Manjula goes blogging...

To get from Port Blair, the central town in the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago to Campbell Bay on the southern most island, Great Nicobar, required a four-day journey by ship. When I was not seasick I would sit up on deck watching the flying fish and when we docked at an island I took the opportunity to explore. But my favorite part of the journey was watching the embarkation and disembarkation process when we stopped at an island without a port or a jetty. The first time we arrived at such an island, I stood on deck looking at the idyllic, tropical island in the distance and wondering what would happen next. The ship anchored offshore and blew its horn…..nothing happened for a few minutes and then from around the corner of the island came a group of Nicobarese men and women rowing a slim canoe, much like a Polynesian canoe - there was something so primeval about that scene… Meanwhile people on board lined up with their new purchases ready to disembark. As the little canoe drew up alongside the tall ship, a gangway was lowered, and what followed was fascinating chaos. While the two boats bobbed up and down asynchronously in the choppy waters, people staggered up and down the swaying gangway trying to time getting onto and off the gangway very carefully, others jumped off the ship deck, bleating goats, squealing pigs, and furniture were raised and lowered by rope, young boys climbed up the rope, vegetable baskets fell into the ocean - a very energetic process. I was particularly curious to see how they would get three large drums of oil into the little canoe with everything else. But the drums were simply dropped overboard from deck and by the time the ship was ready to raise anchor, all three drums had washed up onto the island and were being hauled up the beach by a Nicobari…