This is the third part of  At Saint Martin’s. You can start reading from first part here:
At The Saint Martin’s Day 1

Low tides at 10am and high tides at 4pm. There is an about 1km long land connecting Cheradip and Saint Martin’s which have a lower level than the beach. So if you are going to cross it on foot, you need to visit Cheradip during low tides. Cheradip means a part of an island which is torn apart.

It takes about one and half hour to go to Cheradip from Saint Martin’s port on foot. On the third day at Saint Martins, we had our breakfast near the port Bazar. Then we talked with a speedboat owner about fare for return-journey to Cheradip. He claimed 1200tk. We couldn’t afford it. So we, 3 new-born travelers  with a little travel guide, Shahabuddin, started our journey along with our crazy feet at around 9:20am. We had to hurry because we had to cross the connecting land before high tides while returning from Cheradip. Here goes what we got without expending tk.1200.

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We walked fast; sometimes I had to run because I was slower than the others. I took a 2 liter bottle filled with saline water. The sun was very hot and was directly over our heads, no shade along the beach. So it really helped us a lot while walking.  And we saw the most beautiful natural things of Saint Martin’s on the way. Seriously, if you don’t walk the way to Cheradip from the port, you will miss the most beautiful part of the sea beach at Saint Martins.

We saw sands of different colors! In all other parts sand was ash mostly. But along that way, sometimes sand was seldom ash, mostly beige (desert sand), sometimes light yellow, dark ash. We saw a lot of coarse sand there. Then we saw only tiny rocks with a lot of colors which we buy in the towns to decorate tubs, aquariums, etc along the beach.

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We found the graveyard and Coast Guard office residing on the beach. Very few people lived in that part of the island. So, it was hard to get drinks or foods on the way in off-season. We encountered a bunch of trees whose color was of dark brick’s. Took a photo of them quickly. And we found some top part of a ship emerging from the sand. The body is probably staying confined under the sand.

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We saw fishermen repairing their ships on the way, and corals here and there. About in 1 hour we reached the connecting land. This land is actually the most beautiful thing in Saint Martins, at least in our eyes. It had different colors along parallel lines when seen from a hundred meter distance. The bed had patterns caused by current. As at low tides there remains no current, we could see the patterns on the bed. On two opposite sides of that land were tides. You can think it like a bridge between Saint Martin and Chera dip  which is over the sea.

It took us about 40 mins to cross the land. Around Cheradip are only corals. The island is tiny, a 5 minute walk across it. Trees around the tiny island. We found a rock looking like a seat in front of which were some burned firewood. The island had an open space in the middle with red-green weeds.

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We expected more on that little island. But it was too tiny to fulfill it. There were some people living in Chera Dip a few years ago. When we visited it, nothing was around. But we were not disappointed because of the beauty around it and its being the perfect place to seat in the beach. We sat by the rocks & corals for sometime with the legs under crystal clear water. It was cold and soothing…

Around 12pm we started the return journey from Chera Dwip. We crossed big corals. We saw here and there the sea bed turned totally into patterned stones. Took pictures of  them all. After crossing the connecting land, our saline water was finished and we were too thirsty to continue. Fortunately there was a resort just by the beach near the connecting land. We refilled our bottle, and took minute rest in the shade of trees. We started walking again. After about 10 minutes of walk, we found a little shop open. We ran into it and asked for young coconuts. They didn’t have any in the shop. We urged them to get some from home. The shop owner ran at his home seeing our condition. He brought 6 big green coconuts. We drank one coconut juice each. Then we emptied the 2-liter bottle and filled it with two young coconut juice. Honestly speaking, I didn’t saw any coconut having more than a liter of juice before and so it made our trip as our best travel experience!

We spent half an hour there. Then got up again. We took photos with Shahana, a little mermaid on the beach. She belonged to the tribe of ‘Rakhain’. There had been a lot of people from different tribes before at Saint Martins, but their number decreased and people from the north and Chittagong settled over there in search of luck. Their dresses, looks, and houses would instantly attract the tourists and photographers.

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We got back to the port around 2pm, had lunch, and went back to the cottage to get ready for the journey back to Dhaka. The ship, Keary Sinbad, was waiting at the port of Saint Martins to pick us up…

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