Chau altered routes, said God shielded him

KOLKATA: The final entries in the 13-page journal of American national Johan Allen Chau has revealed that the 26-year-old consciously altered routes to North Sentinel Island to evade naval and coast guard ships but seemed convinced that he was being shielded by God.

Andaman and Nicobar police are busy deciphering his notes, which is characterised by numerous illegible scribbles, tiny sketches between two lines and long sentences joined by punctuation marks.

HT has accessed the notes Chau left with the five local fishermen who took him to the forbidden island and saw him alive for the last time on November 16. Excerpts from Chau’s notes deciphered by Mohan Bose, director, Kolkata Institute of Graphology.

Bose has held training sessions for the Indian army: Anchored successfully l ast night with friends currently on the boat, waiting to make contact. Left last night around 20.00 and arrived around 22.30 or so but as we went north along the eastern shore, we saw boat lights in the distance along the north shore and turned around.

Headed south along the eastern shore and evaded them, went along the southern shore and then up along the western shore.

All along the way, our boat was highlighted by bioluminescent plankton – and as fishes jumped nearby we could see them… (illegible) … shimmering along.

The Milky Way was above and God himself was shielding us from the coast guard and navy patrols.