Information Andaman Islands (Havelock and Neil)

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Angel61

Registered
Messages
24
Reaction score
7
Location
UK
I have been looking at the Andaman Islands and wondered if anyone has dived Havelock and Neil? Although from what I've seen online it could be great, but one never knows if it really is as promised. We are debating of going back to Indonesia or to explore the Andaman Islands.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
 
I've dived in Neil,did my course there. very decent. I also dived in Bali. Barren island is unique with an active volcano. Infinity liveboard takes you there or the local big dive shops
 
Havelock is quite different than Indonesia. firstly it's clearly located in the indian Ocean, outside the coral triangle Indo-Pacific zone. Hence there is less fish variety, but on the other hand some spots are denser in fsh, since it is little populated and fished.
It's been 7 years I dived Havelock hence there might have been some major changes.

I would not say the shallow dive spots are super interesting, it lacks macro life (or macro spotters?) but the deeper sites away from the shores are quite unique for their fish biomass. Diving with Dive India, I've dived to three different 30m deep dive spots which were really good even compared to Indonesia standard, the downside is that they need at least 1 hour longtail boat ride, located with a GPS. These sites can be prone to much current, but then it's a promise that the coral and the fish schools are there. Other than those three dive sites (each one has a guide name like "Johnny's gorge", I don't remember the name of the two others), the rest was not as good as Indo's average sites.
Therefore I am not sure that Havelock offers more than a week's diving due to the low number of world class dive spots, I haven't dived Neil.
 
Thanks Luko. We are looking to dive with Dive India. Having had a look at their website, it seems they now offer 3 day dive safaries. If I remember right, it is Barren Island? Not sure though without having another look at their website.
We would spend our time between Havelock, Neil and the dive safari but have not decided yet. It's for next year :). Having thought about Bali, we have now thrown the option of diving Batanes into it all.
 
I went down to Havelock for a few days in Sept 2013 - was with the family, so I only got in a couple days of diving. Some of the shallow reefs had been bleached out, but the slightly deeper spots were still healthy. First day the conditions were great - second day, there was crazy current, so only did 1 dive. We stayed at an (somewhat expensive) eco-resort on the less-populated side of Havelock, which was really nice (and next to a rather deserted beach). The side with the dive shops was much more built up. I dove with Barefoot - the rental gear was fine, and the DMs were great. Though you had to trudge through the water a bit to get to the boats, so it's a little more "roughing it" than some resorts.

Look out for the weather - there's a definite monsoon seasons. We were on the shoulder, and had a couple days of rain.

One thing that disappointed me is that it seemed impossible to do 2x2-tank dives per day. All the shops I spoke to only did a single 2-tank dive (and possibly a 1-tank night dive). So it's not the place to go to if you're looking for a all-diving-all-the-time trip.

---------- Post added February 7th, 2015 at 11:11 PM ----------

Oh, and because of travel logistics (flying in and out of Port Blair, boating over to Havelock, and the associated flight/boat schedules), you end up losing a bit of time. I think you end up having to spend one night in Port Blair on the way back - seems like the island officials purposely schedule things for that, to "force" you to spend time (and money) there.
 

Back
Top Bottom