Walking through this beach would lead you to the Chhera dwip.
Chhera Dip is located at the southern portion of Saint Martin’s Island. It is theoretically a small island that looks adjacent to the main island, but it gets separated from the main island during the high tide. That time the boats are the only option to cross that 30-40 ft wide water barrier. In Bangla Chhera dwip means disconnected island. This small island is the most popular attraction from the main island. Everyday a lot of tourists visit here for adventure.
There are two ways to go there, one is on foot, another option is by hiring a boat. Most of the tourists go there by boat to relax and save time. That disconnected island is completely formed over the corals. Most of the part of this island is packed with corals. As of now no one is living there. Because of the corals, the edge of the island doesn’t have any beach.
This small island even has a mud road.
It was one of our todo to go there on the Saint Martin’s Island tour. And we did that on foot. We started walking in the morning just after breakfast. It was in the middle of winter but the weather on the island was very hot during the day. We walked beside the white sandy beach of the island most of the time. As we had plenty of time on hand, we wandered aimlessly around the beach. That’s why we required more than usual time to reach the Chhera Dip.
An ocean of corals at the edge of the island.
When we reached the Chhera dip, it was 2:00pm in the afternoon. We decided to have a fresh bath in the sea water before lunch. This portion of the island was having less crowd interestingly. We didn’t find anyone swimming in the water. So we were initially confused about jumping inside the water. Also the whole island was packed with numerous sharp corals. We started to find a suitable place where we could swim.
You’d see a lot of small pools like this in Chhera dwip.
We selected a place at the south-east portion of the Chhera Dip. That place had three sides blocked with corals and only one side was open for water entering. That’s why even during a high tide, the place was really tideless and tranquil. We swam there for around 2 hours. Though the weather was hot, the water was cold like winter. Nothing could stop us from doing the water funs.
I had my swimming glasses with me during this tour. Using such glass you could easily see the underwater clearly. You just need to take a deep breath and submerge under the water. Based on your breath holding capability you could pass around a minute under the water and observe the colorful fishes there. My swimming glasses provided us a vicarious experience of scuba diving.
It was low tide before our water sport. But the water level was rising with the progress of the day. We had to shift our knapsacks several times for rising water. Before 40 minutes of sunset, we left the place and started returning to the hotel room. We were walking at the western side of the Chhera Dip so that we could observe the sunset.
I was walking slowly and collecting colorful sea mussels from the sandy beach under the golden rays of sunset. When we reached the joining point of the main island and Chhera dip, it was completely separated due to high tide. Luckily the water was around 1-2 ft which we have crossed easily by careful walking. Sun was totally gone by that time.
We did our water fan here during visiting the Chhera dwip.
As the sun was gone the weather was pleasant. Few of us were tired, so we were walking slowly. I had a torch light with me, but tried to avoid that as long as we could. Trust me, it was a different feeling returning from Chhera dip after the darkness. There was no moon in the sky. It was around the time of the null moon. During our walk we met several local people who accompanied us as we were walking in the same direction.
Written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog alonelytraveler.com
Saturday, 21 January 2012
