BLUEPRINT FOR PARADISE
Two days into my rainy-season visit to Havelock Island last June, the weather broke. A steady west wind sent the newsprint-colored clouds scudding over the horizon, and I set out with naturalist Jocelyn Panjikaran to explore the shoreline that hosts the first five-star hotel in India’s remote Andaman Islands. Taking advantage of low tide, we picked our way among the coral and rock, spotting kingfishers and hermit crabs as we talked about the stunning variety of sea life that visits the resort’s all-but private cove, now too murky to snorkel thanks to the wind and rain.
“You see a lot of rays. Sea turtles nest right on this beach. The other day I was diving by myself and they were all around me—I couldn’t believe it was really happening!” Jocelyn enthused, using what I would later recognize was one of her favorite expressions.
Jocelyn’s love for the Andamans—which, along with the Nicobar chain to the south, comprise one of India’s seven federally governed union territories—is infectious. A former financial analyst from Pune, she first came here on holiday six years ago and never left. Smitten by the islands, Jocelyn took a job with a nonprofit called the Andaman Nicobar Environment Team in Port Blair, the territorial capital, where she worked until she signed on as an assistant sustainability manager at the
