Checking out the pile of logs outside the plywood factory on Long Island.

March 24, 2001 - Cruising in the Andamans - Port Blair and the Northern Islands

We stayed several days in Port Blair after our clearing process. The streets were lively with taxis, motor bikes, and busses; very few private cars by comparison to Malaysia. People moving along the streets seemed energetic and happy, the women lovely spots of color in their fluttering saris. We found the bank to change money; lots of employees, no computers. Yet there are 3 Internet shops in town; mostly used by backpackers I suspect. Stores had their wares displayed out on the sidewalk as well as piled to the ceiling inside, with hardly room to move about. In the market were plenty of vegetables in attractive arrays, while fruit was in a separate section down the road. In one building was an active fish market; next door were stalls for eggs and chicken (live or dressed), and fresh goat meat. Bread was difficult to find, as Indians use a variety of flat breads instead, and generally cook it themselves.

The knife has shaved this log. The sheet is 2mm thick (thin?) It is being wound on a spool for feeding into the next machine. One man is putting tape along the edge to keep it from splitting.

We had lunch in several of the "Hotels" in Port Blair. Hotel in this case just means a restaurant. It must have something to do with licensing. The food is heavily vegetarian, which suits us just fine. Also heavily spiced - which doesn't suit me at all. I don't do well with chilies and spicy food of that sort. However, I just advised them, "No chili, no pepper" and it was usually OK. Wonderful flavors! Very inexpensive - a meal of 4 dishes, plus chapati breads and mineral water cost us about $3, in a middle class air-con restaurant.

It's a bit of a crusty, dusty town, and I can see that it would put people off who hadn't experienced much in the way of Third World cruising, but we quite liked it. You have to dodge the cows wandering the streets and munching in the trash piles, as well as watch your step to avoid cow plops. Many inhabitants chew beetle nut, and dried spittings of the red saliva juice is inevitable in the streets as well. But when all this gets too hard to bear, you can retreat to the boat and cruise out to the other islands. Which is what you come for anyway.

	These pieces are being covered with glue.

Havelock Island - lies about 20 miles northeast of Port Blair. We had a fine sail in 15K of NE winds, beating and tacking. We dropped our hook in 20 feet of clear-water sandy bottom. A low swell did not disturb our comfort, but did put a small surf break onto the long white beach in front of us. Dinghy landing took timing and control. There was primary forest coming right down to the shore. Enough undergrowth had been cleared to make walking in the leafy green shade a real treat. A government-run tented camp has been built under the trees for travelers. The young men who run the camp graciously allowed us to rinse clothes and fill our water jugs at the camp spigots. They later swam out to the boat. We enjoyed our visit together; they were just as curious about our lives as we were about theirs.

Some of the women working around the big sheets of plywood. they are finishing the surface with steel wool and stacking them for loading.

The settlement in this bay is called "#7". It seems all the villages have a name, but are commonly called by numbers. Thus one morning we took the bus over to Havelock #1. It is the administrative center for the island, has a ferry pier for cargo and passengers. There are schools and 2 temples, some small shops, a couple of low budget hotels and a few restaurants. We had an excellent lunch of several dishes, all freshly cooked for us. The afternoon bus at 3 turned out to be the school bus route as well. The bus was totally packed with kids. If you can imagine, the 2 of us filled a bus seat, there was a girl standing half in the aisle and half into our seat space, and we were holding her book bag, somebody's canvas satchel, and our own backpacks on our laps! John Lawrence Island didn't have too much to offer. There was a beach with jungle behind, but lots of mangroves. The Southerly swell that had chased us out of Havelock persisted, even though we had protection from that direction. We waited until about 10 the next morning to make a passage up Paranga Jura, a narrow strait between John Lawrence and Sir William Peel Island. Our chart was minimal, but it turned out to be a piece of cake, going slow and Al up in the ratlines for visual directions to me.

Wilson Island - Another nothing anchorage - no fish, no corals, just mangroves, but at least it was dead flat calm. None of this rolling-around-all-night stuff like the previous 2 nights had been. Again, waiting for good light, we left the anchorage and went north. Caught a 12 LB trevally trolling up the coast of Wilson Island, so all was not lost.

Long Island - Fair-weather sailing in light breezes brought us into the protected bay in front of the town. Visually it was not appealing from the water, but it turned out to be a most interesting stop. We watched big - I mean BIG! - logs being off loaded from a small freighter. Followed their progress ashore to the plywood factory. The engineering manager kindly gave us a tour of the process of joining all those thin pieces of wood together. He kept apologizing for the inadequacies of his old machinery, but we found it all quite fascinating, maybe because there were more people involved in the process instead of robotic machines. The women were wearing their saris, but I noticed they were not working around any of the machines.

This was quite a large village, with larger houses and concrete walkways winding among them. We shared the walkways with cows, goats, pigs, dogs, puppies, ducks, and chickens! There were quite a few small shops with dry goods and some vegetables: potatoes, cabbage, onions, eggplant, tomatoes, and garlic primarily. There were community wells for bathing and laundry - lucky me! We saw a large soccer field near the school and a badminton court by the big general store. There was a tournament in progress the afternoon we arrived.

We could see a graveyard just inland from the beach where we anchored. We knew there had been a death and would be a cremation. At noon a tractor from the factory hauling numerous off cut logs, followed by a procession of men all carrying lumber and kindling, arrived at the cemetery. We could not see the pyre they built, but saw the procession with the body arrive. We did not go ashore, but watched what presumably was a ceremony and the lighting of the pyre. After 15 or 20 minutes of incredibly intense fire, the men drifted away in small groups. Interestingly, there were no women involved, yet we had been told it was a woman who died.

Baratang Island - We stopped here hoping to see elephants working logs on the beach. Alas, only their foot prints and plops to show us they had been there. Obvious logging operations in the past: some trees had been felled with an ax, others by chain saw. Since there was nothing going on, we put the dinghy back on board and headed back to Port Blair. We would resupply with fruit and vegetables, then head south to islands with more aquatic interests.