Andaman Diary : Day 4 : PortBlair arrival and Havelock departure

22nd Dec 2008


What a beautiful morning, the islands were in sight and the ship was floating a little away from the Port.


Passengers starting to assemble on the deck.


Kids getting ready.

Even after 3 days of travel, we are not feeling tired and raring to go to Havelock. The ship was docked at the ADO jetty by 7:30 and we were at phoenix jetty by 8. By auto rickshaw it takes 50 INR to reach there.


One of the light houses near the ADO jetty.

Phoenix jetty has main ticket counter for all the inter-island travel and for travel to the mainland as well. Our purpose was to get the return tickets to Chennai and today’s tickets for Havelock. For Havelock, both normal and speed boats play. Except M.V.RAMANUJAM, all others are speed boat. By speed boat it takes around 2 and half hrs and by normal boat, it takes 4 hrs.


Advance Ticket Reservation Centre (Truly advanced!!!)

Phoenix jetty has a good advance ticket reservation counter, but it doesn’t seem to work even in a normal way. The centre opens at 9AM, but the person who sells the tickets from the counter came not before 10AM. It’s a glass enclosed building, with non-functional air-conditioning. It was hot and humid like hell in there. What is the use of creating such a good infrastructure when it is no good for the passengers?

Ticket PIC Pending

One good thing is that advance tickets can be purchased for all the dates for which the scheduled has been released. Generally for next one month. From mainland it is just not possible to book tickets in advance, from Chennai, Kolkata or Vizag, they open the ticket booking only 3 days prior to the departure and they need a photograph as well, but in Port Blair, no such crazy protocols.
Finally by standing in the queue for 4 hrs we could get the tickets for B-class Cabin tickets for Chennai but still couldn’t get the tickets for Havelock.


M.V.PILOWMILLOW

Fortunately we could get the tickets by turning up at the last moment, not seating but standing tickets for 2pm M.V.PILOMILLOW ferry. By standing it means, we could stand anywhere on the lower deck as well as the upper deck, and in the end it turned out to be better than the seating tickets.


Plilowmillow upper deck.

Atleast, one can watch the scenery and feel the wind. By 4:30, we were docked at the Havelock jetty.


Small and Sleepy island but very beautiful.

It is considered to be the best island in Andamans to spend most of the time. It has seven beaches which go by the numbers as beach #1, beach #2 and so forth. Each beach has a village associated with it as village #1 and so forth. The best among all these is the beach #7, Radhanagar beach. On #7 accommodation is limited and expensive, best place is the #5 to stay. It is lined up with many beach side resorts, which generally offer hut accommodation at cheap prices. During this time of the year most of the resorts are full, but we could manage to get 400 INR double bed room with a clean bathroom in Gold India resort.


Our accommodation for a week.

What else one needs, a good bed and a clean bathroom? But here, a mosquito net as well :)

Andaman Diary : Day2-3 : Ship Journey

20/21st Dec 2008


The evening of the previous day.

Sleeping on the ship is not bad, it becomes bad only when the waves are punishing. The rear end of the ship vibrates a lot, I can feel a constant buzz, but after some time I have got used to it.


Crack of the dawn.


Morning are outstanding, not at all to miss such an opportunity, I woke up by 5:30 AM and was ready for the spectacle. Unfortunately from the sea, most of the horizon is occupied by the far far away clouds and the mist. The sun was visible only after half an hour of the actual sunrise, nevertheless it was still breathtaking.


Insanely expensive Bunk Canteen.

The breakfast in Cabin class dining is pretty impressive. Upama + Bread + Jam + Butter + Omlette + Cornflakes + Boiled potatoes. A very healthy and a little too heavy !!! Ship travel is very relaxed, I didn’t do any physical work on the ship, just lying around here and there :) Anyways, the breakfast in bunk Canteen is 4 cold bread slices + butter and it costs 30 bucks. That’s ridiculous. The 2-day meal pass for cabin class dining costs around 350 INR per person. Very much worth it, the food is good and in plenty, and a good ambience to eat as well.



