Andaman Islands
The Andaman & Nicobar Islands are a group of picturesque Islands, big and small, inhabited and uninhabited, a total of 572 islands, islets and rocks lying in the Bay of Bengal approximately 1000 kms the east of the Indian mainland. They lie along an arc in long and narrow broken chain, approximately North-South over a distance nearly 800 kms.
The islands were shrouded in mystery for centuries because of their inaccessibility. Deemed “Kala Pani” or “Black Waters” these islands were historically used as Castaway or a penal settlement by the British for political prisoners from India and even as a Japanese Army base during WW II.
The physical reminders of the British presence make for an interesting trip - the old saw-mill on Chatham Island, the creepy Cellular Jail that still dominates Port Blair, the ghostly remains of the settlement on Ross Island - but it is the beauty and isolation of the islands that exerts the most powerful pull. The islands themselves are rocky, rainforest-clad droplets in an azure ocean, edged with champagne-coloured beaches fringed with palms melting under flame-and--purple sunsets.
A paradise of translucent waters, coral islands thick with virgin forests and labyrinthine backwaters along with the world famous beach no. 7 at Havelock Andaman Islands are being touted as the great new holiday discovery.
Beneath the waves lie reefs barely touched and hardly seen by divers. In fact, until recently, only about 50 divers a year have been lucky enough to experience the Andaman’s hidden treasures. It is easy to see why Jacques Cousteau named the the Andamans the ‘invisible islands’.
A lack of any local commercial fishing fleet, and granting of only very few licences to foreign fishing boats, means the reefs are simply teeming with with fish and macro life, as well as home to some thrilling sharks and giant rays, and the occasional dugong. |
