Day Thirty Six - On dry land again...

Today is a milestone - we have travelled over 7000 miles (7045 to be exact).

Our paddling was rewarded and we made 269 miles, to the Andaman Islands. 12 miles out of the brilliantly named Wimberleyganj. There are 576 islands in the group, 26 of which are inhabited.

I've got lots if interesting facts from my trusted travel guide about the Andamans. From 1788 these islands were used as penal colonies by the British. The Andaman colony acquired notoriety following the murder of the viceroy, the Earl of Mayo, when on a visit to the settlement on 8 February 1872. This was location of the second concentration camp in the world, the first being in South Africa after the Boer War, and was founded by the British to suppress the Indian independence movement. It was here that in 1943, that the flag of Indian independence was first raised.

Those literature buffs amongst us recognised that a key scene in The Sign of Four, the second book in Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes series, takes place at the British penal colony in the Andamans. The book also introduced an Andaman islander to London, who uses his blowpipe and poisoned darts to deadly effect in the great Victorian capital. Doyle's vivid depiction - written from a late Victorian perspective - is still the most common source of information on the Andamans and their inhabitants available to the general public worldwide.