Gone Since November: The Andaman Islands

The following blog tells the tales of our seven days on the chartered Sailing Yacht Asia through India’s Andaman Islands. We owe this entire week of luxurious bliss to Patrick Shay for inviting us, and Kevin and Sara Shay for arranging this wonderful week. This is truly an experience we have never had before and was a wonderful week in paradise. Thank you so much to the entire Shay family for welcoming us with open arms and treating us like members of the family. We also had the chance to get to know Pat’s sister Megan much better and enjoyed her insight as to what really awaited us in India. Awesome week guys!

Our trip from Thailand to India started off with a bang. Literally fists a flying in the air. After successfully meeting up with the Shay family at the Bangkok airport and boarding our flight, about half way through the flight to Kolkota, we got an interesting surprise—a fist fight. Yes, you are reading this correctly. Grown men were involved in a fist fight on our plane! None of us had ever seen something like this before and although we were mildly threatened for our safety, it became the story to talk about throughout our week in the Andamans!!

The fight started with a flash of 4 or 5 men swinging at each other on the plane a few rows back. We do not know what the issue was as they were yelling at each other in what we assume was Hindi. Passengers managed to get in between the men to settle things down and then luckily one of a flight attends was a big burly man who set them straight with a talking to each of them. Like school children, they were walked one by one in front of the curtain in the first class section and the flight attendant had a talk with them. They were walked back to their seat and that was it. No mention of sorry folks for the fight or anything. It was just over like that as if it was as normal as handing out peanuts or turning on the seat belts for turbulence. It was decided Ang would take the window seat on all future flights in India to avoid being caught up in the future fisticuffs if it did occur. It was wild how quickly it started and treated as if it had never happened. Pat Shay was quick to point out one of the men was crying when we was walked back to his seat after his scolding from the flight attendant. We all arrived into the Kolkata airport unscathed to watch these men again get a little aggressive as large packages and big screen TVs came out on the luggage carousel. We were informed that these men travel to Thailand to bring back cheap goods into India. We never thought we’d see big screen TVs come off a luggage carousel, and likely never will again! We had an uneventful pick-up from the airport, as our hotel man was waiting with his “Sara Shay” sign to whisk us away from the chaos of the airport to our little oasis inside Kolkata known as the Oberoi Hotel.

Now the Oberoi Hotel. What a wonderful wonderful place! Kolkata is a bit of a hectic city (as most of India likely is!) but as we pulled through our guarded gates (after our car was thoroughly checked for bombs—not joking!) we entered this little piece of heaven. We were treated like royalty and whisked off to our rooms. This is a hotel unlike any other Steve or I has stayed in thus far on this trip—no backpackers here! It was a very nice retreat after a long day of travel.

We had an early start the next day, with a 9am flight to Port Blair, our starting point for our sailing expedition. We had a great buffet breakfast, which included many incredible Indian dishes, in the hotel to start us off and then were whisked off by the hotel drivers to deal with the Kolkata airport again. Airports in India are a different thing—you need to have proof of our flight (like a printed itinerary) to even get entrance to the airport. You have to go through security to get access to the airport lobby and then once inside you get to go through security again—you put your hand luggage through and get stamped to show its safe to fly, then your checked bag goes through another xray machine and gets a sticker stating it’s safe to fly and then you go through security like you would at any other airport. Men and women are in different lines, because they take you behind a current and pat you down; just to make sure you are safe to get on the plane! No fist fights on this flight, to Pat Shay’s disappointment as he was “putting on the foil” (just kidding), and it was quite nice to land in the hot heat of Port Blair. After filling out numerous pieces of paper at the Port Blair airport and having the identification all photocopied to ensure we were allowed entrance to these islands, we set off to the harbor, to meet our dingy to take us to our luxurious yacht for the week.

