She rose out of her ocean, knowing very well that she had to go back, and came crashing onto me - a strong, sultry sinuous wave. Unexpectedly overwhelmed, I didn't stop to think. Submerged in the swirling salty pools of passion, we made 'Love' try to drown itself for its inadequacy to describe us. Our souls floated like fragrant fronds of mist on the surface, trying to breathe for us. We knew she had to go, yet promises were made in duplicate upon the stars reflected on the waters. The wish to keep it a short, sweet secret disappeared with the froth. The night grew older without us ... Then Time yawned at twilight. At the first harsh rays of reality, she left. I was unable to stop her then and later foolishly stretched the seas all day with the tides. At last I finished my 'Mystery of the Drowning Sun', but was left back only with sheets stained red.
No, this is not a passage out of a M&B. Just something I fantasised up to beat the yellow-grey 4 pm heat at the Tarkarli beach where I happened to be lying. I had just come out of a dive and various elements of it were floating in my head... & so I used up all references to the Sea I could remember.
It was a thrilling day... the beginning of my underwater life maybe. My first try at Snorkelling. It was an especially good start as I could dive by & below the ramparts of one of India's most beautiful sea-forts, Sindhudurg. [Map here]
The Sunday morning begged me to stay away from the regular beachy crowd and try out something new. Getting to the west-facing Chiwla beach is itself a joy when you walk through the coconut lined streets of Malvan. People gave various estimates from 10 minutes to ten kilometers... but I suppose its about a kilometer North of the Malvan Jetty and two from the Bus Terminus. A walk is always good as its nice to suddenly come upon this very beautiful beach and just plop down in the sand cooling your heels, literally.
For a focussed programme like Snorkelling, its always good to fix up with some pros to begin with. We were lucky to get the acquaintance of the very experienced group run by Anway Prabhu, who himself is a good diver and quite familiar with the seas around Malvan. If you choose to snorkel close to Chiwla, you have the option to dive near the rock garden. A boat is arranged that takes you a kilometer in the sea and there you get onto a stationary boat that is to be your base. On this, the basics of snorkelling are explained by the divers already in the water and then the kits are distributed. Depending on the diver guides present, one person is assigned to each. The kit itself is a simple setup of a tube with valves which you have to use to breathe through your mouth. The other part is a mask with tempered-glass covered eye-holes for good underwater vision and a sealed enclosure for your nose, so you can forget that it exists. Take two minutes to familiarise yourself and its an easy job henceforth.
I was quite favoured by the tides that day as they rose & it became difficult to see much after the first group returned. So we travelled to shallower waters on the sides of Sindhudurg! That was like living a fantasy. Just a few years back I was here with Amit on one of our first memorable, independent trips and there I was today about to dive to the base of the same sea fortress! A 5-km boat ride got us to the site. I put on my kit and got into those waters that had eluded me on the previous trip...
Although the Arabian sea is opaque & greenish on the Indian coastline, it is quite clear where shallow. That was my first reaction when I stuck my masked head underwater - its all so clear! I was suddenly in a new fluid, green world. The refraction of light makes everything come closer to you. The lapping waves on the surface catch the sunlight and send arrows of it shooting past you into the depths below. I was floating mesmerised by this when I suddenly came across my first Zebra fish! I had been made to float with a lifebuoy and hence was flat on my tummy. It was swimming right under me... followed by another. It was tough to believe that this was real. I did a thumbs-up to Anway, who was pointing out things to me. I had been told to refrain from speaking or moaning when looking down, for obvious reasons. But soon many fish varieties kept showing up & I don't know how Anway was seeing them as well as telling me what they were. I could see his finger pointing and his voice identifying them. Lets see, how many of them I remember having seen... the striped yellow & black Zebra fish (I doubt the identification), a Clown fish (Nemo!), a few Parrot fish pecking at the rocks, various types of Butterfly fish, the flat Angel fish, the Surgeon fish with its scalpel-like spine, the transparent, small Glass fish & a beautiful Coral Grouper.
Getting to see the last one was an experience in itself. We had turned away from the fort at some point and now were in 10-15 feet of water when Anway suddenly disappeared. He resurfaced with a tubular brown floppy 'thing' and told me to touch it. I hesitated first as it was almost alien! But it turned out to be just a Sea-cucumber and I was thrilled as I'd read about it recently in a book by A.C.Clarke (in fact I was so eager to snorkel coz of that book). He went down to replace it and I was waiting with an irrefutable request when he was back. I wanted to see some corals and dive without the float... & he had to teach me now or else I'd write badly about his group on my blog ;)
I was dragged through a shoal of glass fish and to a place where I could vaguely see some shapes down below. Off came the float and with a deep breath (a mistake), in I went to the floor with my feet skyward. Travelling 15 feet in a second or so, the pressure around my ears must have doubled and I had the sense to give out air through my mouth. Although it blurred my vision it saved my ears. I was told later that this needs to be done through the nose but I did fine for the purpose. However, the rewards of the dive were in the next second, when I came across a big brown Montipora (a genus of coral) spread like a giant oyster mushroom with a white lining. I reached out to touch it but did not press on it (as corals are fragile and take thousands of years to form what we see today). That was when I noticed the Coral Grouper lurking there. It was one of the most beautiful fishes I saw... Translucent brown with electric blue dots, it made me miss my camera for the first time in the day. But my mind clicked all the while as I came out of my dive.
