India - Karawati and Andaman Islands: Not Such a Good Welcome

Indian Bureaucracy

After 45 years of sailing, some venturing off the beaten path, I thought I’d seen almost everything when it came to bureaucratic madness, paranoia and various forms of irresponsibility. I wasn’t familiar with the following ports of call: Karawati Island west of India and the Andaman Islands, east of India.

Coming from Djibouti, we stopped at Karawati Island, part of the Lakshadweep Archipelago off the west coast of India. The welcome was impressive – four boats pulled up alongside each other, one after the other, immigration, police, coast guard, and port officials and after two hours of repetitive and incessant questioning, we were given the green light to enter…

….only for this to be revoked a few minutes later, with us being told to return 24 hours later and forbidden to anchor. The current being over a knot, I told them that this made no sense and that they should reconsider their decision. The response: it’s low tide, you can’t enter. After insistence and refusal to obey, they sent a fishing boat to pilot us for 50 meters in 4 meters of water!

Barely had we docked when a dozen officials swarmed the boat and demanded a rapid-fire technical inspection of our damage, forbidding us from disembarking. Customs followed, along with a constant stream of officials and paperwork to sign for 48 hours. All this, it must be said, in a friendly atmosphere. We left, obligated to go to Cochin, two days away at sea, monitored and tracked by radar and AIS. We turned for Sri Lanka, which was a pleasant, albeit somewhat uneventful, stopover, with the usual annoyance –  the agent charged $300 for two days.

Remote, Calm Andaman Islands?

I was expecting a respite from the next port of call in a remote, calm and wild environment –  the Andaman Islands. Unfortunately this was The Great Illusion – perhaps the worst cruise experience in 45 years. What can I say, except a plunge into near madness?

Everything is designed to discourage you from handling the procedures yourself, which is perfectly legal. The agent, who seems to have his headquarters at customs, made it clear that all our troubles stemmed from our decision to bypass his services. Immigration, Customs and the Coast Guard relentlessly bombarded us with questions, some of them ludicrous. This was on our arrival.

Returning from various anchorages, mainly in mangrove bays (as the southwest monsoon approached), two weeks later, during an unbelievable routine search (after several questions, they confirmed we were not suspected of anything), carried out on the sailboat by a horde of officials—navy, coast guard, immigration, maritime police, internal affairs—they found the document detailing our movements to several islands, minute by minute.

Intensive and intrusive questions……

The questions were insistent, repetitive, absurd, and idiotic – the search was grotesquely thorough and insensitive. The navy officer even went so far as to ask for a receipt for a kilo of coarse salt, bought in a shop in Djibouti near a salt pan. The coarse salt was tasted and verified by these individuals. “Why aren’t you married? It’s abnormal,” etc., etc. You couldn’t make this up. The monitoring and control was exhausting. A helicopter hovered right next to us, asking us to immediately respond to another VHF port control request. There was no signal propagation. They had to relay the signal.

No internet, Starlink forbidden. The only country outside Europe where this ban is actually enforced. A Coast Guard frigate came to forcibly take us back to Port Blair, 40 miles away. I refused and we were lucky enough to strike up a conversation with the high-ranking coast guard officer on board, who put an end to this mess. Talk about harassment!

The reason for this relentless pursuit (according to the coast guard officer) was the lack of written confirmation from the harbor master of a neighboring island, registering our stopover on the next island. We were anchored 20 nautical miles away, the only sailboat in these islands at this time of year! It would have taken them 30 hours to find us – with frigates and helicopters! I’ll end this long account by only highlighting a few examples from this onslaught of paranoia, bureaucratic chaos and toxic atmosphere.

…….with a Pleasant and Polite Nature

Even Cuba, in its worst excesses, didn’t reach the level of such unpleasant inanities. I must, in all honesty, emphasize the pleasant and polite nature of everyone involved. In my experience, these are very often the worst. For I had to sign, under considerable pressure, a document after the intrusion of the routine inquiry, declaring the perfect conduct of the officials during this stressful charade. Everything was legal! In the greatest democracy in the world.

…and Constant Monitoring

Regarding the seriousness of this charming country, here’s one last interesting point: Having personally requested a change of anchorage (no pontoon, no quay for sailboats or dinghies), one mile from the official anchorage, from the harbor master of Port Blair, he naturally asked us for a letter of request, with dates, etc., which was provided immediately. Every movement was monitored by the omnipresent Port Control, so they were following our every move. Arriving almost at night in this small bay, within the port’s administrative perimeter, we simply stopped in front of the 12,000V high-voltage power line (weakened by a mere 10 meters of clearance) that blocked the bay. Unlit pylons and lines, of course. At night, death would have been painless. The bay’s name: Minnie Bay. The harbor master didn’t know that! Neither did Navionics or CM93.

We finally arrived in a finally in civilized country – Malaysia –  and it’s a delight. But the Andaman Islands? Perfect if you accept the agents’ extortion.

For your information
Olivier

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Note:  this report was first posted to Noonsite as a comment.  It was translated from French using Google translate.  Olivier’s comment in French can be found here.

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