Setting sail for the Andaman Islands

MAt last the long awaited day had come when we were to check out of Phuket and set sail for the Andaman Islands to take part in the inaugural Andaman Islands Yacht Carnival.

We had fallen in love – on our first visit in 2017 – with the beautiful and isolated Andaman Islands which with the Nicobar Islands, is India’s southernmost outpost. We couldn’t wait to get back!

During our first visit a number of us “yachters” as they like to call us, suggested to Rathnam, the agent we had used, that he organise a Yacht rally and it turned out that he had already been thinking about doing this. We gave him contact details of Rally organisers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and all made suggestions around cultural and other activities.

The only way to travel to the Andaman Islands apart from arriving by yacht, is by air or boat from mainland India. This is about to change however, as an international terminal is in the process of being built.

The trip is around 400 nautical miles from Phuket in Thailand, for Bali Hai that is around a sail of three day and three nights.

We set off in the company of Beach House, a Perry 57 catamaran, You You, a 36 foot Colin Archer double ender and Yantara, a 46 foot custom built yacht with a Sparkman and Stephens hull. Quite a mixed bag!

The first day and night were uneventful. There was no wind at all which meant the sea was like glass and we had to motor sail which was disappointing.

Late in the first day we heard from You You that they were experiencing problems with their seawater pump. At first they thought they could mend it but we found out later that sadly, they had to turn back.

We also had a slight hitch when moving along in water 2000 metres deep – the engine noise changed and we weren’t making good headway – a piece of rope round the prop was suspected and poor Capt’n Birdseye had to jump into the ocean blue to ascertain the problem. Fortunately he was able to free the rope quite easily and soon we were on our way again.

That evening we enjoyed the chicken curry I had precooked before leaving and settled into our normal watch sequence – the good captain went to bed at around 9.30 pm and tried to sleep (it’s never a good sleep on the first night) and then at 1.30 am it was my turn to sleep until 5.30 am when I took over again for a couple hours.

While on watch at dawn that second day I sighted a group of pilot whales move slowly round the back of the boat. A magnificent sight! Again, we motored all day until at last at five pm a breeze blew up and we were finally able to switch off the motor.

In only 10 -12 knots of wind (on our beam) we were humming along at around seven knots and we continued like that until 8.15pm when the wind dropped and we started to motor sail again.

After another beautiful sunrise we were able to switch off the engine again and sailed the rest of the way to Port Blair.

During the third day we spotted S/V Asterie (from Western Australia) on our AIS (Automatic Identification System) and we enjoyed talking to them on the radio and catching up on their experience of the trip so far.

We also kept in touch via the radio with Beach House and Yantara and enjoyed hearing about their competing fishing stories. Yantara’s boat guest even hooked a marlin!

Early on the fourth morning we finally arrived at Port Blair. Beach House, Yantara and Asterie led the way in and provided early morning amusement on the radio responding to Port Blair Port Radio’s questions with the consequent misunderstandings and long pauses.

The young man asking the questions had a very strong accent and it was obvious he too was struggling to decipher our accents. Both sides talking “proper” English as far as they were concerned, both not understanding what the other said.

An example: question “What is your boat’s entire length”. “Errr 12 tonnes?” came the tentative answer.

By the time it was our turn I think the radio operator must have located our details which had been provided to Rathnam, our agent and Rally organiser – or the operator was too busy to ask us the complete list – as thankfully we only had a few questions to answer.

At anchor at last we were happy to have arrived in the Andaman Islands once again and to be starting another adventure.

If you would like to read more about the inaugural Andamans Yacht Rally and our trip up north follow the link below:

https://dotsailing.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/incredible-india-so-good-to-be-back/