Cruise ship MV Karnafuly to open journey from Cox’s Bazar to Saint Martin’s

Kamruzzaman Bablu :
A longtime demand of the tourists has been fulfilled by deploying luxury ships to go to Saint Martin’s Island from Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram. The tourists have been enjoying the facility of travelling direct to Saint Martin from Cox’s Bazar town and from Patenga of Chattogram city in the cruise ships of Karanafuly Ship Builders. Thus another wind of tourism potentiality has been opened.
Hills and seas are favorite destinations of tourists. The vast seas draw people with its clean and fresh natural environment.
So the importance of Cox’s Bazar as the longest sea beach of the world is enormous. Besides, there is a small beautiful coral island, Saint Martin’s Island, 120 kilometres away from the Cox’s Bazar district town. Saint Martin is a nice coral island of the world. That is why Cox’s Bazar beach and Saint Martin’s Island occupy leading positions on the list of favorite destinations of the tourist.
But the tourists from Cox’s Bazar have to endure a long journey by local boats via Teknaf. However, cruise ship MV Karnafuly Express has turned the journey into an aesthetic enjoyable one on the blue water of the Bay Bengal since 2020. It is no doubt a unique facility with huge potentiality. Like the previous year, Karanafuly Ship Builders will begin operating its cruise line fleet on Cox’s Bazar-Saint Martin’s Island, Chattogram-Saint Martin’s Island route this year also. MV Karanafuly Express has begun its service on Cox’s Bazar-Saint Martin’s Island route on October 6.
Luxury cruise ship MV Bay-1 will begin its trip between Chattogram and Saint Martin’s Island on November 3 while another cruise ship, Baro Aulia, will join the fleet this year. This family has a barge also, named MV Saint Martin Cruise. The barge will be used for tourists’ sightseeing and to unload passengers of big ships at the jetty of Saint Martin’s Island because Bay One as a 7-deck high big ship cannot go in shallow water.
MV Karnafuly will start from the BIWTA landing station on the Airport Road of Cox’s Bazar town in the morning and will reach Saint Martin’s at about noon. It will again start from Saint Martin’s in the afternoon and return to Cox’s Bazar at night. This only sea route of the country was inaugurated through a flamboyant ceremony in January 2020.  
MV Karnafuly is 55 metres long and 11 metres in width. It has about 600 seats of three categories and 17 VIP cabins and all modern facilities. The ship can cruise at 12 nautical miles per hour with its two Cummins brand propulsion engines of 1200 BHP.
This journey is really enjoyable as time passes gossiping in its luxurious cabins and viewing the rivers and their estuaries in the sea. Tourists cannot feel the route distance and reach out to blue water of the coral island while viewing the scenes of river banks, waves of the sea from the air-conditioned common sea view cabin sitting on its chrysanthemum sofa at the front side of the ship or on the rooftop.
The ship also has aesthetic roof top, conference room with dining space, large balconies and other facilities MV Saint Martin Cruise offers sightseeing facilities on its barge that floats like a big hall room. From the floating barge, tourists can view the beauty of the coral island, Chhera Dweep and Ghora Dweep and the scenic beauty of sunset. The barge is going to have a modern restaurant soon. The trip fare per person by the ship is minimum Tk 3200 and maximum Tk 28000. There are other fare slots as per different classes of seats.
Detailed information can be available at 09610849970, 01870732598.
The MV Bay One is a five star hotel standard cruise ship which is the first cruise ship of the country. The company also added Baro Aulia to its fleet at the growing demand of the tourists.