Christmas crocs (not the 'orrible shoes)

Wed 25 Dec 2013

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IIIIT'S CHRIIISTMAS!!!

Jack Frost was nowhere to be seen, but Santa had definitely not forgotten us. The Andaman Christmas was the perfect gift, and we were keen to embrace every bit of it. We had champers chilling in the fridge, the ingredients for a great punch, and the best beach in Asia waiting for us.

We exchanged gifts beneath our mosquito net, with the morning sun sneaking in through the weave of the hut. We cracked the egg and peeled back the wrapping to discover our ready-to-assemble Kinder toys: I had been given a mouse figurine holding a net, trying to catch a butterfly, and Jamie a ring disc shooter. We constructed our toys, joining many children all over the world doing the same and also ignoring the instructions.

Christmas breakfast was a delightful fruit salad and an American pancake stack with banana, cinnamon, and honey, enjoyed overlooking the beautiful beach 5.

Next stop was to sort Christmas lunch. There would be no turkey, pigs in blankets, or sprouts, but there would be pizza. We biked through town all the way up to the dock, where we placed an order for the best pizza in B3, with all the trimmings—well, a pizza box.

With lunch in hand, we rode home, returned the bike, packed our seriously over-prepared and over-full bags, and hopped into a TukTuk. At number 7, the beach was exquisite as always. The white sand glistened in the sunshine as if it was concealing diamonds, and the high tide ocean was peacefully calm.

We struggled up the beach, stopping frequently to rejig our awkward load. Never had Neil's cove felt so far away! When we got to the rocks that divide the cove, it looked simply perfect for Christmas. There was a scattering of people, leaving loads of space despite the tide claiming the majority of the shore.

Choosing a spot with a little shelter from the trees, we laid our towels out and cracked open a celebratory beer. We'd not been there long when Peter and Claire joined us. Robby, after overindulging somewhat the previous night (and vomiting on himself in bed), would not be participating. We all sampled the pizza and certified it as pretty fucking brilliant, sat back, chatted, and relaxed into a truly tropical Christmas afternoon.

Looking across the flat calm of the bay, I spotted a log floating out to sea. It was quite big and moved slowly but as smoothly as a knife through butter. I pointed it out to Jamie, Claire, and Peter, and we all stood up to get a closer look and joked about it being a saltwater croc. And then it did a U-turn and continued at exactly the same eerie pace in the opposite direction.

Immediately we knew this was not a log.

"Get out of the water!!!!!"

We shouted and screamed, and some of us clapped, to get the attention of the swimmers in the lagoon. A couple who had been fairly shallow heard us and ran out. The poor girl looked terrified. She'd also seen it change direction and freaked out.

There was one guy that was out really far. It felt like a lifetime watching him swim to shore, but when he emerged from the water, he was cool as a cucumber. He'd spotted something moving in the water earlier and had swam out with a snorkel to check it out. He was convinced it was a manatee or a turtle, but his wife, who had seen what we saw, looked pretty angry with him for being so blasé and slow to respond to the calls of danger.

Christmas croc talk filled most of the day with us all not quite able to believe what we saw. After the incident in 2010, where a young American girl was attacked and killed in this very cove by a croc, there's always a little bit of nervousness at this part of the beach. A few posters warning of the dangers are dotted about, but the party line in the guidebooks and from the locals is that this genuinely was a freak incident. I think all of us who saw the Christmas Day 'log' are now convinced this was no freak one-off thing at all. Maybe the danger is played down to ensure the Andamans remain a desirable tourist destination...

We watched the beautiful sunset here at beach 7 for the last time and both felt blessed to have enjoyed a magical, eventful Christmas Day here in paradise.

Back at our hut, we cracked open a bottle of bubbly and made some very quick calls to family to wish them season's greetings. The couple staying next door returned, and we invited them to join us for some champers. We sat and chatted on the balcony and sipped the very reasonable Sula Brut.

Peter and Claire drove up to invite us for dinner, so we packed up and walked down into the village. At the Blue Dabber, we selected a lobster and a red snapper. After demolishing the lot, I asked for a hammer to crack open the skinny lobster arms (the variety in India don't have lovely big meaty claws like in England).

Suddenly, the man took off his shoe in a panic and started banging it hysterically against the floor. We got a glimpse of the culprit, in between frenzied shoe slaps—a millipede. A massive, fat, red (the international colour of "don't come near me, I'm fucking toxic and deadly") one.

The man's attack paid off, and he scooped up the now colourless, dead millipede and threw it into a bin.

A guy eating at another table said, "Don't worry, don't worry. Not dangerous." But judging from the reaction of the owner, we weren't buying that this was a safe critter for one second.

We exchanged details, said some emotional goodbyes to our Christmas companions, and returned for our last night's sleep in our little hut at Sea View.

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