6:34 am. I stand on a crowded platform in the dark of the dawn. Hat, shoes,
bag, pen, lens, paper, nerves- all check. It’s the beginning of the first day
in my entire life- like every day is. But this is special- I’m 25, and this is
my first trip alone. “Sometimes it gets late...“, says Cedric, as the waves
drown him at beach no.7, Havelock, a few weeks after, “but you’re not!” I
smiled then. I smile now. My life has yet just begun.
32 hours to Kolkata takes me through 5 states of India (Maharashtra- Chhattisgarh – Orissa – Jharkhand – West Bengal). I literally cut across the country, not before being reminded – Smoking is injurious not just to health- but to your wallet too. FINED! I already know this journey is carrying lots of tricks for me.
After 10 fat-some days at Kolkata, I head straight to where my heart longs to be. My destination – the Andaman island of Havelock.
From Port Blair to Havelock was
a ‘ride at the back of the blue bus’,
Jim Morrison would sing. I’m somewhere in the deep blue being bobbed noiselessly to Havelock. 5:30 in the evening and it’s all already dark. As I stride past the gates into the island, a lady-cop runs after me, “passport... passport check. Foreign hai na?”. Nahin... bharat desh hamara! I get this my entire time there- like what Indians can’t wear pyjamas?
After a ten minute rickshaw ride from the Jetty at No.1 (Havelock is numbered all through – dates back to English ways of slavery, I guess) I reach Island Vinnie’s or Dive India at village No. 3. A coy place with a soulful vibe to it, this Island on the island is one of the best dive centres around and also home to the Full Moon Cafe- the only place they serve cappuccino and espresso ( a little steep though). Dressed in mood lighting a narrow path lined with virgin white tented cabanas walks you to the shore. I can’t see the blue yet but the crests sparkle as they play hide and seek with the moon. The ferry ride from Port Blair to Havelock made me believe in the blues. And now I am finally here! Somewhere in the deep-dark blue.
I head to the dive shop to let them know I have arrived, and the water waits for me. I ask them for a day or two’s break which they nod graciously to. And forget with the same grace the next day when they break my bask-in-the-sun transition to hang-ass-down in the hammock. But well, all in the name of the underwater.
I begin with my NAUI Open Water Course with some videos on equipment training and hands-on the next day with my instructor and two other students astride the White Tip. On beach No.5, where we are, the beach is shallow till far-far away, laden with rocks that appear to be fauna but could easily give you many-a-bleeding toes. As the boat slides over the shiny blue ripples, Andrew, the Burmese boat driver, steers it cleanly past the rocky parade. And soon you are somewhere... in the deep blue. I see the end of the world on every side.
Masked, I jump in. Slowly and steadily as I descend into the underwaterworld, drastic magical transport! Colours and patterns and quirky displays of hallucinogenic realities. There are fish all around me. Small anthias to big schools of red and white snappers. Little yellow ones that dot around to big sweet-lips that look like my old-cheeky- grand-dad trying to lure some more sweet treats. All swimming their way unaffected by oxygen-freaks like us. I wave at fish and they wave back. All of them do as they flap their fins to my face. I smile at them, talk to them, dance with some and even play hide and seek with a curvaceous angel fish. I end up breathing in a lot more of my tank but the thrill is the thrill mixed with THE thrill. Splendid!
I can’t wait for more, and every day I wake up at 7. Put on my suit and strut towards the other world in my gill-less skin, which turns into underwater humour for my instructor as he signals a gill check at the back of my ears every time I get a little carried away. Or, just away from him!
Home to 4 of the top 10 dive sites in Asia, Havelock showed me a lot more than I knew was to come. A dive at the Jonny’s Gorge got me an encounter with the white tip shark. 3 in numbers to be precise; and once I spotted them I automatically started to swim towards them. Up until three flaps in, I realise they are sharks. And a flash of Jaws electrified my brain cells for a smarter reaction. Beautiful creatures they just lay on the bed. “They only attack in defence”, says my instructor. One man’s defense could be a white tips’ meal.
At Dickson’s Pinnacle I found myself face to face with a turtle some 4 feet wide. Wow. “Hey dude...” I bubbled out as my first reaction. Always wanted to do that after watching Finding Nemo. This green turtle was magnifique. As we humans waved about to battle the heavy currents, this guy just wooshd his limbs back once every 8 seconds. Calm, steady, wrinkly – he fully Master Oogway’d it.
Then there are sites
like The Wall and the Aquarium that makes for just what the latter suggests.
Springs and springs of colourful fish dance about giving you a display of the
underwaterworld. A couple of ship wrecks are around to give you an interesting
sight. But the night dive was for me the greatest obstacle. I was smooth as a
fish underwater- all in the day. But as we whisked away from the shore at
4:30pm with the sun gunning down, the dark waters tensed me. I had this intense
fear of getting lost in the dark waters. Imagine if you do? You might even
surface up- but it’s still dark and you’re in the open ocean. My instructor was
quite shocked to see me expression-less. Aah, but I was going to do it anyway.
