Snorkelling and Fishing at Andaman – By Sai Ramanand

Snorkelling

Man was it hot that day, my feet were burning just walking to the beach. We were on Neil Island some 2 hour boat ride from Havelock island.

The boat ride wasn't that eventful I slept the entire ride..Well I did in any case don't know about my brothers or dad or mom, I was just too damn tired and the heat wasn't helping either. When we reached our destination we got in two cabs and drove to the snorkelling point.

It was a narrow strip of beach with slopping sand quite close to the tree line, there were many shells and a few fallen tree' in the way, there were many coral rocks in the way when entering the water and the waves weren't helping and without sure footing you would just lose your balance. Once you swim to deeper water.....what a sight it's not as great as the coral reefs on discovery channel but great to see with your own eyes, Wow seeing so many colours, life was a great experience and I and my brother Karthik were lucky to catch a glimpse of a sea turtle, all in all a great trip.

From Wikipedia - Neil Island is an island in the Andaman Islands of India. It occupies an area of 18.9 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi). The island is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Port Blair, the capital of Islands. The island consists of five villages, which are numbered from 1 to 5. There is a lone jetty at Bharathpur, which serves as the only entry/exit point of the island. The population of the island has been estimated at 5000 to 6000. Agriculture is the primary occupation of the villagers, and the island supplies vegetables to the rest of Andaman.

Line Fishing

We Left from Havelock by dinghy at around 3:00 to 3:30 in the afternoon, an hour later we reached the fishing point, after we were told how to fish by Diya our guide, we lowered our lines. Dad was the first one to catch a fish not to mention the fastest catch, I mean come on I had to hold the line for at least 20 min' before my first catch but my dad catch' one in under a minute, the wait for the fish to nibble was a bit boring but it got exciting when the fish began biting.

The fish we caught were red snapper, white lip, grouper and Diya caught one that looked like a parrot fish to me. I caught at least 6 fish and my brothers Karthik at least 5 and Chandu 4 the small one' were released. We continued till sunset when we decided to return and the night sky came to life as we saw a sight impossible in cities and a memorable one the night sky filled with stars and I mean filled, shooting stars, the constellations etc but the crowning jewel was the north star who ever said this star was the brightest star in the sky wasn't kidding, against the black sky and its reflection on the ocean surface I could swear it looked like one of those old Telugu or Hindi movie set, it was as bright as the moon and the ocean wasn't quite it had it' own stars the phosphorescence of certain microorganism showed up when the boat broke the surface of the water it was like fireflies only these show up when the water' surface is broken. We had pizza for dinner that night funny that' the only sure thing I remember probably because it was so good, in the restaurant B3 a short walk from the Havelock jetty(where our boat docked).