India’s Havelock Island: Sun, Moon, Waves, Transportation and Tranquility

After three and a half months backpacking through the Subcontinent of India, Carrie and I finally treated ourselves to a slice of paradise on Havelock: one of the Andaman Islands.

We selected Havelock, since it was known to be a traveler’s haven that had a little more infrastructure than some of the other Andaman Islands…and because we didn’t know about taking a Maldives Holidays.

From the good folks of Wikipedia: “Havelock Island is the largest of the islands with an area of 113.93 km2 which comprise Ritchie’s Archipelago, a chain of islands to the east of Great Andaman in the Andaman Islands. Havelock is situated 57 km North East of Capital City Port Blair. The population numbered 5,354 as of the census of 2001.”

While on Havelock, we took time out from relaxing to go scuba diving, enjoy a bike ride, eat lots of amazing food, barely celebrate St Patrick’s Day and relax some more.

Perhaps my biggest complaint about Havelock was the massive amount of mosquitoes that came out ever day at sunset. Without fail, right as the day came to a close, Carrie and I would have no choice but to retreat to our mosquito-net covered bed and watch a movie to avoid a body full of bites. Even the copious amounts of lizards that inhabit the island couldn’t control their population.

What follows is an excerpt from my original Havelock Island, India, blog entry:

In between all these activities, we did find some time to kick back and relax. A lot of time was spent eating or planning when to eat next, as meals tend to take at least an hour to prepare. We made some good new friends with other people at our guest house, took local buses or walked everywhere, enjoyed a sunset at Beach 7 (original name, I know), attended the most low-key St. Patrick’s Day party of all time and, most importantly, recharged the batteries for the next leg of our trip.

Even getting to Havelock was a fun experience, as we first had to take a plane from Chennai to Port Blair, then a long ferry ride to the island. During the trip, Carrie was learning how to play her new drum with her new tutors: the ship’s crew. Below are a few of my favorite pics from that boat ride.

For your parting shot, here is a scuba boat that we took to check out the amazing coral and fish of the Andaman Islands from below sea level. Someone get me a regulator and BCD, I’m ready to dive!