It was wonderful to see the sunlight and get some air through my nose as I pulled up my mask. My first dive in the open sea was over and now it was time to explore some more shallows and get out. But not before thanking Anway again, who had been constantly dragging me to the right places and pointing out many fishes to me. The boat ride back, drying the salty water off my hair & my sunburnt back, saw all of us still in a reverie. I guess we hadn't had our fill as a few of us dived off the boat a few hundred meters from shore and swam in to tell the others what they had missed.
Update:
Here's the Calling card for Anway Underwater Service
Anway Prabhu : [ 9823857576 / 9766420038 ]
& a nice site for sea fish identification.
It was a thrilling day... the beginning of my underwater life maybe. My first try at Snorkelling. It was an especially good start as I could dive by & below the ramparts of one of India's most beautiful sea-forts, Sindhudurg. [Map here]
The Sunday morning begged me to stay away from the regular beachy crowd and try out something new. Getting to the west-facing Chiwla beach is itself a joy when you walk through the coconut lined streets of Malvan. People gave various estimates from 10 minutes to ten kilometers... but I suppose its about a kilometer North of the Malvan Jetty and two from the Bus Terminus. A walk is always good as its nice to suddenly come upon this very beautiful beach and just plop down in the sand cooling your heels, literally.For a focussed programme like Snorkelling, its always good to fix up with some pros to begin with. We were lucky to get the acquaintance of the very experienced group run by Anway Prabhu, who himself is a good diver and quite familiar with the seas around Malvan. If you choose to snorkel close to Chiwla, you have the option to dive near the rock garden. A boat is arranged that takes you a kilometer in the sea and there you get onto a stationary boat that is to be your base. On this, the basics of snorkelling are explained by the divers already in the water and then the kits are distributed. Depending on the diver guides present, one person is assigned to each. The kit itself is a simple setup of a tube with valves which you have to use to breathe through your mouth. The other part is a mask with tempered-glass covered eye-holes for good underwater vision and a sealed enclosure for your nose, so you can forget that it exists. Take two minutes to familiarise yourself and its an easy job henceforth.
I was quite favoured by the tides that day as they rose & it became difficult to see much after the first group returned. So we travelled to shallower waters on the sides of Sindhudurg! That was like living a fantasy. Just a few years back I was here with Amit on one of our first memorable, independent trips and there I was today about to dive to the base of the same sea fortress! A 5-km boat ride got us to the site. I put on my kit and got into those waters that had eluded me on the previous trip...
Although the Arabian sea is opaque & greenish on the Indian coastline, it is quite clear where shallow. That was my first reaction when I stuck my masked head underwater - its all so clear! I was suddenly in a new fluid, green world. The refraction of light makes everything come closer to you. The lapping waves on the surface catch the sunlight and send arrows of it shooting past you into the depths below. I was floating mesmerised by this when I suddenly came across my first Zebra fish! I had been made to float with a lifebuoy and hence was flat on my tummy. It was swimming right under me... followed by another. It was tough to believe that this was real. I did a thumbs-up to Anway, who was pointing out things to me. I had been told to refrain from speaking or moaning when looking down, for obvious reasons. But soon many fish varieties kept showing up & I don't know how Anway was seeing them as well as telling me what they were. I could see his finger pointing and his voice identifying them. Lets see, how many of them I remember having seen... the striped yellow & black Zebra fish (I doubt the identification), a Clown fish (Nemo!), a few Parrot fish pecking at the rocks, various types of Butterfly fish, the flat Angel fish, the Surgeon fish with its scalpel-like spine, the transparent, small Glass fish & a beautiful Coral Grouper.Getting to see the last one was an experience in itself. We had turned away from the fort at some point and now were in 10-15 feet of water when Anway suddenly disappeared. He resurfaced with a tubular brown floppy 'thing' and told me to touch it. I hesitated first as it was almost alien! But it turned out to be just a Sea-cucumber and I was thrilled as I'd read about it recently in a book by A.C.Clarke (in fact I was so eager to snorkel coz of that book). He went down to replace it and I was waiting with an irrefutable request when he was back. I wanted to see some corals and dive without the float... & he had to teach me now or else I'd write badly about his group on my blog ;)
I was dragged through a shoal of glass fish and to a place where I could vaguely see some shapes down below. Off came the float and with a deep breath (a mistake), in I went to the floor with my feet skyward. Travelling 15 feet in a second or so, the pressure around my ears must have doubled and I had the sense to give out air through my mouth. Although it blurred my vision it saved my ears. I was told later that this needs to be done through the nose but I did fine for the purpose. However, the rewards of the dive were in the next second, when I came across a big brown Montipora (a genus of coral) spread like a giant oyster mushroom with a white lining. I reached out to touch it but did not press on it (as corals are fragile and take thousands of years to form what we see today). That was when I noticed the Coral Grouper lurking there. It was one of the most beautiful fishes I saw... Translucent brown with electric blue dots, it made me miss my camera for the first time in the day. But my mind clicked all the while as I came out of my dive.
It was wonderful to see the sunlight and get some air through my nose as I pulled up my mask. My first dive in the open sea was over and now it was time to explore some more shallows and get out. But not before thanking Anway again, who had been constantly dragging me to the right places and pointing out many fishes to me. The boat ride back, drying the salty water off my hair & my sunburnt back, saw all of us still in a reverie. I guess we hadn't had our fill as a few of us dived off the boat a few hundred meters from shore and swam in to tell the others what they had missed.
Update:
Here's the Calling card for Anway Underwater Service
Anway Prabhu : [ 9823857576 / 9766420038 ]
& a nice site for sea fish identification.
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