Complete peace, a distressing sight, a  tele-accident and the moon on fire

It says in the SE Asia Cruising guide that Inglis Island “makes the effort of getting to the Andamans worthwhile” and from our perspective we would absolutely agree. 

We had so enjoyed our visit to this Indian island  paradise the previous week that we decided to take our daughter, who was on a lightening visit from the the crazy busy-ness of Delhi, to experience the extreme peace and solitude. 

Looking over to Henry Lawrence Island from Inglis Island with only a moody sky for company

When we arrived, Inglis Island was deserted – completely deserted. Anchored in stunning turquoise water, as clear as glass, we could see no evidence at all of human habitation in any direction. Not a fishing boat, not a curl of smoke, not a shack or a throb of an engine. Complete stillness, complete quiet, complete peace.

Spectacularly alone

It was a spectacular place for our daughter to unwind and cast off the accumulated weariness of living in the hectic whirl of Delhi and the stress of a teaching a difficult year five class (her first classroom teaching experience).

Restorative isolation

Ripples in a rock pool – so relaxing

Wonderful cloud formation threatening bad weather but none came!

What better way to relax than to dive straight off the blindingly white beach into the clear, cool, deep water; to dine by the light of the full moon at night with no other suggestion of light from any other source save the constellations casting their night spell over the endless sky. 

Crystal clear water we could dive into from the beach

Bali Hai from Inglis Island

Full moon shines bright as day

But perfection is hard to maintain and on one of our walks along the beach we saw something very distressing – four large, empty, turtle shells. 

We surmised that local fishermen had caught the turtles somewhere nearby, butchered them and to avoid detection, dumped the shells overboard which were then washed up on Inglis Island. 

A washed up turtle shell

We reported our find to the Marine Police in Port Blair who we met later when they were in the process of saving a turtle that had been injured in a fishing net but sadly we didn’t feel confident that there would be any investigation or other action.

Marine Police at Port Blair taking a sick turtle to “the doctors”

We would have loved to stay at Inglis Island for a week or more – our own piece of paradise – but it was Holi holiday and as we were in India for this crazy, hilarious Spring festival, we were anxious to experience the dubious fun of throwing wildly coloured powder paint and spraying water over each other. So after a last walk on the beach and a last swim, we hightailed it back to Port Blair, to “play” Holi. 

Holi powder paint

Before we left, disaster struck. I stupidly left my phone on top of the waterproof bag (I am normally meticulous about putting it away) and left the bag and phone leaning on a log several metres away from the water’s edge.

Just before my phone died

I had completely misjudged the speed of the inward coming tide but fortunately the skipper noticed the rapidly encroaching water and rescued my belongings. However, the phone must have been splashed by an errant wave as when I switched it back on it was doing crazy things- switching screens at high speed, changing colours etc. 

For a while I thought I had lost all my precious photos from the end of last year and 2017 but have since been able to download them to the computer and back them up. 
This was going to be one of those days, as after motoring all the way to Port Blair found that the Holi celebrations had already taken place in a the morning.  So we headed out straight away to Neill Island as our daughter only had two nights left with us. 

The sun set over the water about an hour before we arrived at our anchorage but it remained light for some time afterwards and before too long we were treated to a most spectacular moonrise. We were in awe as we watched this huge blood red orb slowly emerging from hiding.

Sunset before the spectacular moon rise

Back to a silvery moon with Bali Hai in the foreground

We sailed towards the moon and watched as fiery red turned to brilliant orange, to rolled gold and then to its more familiar silvery yellow, by which time we had reached our anchorage at Neill Island.

If you would like to read more about our four-week visit to the beautiful Andaman Islands go to:

https://dotsailing.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/rocking-and-rolling-at-neill-island/

Or to the previous post at:

https://dotsailing.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/3587/