VISIT TO SHOAL BAY IN SOUTH ANDAMAN
Shoal Bay is a village in South Andaman district of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Port Blair city is also located in South Andaman District. Shoal Bay is a very small hamlet in South Andaman with people speaking bengali, tamil, telugu and of course Hindi. This blog is not much about origin or progress of Shoal Bay but of a small beautiful beach located in Shoal Bay.
We went to this beautiful beach of Shoal Bay on 13 Apr. We were amazed to see the pristine beauty, clean water and far away from hustle and bustle of city life (Port Blair life). The beach is not large like wandoor beach in other part of South Andaman, but similar in size of Collinpur Beach. A photograph of Beach at Shoal Bay is as shown below
Pic 1: A view of beach at Shoal Bay near Port Blair
As seen above, it is a beautiful and clean beach where one would like to go visit, swim, and might even do a small picnic there. However, please do not dispose your garbage, plastic bottle etc and it would spoil the beauty of the place and harm environment. I must say the local administration i.e. Andaman & Nicobar Administration has taken painstaking steps to preserve natural beauty of all beaches, forest and other natural resources of Andamans. We as a responsible citizen, although as atourist, must respect and contribute for well being of mother nature.
The another good part of beach is that there is no one, no house or settlement adjacent to beach, hence the presence of crowd is totally avoided. Of course, there might be some other group of tourist coming and enjoying there ;) .
How to get there ? The access to this beach is not so easy. Theoretically it is just 16-18 Km from Port Blair. But the path is challenging and in bad shape. A kutcha road (non-concrete, non-tar road) of 6-7km stretch would almost discourage you and your idea of going to this beach. It is because cars with lower ground clearance will almost hit bumper every short distance with the rock and terrain like structures including crates. We also suffered a bit, but it depends who is driving and which vehicle your are driving. It is suggested Jeep, Gypsy and other off-roaders might be used or the best would be to go on a motorcycle (motorbike).
There are two options of approaching the shoal bay. Option 1 is to start from Port Blair, go towards GaraCharma, follow the turn of Wandoor, Chouldhari, then take a right towards the bypass road to Mount Harriet. Continuing from here reach a junction at Namumna Ghar and take a right towards Shoal Bay. Couple of distance in shoal bay, you can see a lot of Mangroves, which means your in right direction.
Pic 2 - Mangroves at Shoal Bay
From here follow the village road and it will take you to the Beach.
Option 2 is to start from Port Blair, reach Chatham Jetty, catch a ferry to Bambooflat jetty, take a left towards Wimberlygunj. From Wimberlygunj, Shoal Bay village is 2-3 Km. Follow the same village road, the kutca road which will terminate onto a patch of full and well constructed road.
Pic 3 - Kutcha road and in not good condition. Almost 6-7 km long
Reach the end point. Beyond this, no vehicle including two wheeeler can go. Hence, leaves your vehicles there, carry all bags and packings, take a right towards the fields and follow the path. It might look like forest, but not to fear as it is a short stretch which will culminate into the beach.
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| Bamboo bridge inside forest, approx 400 m from beach |
A point to note is that presently there are no shacks, huts or other shelter, so carry some tent, if camping, mat and other ration or provision items like food, snacks including drinking water.
Few pictures of the beach are as shown below
Visit to Shoal Bay beach has been memorable. You can also enjoy the same. Carry your food, water and yes do not litter the place.
Have a great outing, good n safe traveling!
Truly Yours
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