North Cinque Island

 North Cinque Island

            North Cinque Island is a popular destination for underwater diving and a beautiful place for tourism in Andaman & Nicobar Islands .It is an isolated island situated approximately 30 Nautical miles away from Port Blair, the Capital city of these Emerald Islands. It is an uninhabited island and a part of Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park popularly known as Wandoor Marine National Park ,  along with few other islands and islets like Alexandra, Hobday, Tarmugli, Grub, Snob, Bell, Pluto, Jolly Buoy, Riflemen, Cinque, parts of Rutland Island , Redskin of the Labyrinthine Island Group,situated in the southeast of Rutland Island, about a distance of 5.4 KM .

            Cinque island is divided into two parts, being North and South Cinque which are connected together by a sandbar giving the whole island a spectacular look. In the high tide the sand bar sinks and creates two separate beautiful islands whereas in the low tide the sandbar appears, naturally naming a single Cinque Island.  The passage between North Cinque and Rutland is called Manners Strait.

A view of the Island

                 North Cinque consists of three rocky isles connected by sand bars. The northern isle is the largest one, about 2.9 km long in the N-S direction and 1.4 km wide; it has two adjacent hills about 161 m and 173 m high. The middle (southernmost) isle, about 1 km across, lies 270 m to the south and has a bare hill 89 m high. About 150 m to its west, lies the third and smallest isle, an oval knob about 400 m across.

    There is a Lighthouse, situated in the Northern hillock of this Island established in 1972  . Approach to this island is  either by Departmental Tender M.V Pradeep or  a dedicated chartered vessel which can reach  up to anchor point of this Island and from their by Mechanized/Gemini boat to reach shoreline as there is no any jetty in the island. Hereafter, the journey to Lighthouse is by a kachcha footpath through the hilly forest terrain, of about 3.5 Km, which is covered by simple  trekking & brisk forest walk.

Light situated in the Island

            The Lighthouse tower is  a square masonry structure on which the revolving   DA gas equipment, supplied by M/s B.B.T, Paris was installed in December 1971 and was commissioned on 2nd January 1972. Later on, in 1978  the revolving optic and gas motor were replaced by 500 mm drum optic on the same pedestal alongwith DA gas flasher and sun valve(Equipment that keeps the light off during sunlight) due to frequent occurring faults and difficulties in attending the Lighthouse at such a remote uninhabited Islands. The Gas used in this old system was dissolved oxi-acetylene which was highly inflammable and comes in a cylinder weighing approximately  120 Kg. Approximately ,12 cylinders of similar type were needed yearly to operate the Gas light. Again, the  DA gas equipment was replaced by Electronic flasher and Halogen lamp operating on Solar charged batteries in the month of December 1993, due to advancement of technologies and for want of easy maintenance and better quality.

   The island is amazingly rich in flora and fauna, making it an ideal place for eco- tourism. One can see the families of spotted deer's enjoying in their natural habitats in lush green rain forest.  The island  is abundant in and full of  mangrove & tropical forests. The terrestrial life at Cinque Island consists of mammalian species, like wild boar, spotted deer, civet and the fruit bat, reptilian species like krait, cobra, king cobra, vine snake and python and avian species like white bellied sea eagle, serpent eagle, pigeon, dove, wader, swift,  local teal,  whistling teal, kingfisher, parakeet, etc.                                                                

            The Island, also houses an enormous variety of coral reefs, sea weeds, colourful fishes, sea anemones, shells, starfish, salt-water crocodile, turtles and water snakes. It is surrounded by coral reef gardens that extend to a few hundred meters into the deep sea. The corals found in Cinque Island belong to various types such as Corporal, Leptoseris, Pocillopora, Montipora, , Fungia, Porites, Gorgonians and Tubipora. There is a beautiful mile-long pristine white beach backed by coconut trees and pandanus palms, which is visited by  wondering tourists and nature lovers from far & near.  It has been claimed that the light blue clean water around Cinque island has a visibility range of upto 80 feet.

            Cinque Island also offers opportunities for swimming, scuba diving, snorkelling, fishing and camping. The view of the submerged corals and the eye catching sunset attracts hordes of nature lovers to Cinque Island.