The Neil Island Story;

Andaman Islands, India

January and February-2009

After dropping our hook several meters off shore we paused to appreciate this beautiful tropical paradise called Neil Island. We jumped in to cool off, check the anchor and access the damage from our coral encounter that occurred just hours before.

Yes that is right we put Equus up on a coral head while leaving Peel Island. That was my first experience ever to hit anything that hard. The sound and realization was quite alarming to say the least. The 1.5 m (about 4.9 ft) tide was going down and for a few seconds (seemed like minutes) we could not budge Equus. Steve put her in full throttle, our Perkins engine powered her 17 ton body into reverse and we did walk her off, grinding her bottom and from the sound she made we knew there was damage if not a hole. We limped back to where we had come from and re-anchored and checked the inside for water coming in and thank God there was none!

We had opted not to dive on Equus at Peel Island because it was surrounded by mangroves (trees) and looked just like the place a crocodile would feel at home (there were salt water crocks spotted throughout the Islands). Although we had not seen any and I really wanted to see one of these creatures slither by. Steve did not share my enthusiasm and we surly didn’t want to meet one of these guys face to face, so we just kept an eye on things until we re-anchored at Neil Island.

On our trip to Neil Island we had found some under water patching goo, I think we had carried it over from the USA, thousands of miles just for this application, I recommend every cruiser carry it on board. It is called PolyPoxy Underwater Patching 7050, by Pettit Paint Comp. Rockaway NJ. It worked great, I know there are other brands out there as well. Get some!

While I was diving on Equus taking goo to patch over 15 holes that were tore into the fabric of the gel coat and wanting to seal them before the water started to get in between the layers and delaminate her freshly painted bottom, done just months before! Remember our rework done in Thailand while she was on the hard and drying out for over a year! It is like Rosanna Rosanna Danna would say “its always something.”

That is when we met Nori as she swam up to us, I think Steve first noticed her bikini, “men”, and she thanked us for checking the anchor to be sure we didn’t hit near coral and as it turned out Nori said we had anchored very close to one of Luna’s grazing zones.

No we had not met Luna yet. He is a mammal the size of a large dolphin and kin to the Manatees’ we have in North America. They live on sea grass and spend the majority of their days grazing, they eat allot! After our brief introduction to Luna, Nori was so kind as to offer to help me patch the bottom of Equus. It took several trips under her to get all the spots patched. Nori was a great help her strong, young 20 something body was the extra breath I needed to complete the job well before the sun went down.

We invited her on board afterwards and learned she and Lucan had been coming to Neil Island for over 3 years to try to save the Dugong’s, i.e. Luna. Nori and Lucan gave the name to this particular male dugong.

Creatures like Luna are where the fables of mermaids began, and after witnessing first hand their ability to seem almost life like as they gently and gracefully guide their bodies in and out of the water as they feed and surface for air. The mermaid tails came from sailors reporting sightings of the female species of the dugon not only do they have breast like human females to feed their young they also have a tail like a small whale i.e. mermaid, hence the myth of mermaids.

My first meeting with Luna seemed to look into my very soul as he passed close by, with a gentle ease he gracefully seemed to float from the grassy bottom to the surface for air (he can only hold his breath for 6 to 12 minuets) and then back to bottom to eat. He had been known to stop and play (socialize) along the way. He has a smirk that seems to warm ones heart and it is easy to project an instant friendship with him.

I did have a personal experience with him the last day we swam together for over 2 hours. He seemed quite relaxed around me and of course I projected he liked me and we both swam in harmony and peace. I had swam away from Luna, Nori, Lucan, and Steve giving Steve a chance to swim with him, to many new people would stress him out.

So I was off doing my own thing and out of the blue, he-Luna was right next to me and I was all alone (a little scary at first), he totally caught me off guard so we both swam together for a time, he swam a little to close for my comfort then we both stopped. I said goodbye to him for we were leaving that next morning he made his little squeaking noise and seemed to turn and looked at me then swam off to the other side of the reef. I watched as his body then tail disappeared. At that moment I was filled with such gratitude and peace and felt openness in my heart that can only come from an experience like Luna.

Nori and Lucan’s story;

Nori is from South Africa, Jakarta and Lucan spent most of his youth in the Canary Islands then moved to Portugal with his parents later in his life. That is where he and Nori met, in Portugal. She had went there from England doing a job she didn’t enjoy so she quit and in need of cash flow started fire dancing on the beach and Lucan had a prosperous fruit selling business. They ended up on Neil Island after a trip to through main land India. They fell in love with this Island and have come back every year to try to educate the locals, especially the fishermen to stop killing the dugong’s, mainly they get caught in the nets. Some natives still eat them. However they are becoming extinct and will be gone from the Andaman Islands too if something is not done to preserve them. The dugong in their national animal too, they just don’t understand what extinct means I guess.

If you want to keep track of Lucan and Nori’s progress log on to a site Lucan put together the last time he was home. http://lucanmulder.googlepages.com/home They are now working with an organization out of India.

When we returned to Phuket Thailand, our friends, Ed and Lynn on sv Constance told us an interesting story.

A friend of Lynn’s had been swimming with a male dugon and it liked her so much it grabbed her with his fins and tried to take her out to sea, she struggled and freed herself, so maybe I was lucky. I had told Steve I thought he liked me just a little too much and Steve thought I was just projecting, hmmm I don’t know?