Seafarer's Log: Oral-kaicha Part II

 

     The work progressed, the ebbs and floods of tides kept nourishing the flora and fauna on and off, the sightings of crocodiles and some alien kind of fishes kept happening.  Occassional visits and gauging of the tide pole continued by water snakes….poor things, aye !

            One day in between the field work, me and my team carried out a reconnaissance…..and went ahead further north of the area, to see the location of our next phase of survey.  There is one more tourist attraction ahead of the channel called “Parrot Island”, apparently it’s the parrots’ headquarters of entire Andaman Islands…..at any given time there shall be a huge flock of green parrots!!  The tourist boats which operated from Baratang Jetty to this island had a light draught and occasionally enticed my coxswain to increase the speed and possibly replicate a hollywood boat chase scene.  Well, that never happened, since I had a seasoned crew behind the wheel.  The shallow draught of the tourist boats allowed them a closer maneuvering near to the mangroves of the island and provided the tourists an up-close-and-personal view to this ‘Pandemonium’. 

My boat surged ahead slowly because in comparison to the tourist boats, my boat had a larger draught and with every knot of speed the draught could increase; in seamanship terminology its called the “Squat”.  Two of my crew were positioned on the bows basically acting as a lookout.  Because, due to lack of usage of the channel, apart from the lighter draught boats, there existed a higher possibility of encountering floatsams, big n small, and my lookouts could guide the forward movement accordingly.  At any given day it can damage my boat hull and/or the propeller.  A damage in my boat meant that I have to stop till my backup arrives.  Fear can creep inside you, but then again, all the surveyors who passed through this channel before me surveying every bit of this place must have felt the same…..!!

 

The surprising point was to see depths in my echo sounder ranging between 5 meters to 30 meters, indicative of a peculiar seabed.  The echo rolls (the paper trail of digital reading) showed thick dark lines indicative of a solid sea bottom.  For a normal plane area, the seabed can be (in all probability) found to be flat but this channel’s trend turned out to be an intriguing one.  As my boat maneuvered on to the left side of the corner a single rock stood proud, with approximate dimensions 3 meters in height, 4 meters in width and around a meter in thickness.  A simple rock, but a rare one since the mangroves did not grow around it but at the back of it.  And Murphy Struck, in the form of a stray rope which entangled with one of the propeller of my boat.  The affected engine was shut down immediately.  The control of the boat was restricted to one engine only.  My team went into damage control mode!  To cut the rope using a seaman-knife.  These things are a normal exigency in field work.  Generally carried out by someone jumping into the water and do the job as they float.  But the situation didn’t warrant for such a step otherwise one of my boy would become an afternoon snack for them Giant Salt Water Crocodiles!!

Luckily my mechanic’s tool box had a hacksaw blade and the job became easier without getting into the water.  As the grinding of the rope with the blade started, the boat was brought slowly alongside our good old rock and passed the forward and aft ropes.  I sat on the transom (the aft side of the boat) just to observe the progress of the work.  

My senior most crew Pandey asked me a trivial question, out of the blue.  “How would this place look like during last Ice Age ??”, and looked at me.  Now, that’s a classic LBW way to be out in Cricket!!

One simple question, which acted like that “Limitless Pill” which went through my neurons, activating some pieces of memories…..the memories of reading Graham Hancock’s book and the chapter about Ice Age!  It would sound too megalomaniacal of me to speak like this, but lets agree to disagree, because of two reasons; one, the centre of narration is me, and two, I had read the book and wondered …just wondered how it would look like ?. 

Pandeyji was all in thrill, and that split moment of silence caught the attention of my crew too, except the guy who was cutting the rope with the hacksaw blade.  I started with an insurance that I might be wrong, but I shall try to be correct as far as possible.  Rest we all can imagine.  And I started the narration. 

During the Glacial maximum or the peak period of the last Ice Age which was around 20,000 years ago that the sea shore would have been at a place which has a depth of 120 meters during these times.  If so, this entire Middle Strait a.k.a Godam Juru a.k.a Amit La Boicha Passage would be a Canyon!! a canyon of volcanic origin.  Whose entry point would have been on the Eastern Side of the Middle Strait and end on West at a place called Port Anson (Possibly named after 18^th Century British Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Anson, who circumnavigated the Globe).  Since the seashore would be far away there wont be any mangroves too.  The highly imaginative analysis made my crew attentive. 

Then something happened, which brought in a paradigm shift in climatic condition around 13000 BC which was the end of Ice Age and from then to the current scenario of sea level.  The tides then slowly sculpted the landscape as and when the waters claimed the land in minute graduations.  The curiosity never ended there, as one of my guy asked about the civilization then. 

Since the story would be never ending, I told as a “figure of speech”, that maybe where our boat is secured, this standing rock, would have been a geographic marker for an unknown civilization who had their hunting grounds or hamlets on the land which is now underneath us!!  Pandeyji took it one step ahead, in a melodramatic manner that  maybe this is where they might have sacrificed their offerings !!!

Voila, the rope got cut completely, and my mechanics started the engines and we started our way back to ship, promising that we would move further West on the same channel some other day. 

We continued our trip back to ship slightly early because the night crawls faster in the Eastern Longitudes and I cannot risk my men and material.  So, reached back to ship in time and met my Skipper.  Well, I couldn’t hide anything from him, maybe the old man knew everything that was bound to happen and he concluded his debrief in his usual manner “Kuch toh seekh liya na?” (Atleast, you learned something, right ?)…I nodded my head in agreement, greeted him once again and went back to my cabin. 

Later at night while I was alongside the data processing team my boat crew came to meet me, just to see the area where we operated…..once again, with the eyes of wonder, and a new outlook about our job, about the topography of the location …..with a smile on their face!!

What else should I be asking for other than my crew’s illuminated minds and mine!

(NB:  The Middle Strait still exists as one distinctive geographical location which connects the Andaman Sea to the Bay of Bengal.  However, conscious decision awaits for it to be used for navigation.  The Western side opens up to Port Anson and that Survey was also attempted in the future by my ship under the same Skipper, whereas completing the entry and exit points of that location in its totallity.)