Maritime 5 Days Jolly Buoy Island Andaman Package | Dappled

The drive from Port Blair to Wandoor covers approximately 29 kilometres taking around 45 minutes to an hour. Wandoor village is the entry point to the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park — the jetty here is where all boats to the park islands depart. The boat from Wandoor to Jolly Buoy Island takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes across the Bay of Bengal to an uninhabited island with no facilities and one of the better reef systems within reach of a South Andaman road. The reef around Jolly Buoy supports coral formations and reef fish in water that runs clearer than the sites close to Port Blair harbour — snorkelling in the marine park area covers the reef from the surface with equipment hired at the site from registered operators.

The glass bottom boat is available for those who prefer the reef without entering the water. No food or plastic may be brought onto the island under marine park rules — everything needed for the day must be carried from the mainland. This jolly buoy island andaman package includes the permit and all boat tickets for the day. Overnight in Port Blair.

Chiriya Tapu is the southernmost accessible point of the main South Andaman island — approximately 30 kilometres from Port Blair on a road that passes through forest progressively denser as it approaches the land’s end. The name translates roughly as Bird Island in local usage and it was earned by the concentration of species that the mangrove belt and the forest edge support. The morning at Chiriya Tapu on this jolly buoy island andaman package is for the forest — the mangrove line where the tidal zone meets the trees, the birding along the forest edge where several Andaman-specific species move through the canopy at this hour, the specific stillness of a southernmost point with open water ahead and forest behind.

The beach at Chiriya Tapu faces open ocean and the afternoon is for the water edge — not a resort beach but a forest-meets-sea shoreline with no development on it. The sunset at Chiriya Tapu over open water to the south closes the day. Overnight in Port Blair.

Day 4 of this jolly buoy island andaman package uses Port Blair itself as the full day programme — three distinct experiences within the city and its immediate waters. The Samudrika Naval Marine Museum in the morning covers the natural and cultural history of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands across several gallery sections — marine specimens, coral samples, island ecology and the tribal communities of the archipelago. North Bay Island, reached by boat from Aberdeen Jetty, offers a glass bottom boat ride over the reef closest to Port Blair and snorkelling for those who want a second reef encounter after Jolly Buoy.

Ross Island — now Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Island — follows in the afternoon, the former British administrative headquarters now largely forest with colonial ruins standing open to the sky and deer moving through the cleared paths between buildings. Three separate Port Blair experiences that most visitors compress into passing moments. Overnight in Port Blair.

The final morning of the jolly buoy island andaman package is in Port Blair. Groups with afternoon or evening departure flights have time for a final walk along the Aberdeen Bazaar — the working market with shell craft, local spices, dry fish and the general commercial energy of a port town whose livelihood is not entirely dependent on tourism. The Sagarika government emporium near the clock tower carries Andaman craft at fixed prices for those who prefer not to negotiate.

The Bon Voyagers vehicle drops at Port Blair Airport. The five days have covered the colonial jail, two distinct reef systems within the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, the southernmost forest point of South Andaman and a full Port Blair day — a circuit of the southern accessible Andaman that most visitors miss because Havelock is always the instruction. The instruction is not always right.