centre of action, with cows, goats and the odd donkey grazing.
Near the village green, there are a few small shops where we were able to buy some bananas, tomatoes and “Bombay Mix”. The local Hotel Laxima is in the same area. It’s not really a hotel; it appears that the Indians like to call their restaurants, hotels. Well, when I say restaurant, it’s got two rickety tables and was deserted when we were there. The only interested party was a cow wandering around the front of the building. We didn’t bother trying to find the proprietor.
Recently, the Indian Government has been tackling corruption and the “Black Economy”. Indians like to deal in cash or gold and distrust all banks, trying very hard not to pay any tax. The government has responded in a very draconian way by withdrawing certain denominations of bank notes. This caused chaos with people queueing for days to exchange the withdrawn notes and trying to get cash out of ATMs, which weren’t able to dispense the new notes.
The government are now putting up signs everywhere, which are trying to get everyone to “Go Digital”. They want people to use credit cards and e-commerce, which I assume will allow them to easily monitor transactions and increase their tax revenues. This might be a good idea in Bombay or Mumbai, but the signs are everywhere in the Andamans, where access to the Internet is impossible and people are more interested in the health of their goats - money on a plastic card is incomprehensible.
As we strolled back to the boat, a German guy suddenly appeared on the path. It turns out that there’s a backpacker lodge about five minutes’ walk from the beach called “Blue Planet”. To get to it, start at a run down building in the middle of the beach and the path to the lodge heads north just to the east of this building. Follow the yellow arrows painted on the concrete path for a few hundred metres to the lodge. The lodge looks good and they actually serve food, so we’re planning to hike to Laliji Beach tomorrow morning and then have lunch at the Blue Planet Lodge.
12 February 2017 Long Island, Andaman Islands
“Sunchaser” arrived yesterday afternoon, so Peter and Lynne came along with us on the hike to Laliji Beach. The lady at Blue Planet lodge said that we should get permits from the Forestry offices, which are apparently free of charge, but we decided that being on a yacht might cause too much bureaucracy, so we went without. There was no sign of anyone official on the hike.
The walk starts right next to Blue Planet and was very pleasant through some impressive forest with huge trees looming overhead. Lalaji beach was very ordinary, with a few half-constructed buildings and nothing much else. Clouds had built up and it was looking very gloomy, so we didn’t even bother to go for a swim. We sat and rested for ten minutes and set off back to Blue Planet - it only took us three hours for the round trip. We had a very tasty curry for lunch and then retired back to our boats for a rest.
For the past week, I’ve been frustrated by the terrible internet, but I finally managed to download a GRIB file this afternoon. It shows that there is a good northeast, 15 knot wind at the moment, but a high pressure area is going to build over the next few days and will give light winds between here and Sri Lanka for the next two weeks. We have to leave before the 22nd when our visas run out, but in a week, we will have no wind, so we’ve decided to leave as soon as possible. The plan is to cut our stay here short; sail 50 miles to Port Blair tomorrow and then clear out on Tuesday 14th.
We went over to “Sunchaser” for a few beers.
13 February 2017 Long Island to Port Blair, Andaman Islands
We were up before the cockerel crowed and set off as the sun rose. It was a mixed sail - close reaching for the first couple of hours and then a beautifully smooth, two hour broad reach as we went past Havelock Island. The final two hours were pretty gnarly as we lost the protection of Neil Island and had to cope with the confused 2 metre waves coming from Thailand. Nevertheless, we made good time and arrived in Port Blair at 13:30, where we found four other yachts that have just come over from Thailand.
Our original plan was to clear out tomorrow, but we decided to try to get our provisioning, refuelling and clearance done today. I rang Vijay Taxis; arranged for a car for 14:30 and topped up our diesel tanks with two jerry cans - we’ve only used 40 litres during the last week, so that made the refuelling easier. Mupardee was waiting for us at the dinghy dock as well as Rajah, a friend of Vijay, who ferried us around.
Our first stop was at the Harbour Master where we had to write out a list of every place that we’d anchored with the arrival date & time and the departure date & time. They calculated our port fees at 3,316 rupees (£33) by a convoluted calculation linked to our gross tonnage. Once we’d paid our fees, we were shown into the Harbour Master’s office, who formally signed our No Objection Certificate (NOC) which proves that we’ve paid up and that he has released us.
