So Vikas and I spent 3 days, sitting at the Port Blair port, waiting to get everything sorted so that we could lower our boat into the water (a process which, if one removes the waiting time, took an actual 20 minutes of effort).     Yesterday morning, we woke up at 4:00am and headed over to the pier, departing Port Blair by 5, just at the crack of dawn.

Flat calm seas, beautiful lighting, a few sleepy gulls and Mako, purring along with her engines at mid-revs.  A couple of bursts of speed got the speed up to well over 40knots and put big smiles on our face.

Today, Gregorio and his friends from Spain, who’ve been diving with us for the past 8-9 days, became the first divers to go on a dive trip on Mako – a sunrise dive at Johnny’s Gorge.  Departing at 5am, we were there by 5:20am and had an amazing dive.    A couple of the divers claimed this was their best dive ever (and these are people who have dived Galapagos and Sipadan, mind you), for the sheer wealth of fish life on the site.

So, this is what the future holds for DiveIndia this season — dawn dives, expedition trips to Barren Island, Invisible Banks, Campbell Shoal;  extended range of day trip from Havelock to include North Button, Port Blair and Neil Island (including the drop-offs around Neil, where supposedly big sharks hang).   These will be exclusive trips – 4-6 divers, 1 guide and 2 or 3 tanks, depending on where we go.

At the risk of sounding like we are tooting our own horn (we are, I admit, but I think we’ve earned it ), we can safely say this represents another evolution in what diving in the Andamans has to offer.  The first was the new sites discovered by Johnny, Dixon and Jackson;  the next was the North Safaris and now this.

As of now, we will be running day trips to virtually all sites visited by liveaboards, and a lot of other sites that they don’t know about (there’s that local expertise coming into play again).  And you get to experience the magic of the Andamans as well…

Yep, it’s been a while since our last blog, but I think this one was worth it.  We’ll be posting videos and clips online very soon as well.

Safe diving,

Vinnie

So far, muck diving has been synonymous with Lembeh in Sulawesi.  Well, the Andamans is a geographical extension of the same region, and we – especially Vikas and Sayeed – have been exploring the macro realm quite intently, looking to expand the scope of what is available here.

During the season, we found a few “firsts” for the Andamans – electric clam, frogfish and devil stinger.  And now that the off-season is slowly coming upon us, we have been doing some exploring… and this past week, we found the archetypical muck diving site:  black sand, no rocks or coral, just lots of sea urchins and massive feather stars.  And while here, 2 exciting new discoveries:  ambon scorpionfish (!!!) and robust ghost pipefish!

With an average depth of 18m, and sloping down to 60m plus on one side, this site is accessible to all diver levels and we are also planning to do blue-water dives off from here, hoping to find hammerheads (fingers crossed).   Will keep the world posted on what happens!

The site name is V16 for now, and it will be on our schedule of regular dive sites from next season.

We’ve done a few of the safaris to the North now – and a pattern is emerging:  excellent coral, superlative diving, big fish and a true sense of exploration.   While we are still a ways away from being experts when it comes to knowing what we’ll find (give us the off-season to achieve that expertise!), we’ve can talk about some of the highlights so far.

We’ve been seeing a lot of sharks – grey reefies, leopard sharks, white and black tips as well as an occasional silvertip or two.  We’ve also seen mantas and devils rays, and Sayeed lived up to his Tamil Heart-throb moniker by causing a HUGE leatherback turtle to fall in love with him.

We send Vikas over recently with a video camera and as soon as he is able to process the clips, we will put them online here and on Youtube.

Happy diving!

Vinnie

8 years ago, when I first came to the Andamans, there were 4-5 dive sites in Havelock. When we started operations in the first year, we found a few new sites (South Button, the wreck of the Inchkett and more). Now, after 5 years of operation, a lot of the sites that were being dived in the first year are no longer visited, simply because we have found a lot of newer, better sites: Johnny’s Gorge, Dixon Pinnacle, Jackson’s Bar and more.

Finding these sites was the first big step forwards for diving in the Andamans, because these are truly world-quality sites, and since then, we have continually pushed this frontier forwards, adding a few new sites every year.

Now, we are pleased to announce fully-catered diving safaris to the North Andamans. Through the new locations, we will get access to a host of new sites that were previously the domain of liveaboards only. Personally, I am VERY excited about this development: to me, it signals the second big step forward for diving in the Andamans.

These diving safaris will start from January 2009. Please check the following page for more details:
DIVEIndia – Dive Safaris to the North Andamans.

Vinnie