Our Travels: 03 February to 07 February 2025 - Our Lakshadweep Trip

Our Lakshadweep Trip - 03 February to 07 February 2025.

05 February 2025. ( PART ONE)

Today, around 08:00 AM, we reached Ahatti Island, a 7.6 km long island, situated on a coral atoll called Agatti atoll in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep.

Three Cheers!

After more than 36 hours, Two nights (the MV3rd and 4th), and one full day (the 4th). we have finally arrived in Lakshadweep.

MV Empress, the cruise ship, was anchored about a kilometre from the coast and the Eastern jetty of the Island.

Even though I did not know it then...........

Well before 9:AM, the required number of lifeboats were lowered onto the sea. These lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers from the ship to shore in the morning and back to the ship in the evening.

A huge iron floating dock was made fast with thick ropes and cables to the anchor points on the cruise ship, and lifeboats boats were brought alongside the floating dock to receive the first of the passengers to be ferried to the jetty of Agatti island. These boats would keep making trips from the ship to the Jetty and back till such time, all the passengers were taken ashore.

A similar procedure in reverse would follow to bring back the passengers from the shore to the ship in the afternoon/evening.

The concerned crew must have worked hard and long hours to achieve all this by 9:00 AM.

As I had written earlier necessary tickets for the landing permit for Lakshadweep, and other activities like Snorkelling, Banana boat ride, Glass bottom boat ride and Scuba diving were to be purchased well before we were due to reach Agatti.

We had paid for and purchased tickets only for the landing permit for Lakshadweep, the time given to us for boarding the ferry to shore was 11:45 AM. One of the well-wishers on board informed us that the best thing to do was to catch the earliest ferry as one gets more time, there is less crowd and most importantly it is not too hot. We were lucky to get new tickets with a revised timing of 9:45 AM for departure to the shore. For a better experience, one must try to get the earliest time slot for the shore trip.

All the cruise admin work, social gatherings, dances games are held on decks Decks 4, 5 and 6 as those are the decks without any passenger cabins and have sufficient space for all these activities.

From around 8:45 AM onwards, cruise staff started announcing the gathering points on one of these decks for the batches departing from 9:30 AM onwards.

As per the announcements we were to report on deck 4 by 9:30 AM. We went for breakfast at the normal time. After breakfast reported to deck 4. There were already some people waiting there our group was formed near the door. More groups arrived with different reporting times. They were placed in different parts of Deck 4. I could imagine a similar activity taking place on deck 5 and deck 6.

As departure time approached our group of almost 60 to 80 was moved to Deck 2 where all along the route ship's crew were positioned to guide us.

At the exit point, we had our first look at the floating dock and the lifeboat on the other side of the floating dock. One can say that a floating dock was a hermetically sealed rectangular box of dimensions of about 30 feet wide by 60 - 90 feet long and unknown depth as I could not see it.

Even though the wind was very light and the sea calm, the floating dock was moving up & down and side to side due to the sea waves. A bit tricky to get on the floating dock due to the relative movements of the ship and the floating dock in all three dimensions. A couple of crew were strategically placed on the ship and on the floating dock to assist the passengers. The crew on the ship held the passenger on either side and as the passenger kept one foot on the floating dock, the crew on the floating dock took over and literally pulled the passenger to the safety of the floating dock.

They appeared quite good at what they were doing. And that is no wonder as they must be doing it on every trip, day in and day out, and so had plenty of practice. As they say, practice makes perfect.

We walked across the floating dock to the Lifeboat tethered on the other side. It felt strange walking on the surface which was moving in all three planes. No wonder sailors develop "seaman's legs".

On the other side getting on the lifeboat from the floating dock was equally tricky, more so because the lifeboat being much smaller than the ship was moving around a lot more. Here again, the expertise and the experience of the crew came to the fore and all from our group were shifted safely to the lifeboat.

Once all were on board we also cast off and headed for the jetty

We could see that one lifeboat with passengers from an earlier time slot was already halfway to the jetty.

The blue and white jetty appeared recently painted and looked amazingly beautiful against the blue of the sea and the dark green background of the coconut forest cum plantation.

Almost all the passengers from the earlier group had departed from the jetty, by the time after about 20 minutes of sailing, we also reached the jetty.

With the assistance of the crew, all the passengers alighted on the jetty.

We had finally arrived in Lakshadweep. When we set foot on Agatti East Jetty which is part of the Union territory of Lakshadweep.

In the excitement of getting off the ship and going on shore, almost no photos before we left the ship.

SEE YOU ALL IN PART 2.