Our boat was called the Sailing Yacht Asia and was captained by Paul and Debbie Johnson. The link to their website is http://www.boat-yacht-charters.com and we’d recommend you check it out for more details on the boat. Essentially it is a 100 feet yacht with four guest cabins each with ensuite, full kitchen, living room, dining room and a large deck to enjoy sunbathing while we sail around. It was quite an impressive boat, built by our captains themselves, and nothing we could write about it would do justice to the boat—check out the website and look at all pictures; it really is that nice! Debbie and Paul charter this boat for guests and take you to isolated places that are difficult to travel on bigger cruise boats and smaller islands that don’t have other tourist options. They move to various places based on weather, following the cyclone season, placing them in Indonesia for the summer and Thailand for the winter. You then charter them to take you to various locations around their home base, and see some beautiful sites that otherwise would be impossible to explore. The Andaman Islands are a long chain of islands located in the Andaman Sea. They belong to India, although are located over 1000km from mainland India and are much closer to Thailand! There are over 500 islands in this chain, with only a few of them having any permanent human dwellings on them. Just white sand beaches, blue blue waters and lots of fish and sea life to enjoy!

Our first afternoon on the boat started off with a delicious lunch served at the outside dining area, after which we sailed for a few hours to reach our first destination, Havelock Island. This is one of the bigger Andaman Islands and does have a few tourist resorts on it, but we anchored the boat around the isolated side and felt like we had the place all to ourselves! The troops set off fishing just before dusk, hoping to catch us something delicious. They didn’t come back empty handed—Megan caught us a baby barracuda, and although they look interesting with all their pointy teeth, apparently they aren’t that delicious so we let this one go back into the sea. We had a wonderful seafood dinner under the moonlight on the deck, a perfect ending to our first day on the seas.

The next morning we were all up quite early due to the early rising of the sun, time change, and the excitement from the boat. The four kids were up and had breakfast before the parents arose, so we got to experience our first Andaman snorkel that morning. We were out in the water for almost two hours and we will both say that snorkel we saw over these seven days at sea is hands down the best we have ever done. The water is as blue as you can imagine and with sand bottoms, interesting coral formations, beautiful fish and other sea creatures made these waters superb. This snorkeling trip specifically showed us a few rays which were really neat—they nestle themselves down in the sand on the bottom and without Paul going to rustle them out of the sand, you might not even know they were there. After snorkeling we went for a few more hours of sailing, before arriving at a little chain of islands known as “The Buttons”. On our way to the Buttons we had a bit of excitement—we caught our first fish while trolling along. Since we were new to boating life, we weren’t aware that anytime the sails were dropped or the engine killed expectantly, its cause a fish is on the line. Well, were we in for a delicious surprise!! Patrick reeled us in a wonderful Spanish mackerel that we enjoyed BBQ’d that evening. We had a wonderful afternoon snorkeling around South Button, swimming in the largest school of fish we have ever seen (see the pictures—they were unreal!). You could literally swim through these schools and they would move only the few inches necessary not to hit you. They stayed essentially in the same spot, allowing us to swim through the school of fish for about ¼ the length of the island! After our snorkeling we sailed a bit more to anchor on North Button island, where we took the dingy to the white sand beach for some vacation cheer while watching the sunset. What a great way to end the day!

Day three started off with a little sailing and when we docked for lunch, we all hoped into the dingy and headed in to explore some mangroves. These are essentially forests that grow into the water—literally trees growing out of what looks like oceans. There are all these neat little passages that you can explore, with the hope of finding crocodiles and cobra snakes. We didn’t get lucky on this journey, but we can’t say we are too upset!! After our dingy ride we stopped in a beautiful bay with a white sand beach and turquoise blue water—perfect to cool off in!

Day four was spent upon the high seas, sailing to our next isolated piece of heaven in the Andamans. It was quite nice as we were able to have the sails up most of the day, slowly making our way through the blue blue waters. A few fish were biting while we were trolling, which always made for a fun adventure! We ended up having the most wonderful sashimi this evening due to the biting fish—we caught two skipjack tuna, which turned into a wonderful appetizer!

