Today was chore day. No one particularly felt like doing chores, so we procrastinated until 1400 (2:00 pm), when Christi and Mike jumped in to do the bottom and waterline. There were hundreds of fish in the water around the boat, with lots of schools of fairly large yellowtail fusiliers. With each wipe of the sponge, Continue reading
The French family had offered to take us out to breakfast at their hotel. We arrived to shore to find out we had just missed the bus. There were no tuk tuks around to hire. We walked over to what looked like the reception area for the dome hotel to see if they could call a tuk tuk for us. It turns out it is not a hotel. The domes are a public campground that was recently built and has never been opened. This building is an Italian restaurant named Mahua with some good looking specials of the day. We found out the bus would be back before a tuk tuk could get over here from town.
We didn’t have to wait long for the next bus. We took the bus to village #3, then a tuk tuk south past the two dive shops down to their hotel. Beyond the dive shop the road quality begins to deteriorate. Their hotel is much nicer looking than all the other ones we could see from the road. The food was OK, with no menu items interesting enough to report on.
Lonely Planet had mentioned there was an elephant training camp 5 kilometers south of where we were. The guidebook said 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
On Sunday, the moment of truth came where we realized we could no longer put off chores. Eric changed the generator oil and filter and the air filter in the main engine and on engine fuel filter while Christi cleaned and did laundry. We also both did some major re-organizing. No matter how much stuff we move around, we never can seem to put it all away. We always have something sitting out on the living room floor that has no home. And when we find a spot for it, whatever was in that spot goes to the living room floor instead. Someday we will get it all put away… Maybe… Mike went to the hospital to have his bandages changed. We are pleased to report he came back with slightly smaller bandages, which is a very good sign, indeed. In the evening we went out to dinner with a family we had met on the kayak trip.
Monday morning we took a taxi back to Ao Chalong bay to check out. We were supposed to Continue reading