As planned, this morning we rolled out of bed and pulled up anchor, heading back to Port Blair to check out. We had smooth seas and arrived a little before 1000. When we got to shore, the same cab driver was waiting. We negotiated an “all day” price, then asked him how many hours “all day” included. In his mind “all day” is 4 hours. We wish we had thought to ask about hours last time he picked us up. It would have saved us all from an uncomfortable situation at the end of the day.

We were at the Port Captain’s office by 1030 to check out. Check out was slow but easy, with fees running about USD$15. Stop two was Customs. No one was around, but just as we were leaving someone appeared and went and got the customs supervisor for us. Check out was easy and only took a few minutes. We were on a roll! We got to Immigration, where they told us to make copies of a certain form and that they would meet us at the jetty at 1700 (5:30pm). Hmmm”¦. Maybe the roll had just ended.

From there we got lunch at Annapurna. This time we all tried Thalis, which are set meals. Within a minute or two of ordering, we each got a plate with a cracker, two tortilla style rotis, and several little silver cups filled with assorted foods.

Most of the dishes in the cups were similar to ones we have tried before, but there were a few new ones. Unfortunately, we have no names. There was some sort of dhal (curried lentil) dish that was really delicious. It has mustard, onion, and green chili in it. There was a second kind of Continue reading →

Continued from yesterday”¦ When the British first arrived in the Andamans, they put the prison on Viper Island, established personnel housing on Ross Island, and put the hospital on Chatham Island in the middle of the two. The islands can all be seen from one another. Ross eventually had a population of 500 and was a very nice town with many amenities. There was a large Anglican church, a bakery, general store, post office, water making plant, tennis courts, swimming pools, library, flour making plant, and more. It was once considered to be the Paris of east. Shortly before World War II, there was an earthquake that scared some of the people off Ross. When the Japanese captured the islands, they lived in the housing on Ross and built bunkers using materials taken from the existing buildings. After WWII, the British never went back to Ross and instead moved across the way to Port Blair. Anything salvageable from the buildings on Ross was reused in Port Blair and the shells of the buildings were left to deteriorate. The British also built a new jail in Port Blair. The tsunami in 2004 did even further damage to the already partly destroyed buildings on the windward side of the island.

At first glance, the area near the ferry terminal looks like a park, with scattered brick red buildings and lots of neatly maintained grass. On closer inspection, though, you realize there are a lot of decrepit old buildings set farther back in and amongst the cheerful red buildings. It looks like a few selected buildings have been restored, but most are in the process of being reclaimed by mother nature. We walked down the neatly landscaped dirt path towards the ruins. There was a small herd of deer just hanging out on the grass. They stared at us as we passed. How cool!

We were kind of amazed by the Continue reading →

This morning, Eric called customs on the radio at 0830. They told Eric to come and pick them up in 10 minutes. Woo hoo! Off to a good start today! They agents explained the mega yacht pulled in shortly before we did with 19 people on board and it took them a long time to do the paperwork, which is why they didn’t get to us yesterday. The agents wanted a complete inventory of all the personal items we had on board, which kind of made us feel weird. The coast guard’s questions had focused only on equipment. Other than the personal item inventory, all was status quo and by 1000 we had a customs clearance. Eric dropped them off and made an appointment with the harbor master at 1500 (3:00 pm). He also found a taxi driver to give us a tour.

As we were getting ready to head to shore, we noticed the mega yacht had pulled up anchor. It was heading straight towards a tiny fishing boat! The yacht clearly saw the boat because they honked at him, but they didn’t change course. The poor fisherman was terrified and paddled as hard as he could to get out of the mega yacht’s path. The fisherman had the right of way since he had no engine. We were astounded by the mega yacht captain’s behavior.

We left for shore at 1100. We noticed the whole bay has a diesel sheen on the surface. Yuck. We pulled up to the rock pier at Chatham Island. There is no place to tie the dinghy up to, so the standard operating procedure is to Continue reading →