Day five involved a few other snorkeling trips in various little bays and reefs around our little island. It seemed the further we got away from the populated areas, the larger and larger the fish were we were seeing. Literally schools of fish, maybe 5 to 20, depending on the type of fish, which were similar size to cats and dogs! Paul was an excellent guide—he would swim down and make the bigger fish come out of their holes so we could see them, if required, while helping us to identify the fish, coral, birds and all the plants and animals! He really does know his stuff which made the excursions even more incredible. The highlight of snorkeling on this day was that Ang’s snorkeling dream came true—we saw a turtle! After our morning snorkel we spent some time walking on a beautiful white sand spit island. There was area of forest on either side of a thin white area of sand, and we had the island all to ourselves! We saw some neat lizards and giant hermit crabs on walk; no big snakes, which was OK with us! After a bit more sailing, the afternoon was filled with island adventure. We took the dingy ashore and hiked up a small mountain to get a great sunset view over the Andamans. This time on our hike, we were met by a family of four deer in the woods. We capped off our hike with a bottle of red wine to enjoy the sunset—can’t ask for much more than that!

Our final full day on the boat started a little earlier for the boys (and Megan!) as they headed out for a fishing expedition at dawn. They weren’t quite happy with the few fish we had caught thus far, so were off to expand our sashimi sampling! They came back with three rock cod and a trevali fish. The rock cod had the most beautiful pink colour you have ever seen (and they all tasted delicious as an appetizer!) After breakfast we enjoyed our final snorkel, again taking in the beautiful coral and large schools of fish. Our afternoon involved some sailing, and this time the big fish were biting—Kevin reeled us in a delicious albacore tuna. This fish was huge—at least 15kg. It literally weighed as much as our backpacks! Paul said that this fish would be worth about $30000 in Japan for all the sashimi it would make, and it did make an excellent addition to our appetizer sampler platter! Our final dinner on board of BBQ Rock Cod was an excellent way to end our time upon the high seas!

Later that evening on a fishing jaunt that seemed was going to end without a single bite, resulted in Pat and Steve each reeling in trevalis of at least 10kg each. Two more fish, which we are sure must have been monsters, snapped the lines and got away. It could be also been said that the fishing bug had also been caught by the end of the trip with the excellent result.

Day seven saw us sailing by 7am, to get back into Port Blair to sadly catch our flights out around noon. We had such a lovely week on the water and we will always remember our time in the Andamans fondly.

We returned to Kolkata (and the Oberoi!) and had the most delicious Indian food in the hotel restaurant. Very flavourful and lots of new dishes to try! We then ate again, because we are on vacation, and went out for the high class cuisine in India: Chinese! It was wonderful! No all you can eat buffet like back home, but truly amazing, fresh, Chinese food. We had dinner with Sara’s Aunt and husband and was really nice to hear how life in Kolkata is for the locals. Our final day with the Shay family was filled with sightseeing. As there was a communist political party rally (seriously!) the city was rammed with people. We got to see the rally first hand as we were trying to make our way around this already busy city! We explored the marble palace and saw where Mother Teresa worked from. We capped off the afternoon with munchies by the pool at our hotel.

We had a good laugh about the way traffic jams in India operated. In North America when the traffic halted to a dead stop, people would start to honk their horns frantically to get the traffic moving again. In India the drivers acted in the opposite manner. When the traffic was halted because the processions of marchers blocked our road, everyone sat patiently waiting to see when the people would pass. The drivers got out of their cars and calmly talked with each other about what was happening. When the demonstrators passed and the road was clear, the drivers honked and honked and honked and honked trying to cut each other off and held their horns down forever in the traditional India style of driving. Some more cultural experience gained by us in Kolkata.

We said goodbye to the Shay family at the Oberoi and headed off to the Kolkata train station for our introduction to the “real” India: an overnight train to Varanasi. Stay tuned for the Varanasi and Agra blogs, as we are just finishing up our first week on mainland India and want to share all our adventures with you (if the internet holds out!!)

Our boat moored off one of our isolated islands.

Swimming with the fishes!

Mr. Parrot Fish....literally the size of a small dog! He usually swam in schools of about 5 or so of his friends. Underwater pics courtesy of Paul's camera.