While talking to the ship crew, I came to know that for the shipping corporation, these trips are very loss making. The maintenance is huge as compared to the fares. Tickets prices are very low and for islanders it is less than 50% of the fare what tourists had to pay. Islanders had to pay only 700 INR for Bunk tickets, for the same ticket I had to pay 2000 INR. These ships run on the government subsidy. After all as a government enterprise, primary purpose of The Shipping Corporation is to provide good and cheap services to its citizens. No issues :)


Life-boats.

This vessel M.V.HARSHAVARDHAN is 32 years old and after 2 years, it would be scrapped, most probably would end up in Gujarat-scrapyard port. The other ships which operate from Chennai are M.V.NANCOWRY and M.V.SWARAJDEEP. They are pretty new as compared to this one, only 16years old.


Smoke spewing chimney.

While talking to Cadet Naveen, a friendly chap, I came to know about few of the ship’s details. The bridge is the main control room of the ship, it has radars, compasses and other gadgetry. Our guide was The maximum speed of this ship is 18knots/hr(nautical miles/hr). 1nautical mile = 1.85kms. Our course is set to 126 degrees from Visakhapatnam to Port Blair.



We are expected to reach there by 21st midnight, but Port Blair has only 2 pilot boats and they don’t operate during the night. So, the ship will unnecessarily wait outside the Port till morning but Dolphins can be seen near Port Blair :)


Some more sunset shots.

Island passengers are crazy about playing cards, most of the time I could see them playing. Crazy lot !!!

Andaman Diary : Day1 : Boarded the ship for Port Blair

19th Dec 2008
Long distance ship travel is a unique experience; which I am very much looking forward to it.


Visakhapatnam Port Gate

For 10AM ship we were supposed to reach the Vizag Port gate by 7AM. The actual boarding started by 8AM.


Big ships loading and unloading.

Vizag port is a busy place with lot of cargo ships getting loaded and unloaded.


Big cranes for big cargos.


M.V.HARSHAVARDHANA

Baggage was scanned and the embarkation card was collected by the ship crew as we entered the ship(M.V.HARSHAVARDHANA), then we were directed to our A-block bunks.


Bunk Beds

Frankly speaking, when I first looked at it, it was much better than I had expected it to be. I had imagined it to be a small crammed room with 6 bunk beds, like it was in titanic. But to my surprise it was a big room with 30 bunk beds and two big fans.


Long clean corridors, but they wont be clean for long !!!

Ship has long corridors.

Even the bunks are air-conditioned but don’t raise your expectations, because they are not very effective and the bunks become hot and humid. Anyways, on the first day atleast they were working.


Calm Sea

To our advantage the weather was perfect for sea travel, the sea was calm and ship was hardly turbulent. Before boarding the ship, it is must to take sufficient supplies of snacks, because the onboard shop is not good. It mostly sells water, biscuits, chips and limited cold-drinks. We have taken enough supplies for next 3 days. There is a library on board with a good collection of old books. I have picked up a real life work named “Serengeti shall not die”. There is a dispensary as well with fixed timings and 24hr emergency facility. For Cabin class passengers, a separate dining is available. But I am traveling bunk, so today had gone to Bunk dining hall.


Bunk Class Dining Hall

The food in bunk was hopelessly bad, but there is a good option in the form of buying meal passes for Cabin class dining hall, which I have asked for. Hopefully tomorrow, we will have better meals.


Cabin Class Dining Hall


Open space at the back.

There is a big open space at the rear end of the ship, which is the primary muster station. It has a shed with lot of benches under it and a Television set. Yeah, we do get to watch movies at ship. The open space serves as a big bed as well, just had to carry our sleeping bags and we can have the luxury of sleeping under the stars with an amazing wind.