Havelock Island tide times

Havelock Island — officially renamed Swaraj Dweep in 2018, though the colonial name persists in everyday usage — is the most visited island in the Andaman archipelago, 39 kilometres northeast of Port Blair. The island is 13 kilometres long and 7 kilometres wide, densely forested with tropical rainforest that comes to within 50 metres of the beach at most points. Seven beaches are numbered under the original British survey system; the most celebrated, Beach 7 (Radhanagar), faces west across the Andaman Sea.

The tidal range at Havelock is 2.8–3.2 m on spring tides, semidiurnal. The drop between high and low water at Radhanagar Beach is among the most dramatic visual tidal effects in the Andamans: at high spring water the sea reaches the base of the treeline fringe behind the beach; at low spring water, 80–100 metres of flat, clean white sand are exposed between the treeline and the waterline. The same 3-metre tidal range drives the inter-island currents in the passages between Havelock and the surrounding islands — Neil Island to the south, Long Island to the northeast — at 2–4 knots at peak spring ebb.

Radhanagar Beach on the west coast is the primary attraction. The beach faces west and catches the full Andaman Sea sunset — the western horizon is open ocean all the way to Sri Lanka 1,200 kilometres distant, with no island obstruction. The beach width at low spring water is 80–100 metres; at high spring water it narrows to 20–30 metres but the water depth increases to 1.5–2.5 m within 30 metres of shore, making the high-water period the best swimming window. The wave energy here is moderate — the Andaman Sea does not have the fetch of the open Indian Ocean, but southwest monsoon swells from May through September produce surf of 1.0–1.5 m that is managed but not trivial. Outside the monsoon (October through April), the beach is calmer.

Big Beach north of Radhanagar and Beach 5 (Vijay Nagar) on the northeast coast face different directions and catch different swell patterns. Vijay Nagar's beach faces east-northeast, sheltered from the southwest monsoon but exposed to the northeast monsoon from October through January. The reef flat fronting Beach 5 is one of the better snorkelling sites accessible directly from the beach — coral coverage at the outer edge of the reef flat is highest from 2 hours before to 2 hours after high water, when depth is sufficient to snorkel comfortably over the coral heads without risk of contact.

Beach 3 (Govindnagar) on the east coast fronts the best shallow-reef snorkelling on Havelock accessible without a boat. The fringing reef extends 150–200 metres from the beach at this point, with the outer reef edge at 3–5 m depth at high tide. Visibility at Beach 3 is typically 10–20 m on calm days — somewhat lower than the outer dive sites but reliable for fish-watching and coral identification. The best snorkelling window is mid-tide through high water on neap tides; during spring tide ebb the current runs noticeably across the reef flat and makes snorkelling toward the outer edge work.

Scuba diving from Havelock accesses sites including Aquarium (shallow reef, excellent for entry-level divers), Barracuda City (pelagic species, best on the ebb current), and the Maze (complex reef topography, suitable for experienced divers). The dive boats from the jetty at Beach 5 time their departures to arrive at the target site during the slack water window, typically at the end of the flood or the end of the ebb — 30 minutes before predicted slack and 30 minutes after. The dive operators on the island have detailed local knowledge of the current patterns at each site and plan accordingly.

For kayakers, the calm water on the east side of Havelock during the October–April northeast monsoon season is well suited to paddling between the beaches. The passage from Beach 5 north to Elephant Beach (about 5 km by sea) follows a sheltered shoreline; the north-coast passage is open to the northeast and rougher from October through January. Kayak rentals are available at Beach 5 and Radhanagar; no guided infrastructure exists for the inter-island passages between Havelock and Neil, which involve spring-ebb currents of 2–4 knots unsuitable for casual paddling.

All tide predictions for Havelock Island come from the Open-Meteo Marine gridded model. Timing accuracy is ±45 minutes; height accuracy is ±0.3 m above Chart Datum.