Bangaram Island
Dreaming of diving off an uninhabited tropical island? Doing this by liveaboard boat is one approach, but here, on Bangaram Island, one can live the island dream while staying on the island itself, which has enough infra-structure to make it comfortable.
Tags & Taxonomy
They are off limits even for the original inhabitants who have been trying to return for many years.
The middle archipelago of islands, are the Maldives—an island nation well known to divers. At the northern end are the Lakshadweep islands, formerly known as the Laccadives. All of the islands rising out of the sea from this plateau are low lying coral atolls with associated sand banks and other coralline structures.
The coral growth has kept pace with land sinking and sea level rises, which have been happening for thousands of years giving, for divers, sheer vertical walls, shallow inter atoll bridges along with sandy lagoons to enjoy. Of course, the coral doesn’t grow above the level of the sea surface; for island formation, storms or earthquake uplift are needed. Storms wash coral debris onto the top of underwater coral, but storms also mean some islands periodically disappear. The Chagos-Maldives-Lakshadweep Archipelagos are in a dynamic state of flux.
I went diving in the Lakshadweep archipelago on Bangaram Island. India has been very cautious in allowing “outside” influences in this archipelago—firstly, to protect the local native culture, and secondly,to protect the fragile ecosystems.
India—to visit or just dive?
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Originally published
X-Ray Mag #26
Did you know that reef fish are flourencent and that CO2 makes oceans noisier? Did you ever wonder how the jellyfish get its sting? Explorers find hundreds of undescribed species on Australian reefs. Want to know how to pick Ocean-Friendly Sushi? Steve Jones explores blue waters off three Caribbean islands while Barb Roy guides us below the emerald surface of British Columbia. Charles Stirling reviews Bangaram Island, India. GirlDiver, Cindy Ross, test-drives a designer DPV, the XScooter, and French painter and diver, Stephane Braud, shares his portfolio luminous blue underwater scenes.