While we were staying at beach No 3 we thought it would be a good idea to get out and see a few more of the islands and their marine life – or else what was the point of coming. So we signed up and forked out the 2900 Rupee’s each for a full day trip to South Button Island and Tamarind Beach, which we thought was steep going by our spending habits so far. Luckily it proved to be very much worth the money. First we cruised up to South Button island which as the name suggests was just a tiny rock of an island, in the middle of the sea, 1.5 hours north of Havelock Island. The sea life was pretty good although a lot of the coral on the shallower south side was not in great shape due to the change in sea temperature. There was quite a swell and strong current on the Northern side of the island and the sea life wasn’t quite so great. It took about 40 minutes to circuit the island then it was back to the boat.
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After that good start we were back on the boat and heading for Tamarind Cove on another island about an hour northwest of South Button. We moored up about 30 metres from the shore as the boat couldn’t get any closer and then swam across to a reef, located just off the beach. We had a swim around that for a while before heading on the island for a top notch slap up beach lunch, followed by a stroll around one the of the hundreds of uninhabited castaway islands in these parts. Sadly it was over too quick and we had to head back, but we were rewarded with a pretty spectacular sunset, a few flying fish, some dolphins and Mark got a very brief glimpse of two sea turtles as they surfaced.
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