The next stop in the clearance process was Customs, but we first nipped off to the market to buy vegetables, soft drinks and half a dozen samosas. It was just after 16:10 by the time that we arrived at customs and fortunately, they were still open. They quickly issued our port clearance document - after filling in several ledger books of course. I was expecting a very grand, formal certificate, but instead it was a disappointingly small scrap of A5 paper, with many rubber stamps to make it look official.
There was then some confusion about the location of the Immigration office. The taxi driver didn’t speak very good English, so I ended up speaking to Vijay on the phone, which didn’t help much because he doesn’t speak English very well either and seems to have a terrible phone. We finally found the Immigration office, where there was more discussion, but we were eventually told that we had to see the Immigration team that was clearing in the other four boats.
On the way back to the dinghy dock, we stopped off to fill my two jerry jugs with diesel. It was total chaos in the petrol station, with lorries, buses ,cars, tuk-tuks and motor bikes all jostling for position at the pumps. There’s no such thing as politely queuing here – horns are tooting, people shouting and engines revving. It took fifteen minutes to get served.
Back at the dinghy dock, we met Vijay who told us that the Immigration were still out on the water, so we piled our stuff into the dinghy and found the officers on a catamaran. They’d just finished, so we were invited on board and our clearance was soon sorted out. We were back on Alba by 17:30, tired, but pleased to get everything sorted out today.
Glenys stowed away her provisions and then cooked three meals – one for tonight and two for the first two nights at sea. We’re all ready to leave in the morning.
14 February 2017 Port Blair to Galle, Sri Lanka (Day 1)
We were up at six o’clock and I did some adjustments to our rigging. Yesterday while we were hard on the wind, I’d noticed that the front lower shrouds and the intermediate shrouds were a little loose, so I went up the mast and tightened them by half a turn. I’ll keep an eye on it and might have to tighten a little bit more.
We then lifted the dinghy on deck, battened everything down and at 07:30, I called Port Control to ask for permission to leave. To our astonishment, it was very simple – I gave them the number from our Port Clearance document, the number of souls on board, our destination, ETA and we were allowed to leave. Phew!
It took us an hour to get out of the port, bashing into 4-6 foot waves and against the wind, but we were soon past Ross Island and able to ease the sheets. The next four hours were unpleasant because we had 2 metre confused seas on the beam, but by lunch time, we’d turned the corner and were running straight downwind with the genoa poled out to port, heading on a course of 245 degrees directly for Sri Lanka, 800 miles and 7 days away.
The Andaman Islands are on the same time zone as Mumbai which is much further west and consequently its been going dark just after 17:30 which is far too early , so we moved all of our clocks forward by an hour and went onto an Alba time zone. This worked out well because we were able to watch the sun go down while having dinner and it was dark when Glenys went to bed at 19:00.
Overnight, we had a steady 15-20 knots of wind and a 2 metre swell directly from behind us, so we made good time, but we rolled and rolled and rolled. We’d be okay for a minute, but then a wave would catch us wrong and we’d roll up to 30 degrees every three seconds for a minute. We’d then settle down with a gentle roll for a minute and then have another minute of chaos... It’s very wearing hanging on all the time and difficult to sleep.
15 February 2017 Port Blair to Galle, Sri Lanka (Day 2)
We’re either getting used to the rolling or the conditions are getting better because life on board seemed to be more pleasant in the morning. So far, we’ve seen nothing apart from the sky, the sea and flying fish.
My small task this morning was to remove the satellite phone from the box sealed by customs and download a weather forecast. The GRIB file shows that the wind should continue at NE 15 for the next four days and then, on Sunday 19th will drop to 5 knots, meaning that we’ll be motoring for at least 24 hours.
I calculated a routing using qtVlm, which works out the fastest route based on the forecast weather. It predicts that we’ll arrive on the 20th, which is a day earlier than I expected – although we’re not getting excited yet. Strangely, qtVlm wants us to curve 50 miles south of the rhumb line – I can’t see any reason to do that, so we’re going to sail down the rhumb line for another day and see what route qtVlm calculates tomorrow.
During the afternoon, the wind backed by 30 degrees, so the apparent wind went from dead behind to our starboard quarter and thankfully, the rolling decreased. We kept the genoa poled out to starboard and put a reef in the main at sunset.
It was dark for my 7-10 watch, but the moon came out at 23:00 and the rest of the night was idyllic, bowling along on a broad reach at over 6 knots with 15-20 knot winds.