Tank on, masked up, 10 more breaths than otherwise and I jump in. Slowly as I
descended; torch light on, I calmed down. It wasn’t bad at all, apart from the
Red Snappers who try to prey with your light. Lazy gluttons. I had to keep
moving my light away from tiny fish and toss it around to confuse them quite
often. (But the same snappers seemed dumb in the day. They would hang around in
their big schools- just steady. I showed them the way around once, like a
traffic cop, to lead them somewhere. But they just hang, I guess. )
Down in the dark, once I found my cool I started to swim around. I spotted a brilliantly
camouflaged stone-fish (Score! My instructor said- good find). Sea urchins moved
around at night, rather mechanically as their eyes seemed to bubble out like
neo magnetic antennae. Crabs, lobsters came out of hiding in abundance in their
unnatural colours popping curiosity. As did a lot of tiny to tiger-sized
shrimps. As I slowly found my skin under dark waters, no one noticed me
swimming away. Obviously! How else would I face my fears... so filmy. And then I
looked back to darkness. The freak-alarm went off in my head and I yelled at my
audience of many fish- “this is what the &*^% i was talking about- aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh”.
Having already passed my open water by now though, I sort of navigate myself
and swam back to where I had come from. When, I finally found light. Hope. Life,
if you may call it. However, my fears are no match to the scene a little
higher. As we ascend and brake for the safety stop, all the torch lights go
off. And tiny specks of neon glow wave about around you, all over. The
plankton. As I surfaced up I danced around in the water and watched the neon
dance with me. It felt like they were wrapped all around me. As I swam, they
followed me. To the right, to the left. Lower down, round and round.
I don’t want to leave, ever again.
But the islands have
more to them than just the under water. As you ride around this miniature zone,
you will come across Asia’s cleanest beach at No.7. White sand, blue pristine
waters with beautiful foamy crests of adventure gearing up. All to swallow you,
for just but 3 seconds. And you surrender. Down this beach is a lagoon which is
picturesque and known to display the best theatrical on the island- the sunset.
Also, for a true-blue experience check out the Elephant beach which is known
for its corals, thus snorkelling trips.
If you find the waters a little intimidating, there is lots
of green around to get lost. Coconut trees and beetle nut trees line the narrow
roads that take you into denser forests. It’s strange but it always feels like
someone’s following you in the woods. The games the woods play, eh!
The food I will not delve into, for reasons. After my friendly
abode in the underwaterworld, it made it a little gruesome for me to gorge on
the beautiful-scaled-meat. However there are lots of options at the bazaar where
there are more menu cards in Hebrew than in English.
One of the best parts about living on the island though is
that you live in huts. Palm-thatched huts that might not throw little beams of
light through the holes, but they did for me. And made the mornings so much
more special. Not too costly, my hut was home to me for a month and I’m just
glad that it didn’t give away during the storm.
Yes! I was witness to and a participant in the maniacal
outburst of the Thana Cyclone. It hit the island on 25th Dec, 2011.
Christmas! And also the day of my departure, which then became impossible. As I
walked the beach early that morning, we saw the waters turn fierce. The winds
yelled into our ears and the sand slapped our faces. The crests grew and fell
like surfing tides. And the skies turned darker and gloomier.
The waters were so rough there was no way of getting out of the island. Nor in!
We were quite literally stranded on the
islands. Coconuts fell from trees like darts. The wind topped up roofs of
some huts. The boats got pushed onto the shore. And to add to the grim, a tree
fell in the bazaar taking down the power lines that were the source of
electricity for the entire island. And this continued for the next 4 days. With
no ferries going to the main land, life became a little less easy.
1. with the supply of liquor out on the islands, and 2. with no fuel, eggs,
meat, bread, and other foods. But the atmosphere wasn't that bad, as we had
pretty much slipped the brunt of the cyclone as it just edged in on us on its
way to the unfortunate Chennai.
It was sad, but as I
wrote in my book that day, ‘when it happens such, it’s the world conspiring to
give you a taste of the godly power of the mind. Wishful thinking. Such are the
times- when there is either one way or none’. I was happy. Happy to find
another reason to stay put.
*Twisted beaches,
Salty winds,
Sandy Bodies
Rooftops thin.*
But the day to go had
to come, again! And this time I had to go. My 10 day trip had become 45 days.
And the island had become my own. Lots of people wondered where I was off to,
as they believed I was already home. I got offered a job, which was awesome,
all so I would stay back longer. My rickshaw ride to the jetty refused to let
me go, but as I said my goodbyes and shed my invisible tears, my friend said
one thing that stays put; “A trip is not one unless you get home in the end.
You know you’ll come back. And when you do it’ll all be here waiting for you.”
Knock. Knock.
