I also recommend Vinnie's dive India, I have dive at his place last feb, you can check out my gallery relating this trip
here (just click on Havelock special gallery...
or enjoy the other ones if you feel to...)
The diving in itself is untouched, looots of fish, you have to push the trevally or cuda schools to swim forward sometimes. Currents can be fierce and viz quite chaotic : I have dived the same place, and within a two hours interval, the viz dropped from 25 meters to less than 10 meters.
if you love hard corals, this is your place too, never seen such a variety, it seems El Nino and greenhouse gas effects are unknown in this part of the ocean.
I have taken Air Deccan to get from Chennai to Port Blair, cheap and on time : just another low cost, I have nothing to say about. Ask Vinnie to arrange your tarnsfer to Havelock because the ferry ticket purchasing procedures can be tedious. Instead of fighting against the backpackers, leave it to Vinnie's staff and have a walk and a eat in Port Blair, you'll have to wait for 4 hours.
Forget about Barefoot they're expensive and located on the other side of the island. beautiful beach but you are REALLY stranded. Staying at Vinnies' place, you can walk to the Village, the finest restaurant which belongs to another hotel is 10 minutes walk (try their giant crab, almost the size of the table), of course the ensuite bathrom tents with a fan are mandatory, I have stayed one night in his 10USD no fan tents, it was hot like hell inside.
As a summary, the pros :
- pristine areas
- lots of fish
- untouched corals
- "soft adventure" feel
- great atmosphere at Vinnies', if you're a photographer, you'll be pampered.
- hey that's INDIA!!! Imagine burning hot Masala tea and samosas for a surface intervall snack.
Cons :
- the boats... jeeeze, they're so noisy and the trips to the dive sites are loooong.
- disappointing on the macro side, I haven't seen the usual nudi suspects or tiny critters, but maybe that diving is still young and the DM haven't really looked for that kind of stuff yet.
- no biggies, Manty (one of Vinnie's DM) says there's a manta at some place but it seems he's the only one to see them.