The ship was stopped in the main channel. Like the previous day, we got into small boats and reached the jetty. On that way itself I spotted our welcome point and decided on my preferred way of reaching there. After getting down at the jetty, I did not wait for anyone or any instructions. It felt so nice to walk on that beach with small tides touching your feet so early in the morning. All others were carefully walking away from the water. The interesting thing... I was not walking on the sand! It was the powder of dead corals. If you do not already know, corals are animals!
One of the organisers walked up to welcome, but only to be stopped by one question, "Where is the scuba diving place?" He showed us the direction and also suggested that we rest for some time and listen to a speech which detailed about the coral reef formation and the speciality of these islands. Mean time, everyone was served with tender coconuts. I must mention that they were yummy. I always enjoy drinking directly for some special reasons ;) You try and experience, don't ask me about those special reasons!
They gave us various options like swimming, kayaking, boating in glass bottom boats & scuba diving. Needless to say where I headed to, I was the the first one to register. We were told that there will be a half an hour of theory session, 10 minutes of underwater practice and 20 minutes of guided dive. I prepared myself and started waiting... Very soon I realised that I was the only one who was so eagerly waiting :( The instructor started taking registrations one after the other and it went on and on and on... After waiting for more than an hour this instructor started his session. It was a very good, informative and learning session.
"Who would get to dive first?" I got really pissed off and demanded that it better be done in the order of registration. Obviously he did yield to my tone. I handed over my big camera bag to someone who would most probably not get into the water. All of a sudden someone from nowhere popped up claiming himself to be from some news paper and asked that instructor to pose. That instructor was too much of a media friendly person. He went on with that photo session for more than half an hour with all his staff.
Finally we reached the diving site. It took them little time to tie the weights to my narrow waist. All scuba gear was put on to me and was made to do some breathing practice with SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus). I asked for some adjustments so that it suited my breathing rhythm. Now that I was all set... 1... 2... 3... and there I went underwater :) By the way, I was the first one to go underwater!
Once we were underwater the instructor made sure that I was comfortable with the increase in pressure and breathing. From here on all communication was only in sign language. During his theory session he made a point that not to touch anything that you see underwater as some could be poisonous. I was very cautious and kept my hands very close to myself. As I got more comfortable with scuba, I started looking around to experience this world underwater. I was amazing to find myself surrounded by different coloured fish in different sizes and shapes. All of a sudden this instructor blocked my nose and asked whether I was alright. It was to ensure the pressure inside the ear drums was balanced. I got accustomed to that new environment very quickly and indicated to him that I was perfectly fine. He took me to a live coral and started playing with the fish around there. The biggest among them came and started biting his fingers... then I slowly let my hands away from me trying to play with those brown and white colored fish. As we moved further he indicated that I turn back and look at the other divers! WOW... it was an awesome sight. We continued further to see more of this wonderful world. On the way he indicated that I pick up one of those live sea cucumbers, it felt so soft and spongy. While returning we were swimming over the underwater grass, I was not very comfortable with that as I could not see what was hiding inside that grass. We came back to the same coral, It was covered by green mass and there were a lot of violet coloured tubes kind of arrangement fluttering at the center of that coral. This time he put my hand directly into that... Ooo... it was definitely an experience! Here again that big fish came to bite my hand. Though I did not let it happen, it was really fun. As we were walking, I noticed some creatures digging themselves into the sand and disappearing! Very soon he indicated that we were going on to the surface and there we were into this world.
This diving place was very close to the shore. So we had to jump over a lot of cement and iron blocks while underwater. Initially I thought that he would take us in a boat to somewhere in the middle of the sea and make us dive over there. And also if it were away from the shore there could had been a good sighting of more underwater creatures. May be I was expecting too much from that introductory dive. Over all it was a great experience. I would definitely try that again with my someone special ;)
As we came back to the camp, lots of people were curious to know how the experience was and was it safe to try and all kinds of questions even from some really old woman. I tried my best to give as many details as possible. As usual I am never good at engaging myself in such conversations. I escaped at the earliest chance and got back to water. This time it was kayaking!
With the experience of previous day at Kalpeni, I became an expert at kayaking in those waters. By the time I reached there all kayaks were occupied. I asked few of them whether they are done with their part of kayaking. Obviously no body was willing to get tired of it :) As I was waiting for some kayak to get free, I enjoyed swimming in those shallow waters. Then I noticed two brothers in life jackets, trying to maneuver their kayak as it got filled with water. One of them had given up and the other still wanted to spend some more time on that. As he saw me swimming towards the kayak he felt very happy and asked me whether I wanted to join. I was sure that he did notice all the crazy things I did the previous day. My answer was very obvious and I hopped on it. We agreed on who was going to do what and I took the kayak straight towards the main channel. As he noticed that we came too far from the shore he requested that we should return. I got him back to the shore and made him feel comfortable. We did kayaking near to the shore till he got tired. As he got down, I had another friend waiting at the shore waiting for a kayak. He was the same one who accompanied me in the previous days adventure. It was a good combination and we started experimenting all kinds of maneuvers on the kayak very close the main channel. At some point we realised it was getting beyond our control and slowly managed to move away from the main channel. We still had not gone for boating on glass bottom boats. As we noticed one of those boats returning to the shore, we also got our kayak back to the shore and hopped in to the glass bottom boat.
Boating in that glass bottom boat was just out of the world experience. The experience you get in snorkeling and scuba diving is limited by your own ability to manage yourself in that environment. However this was more like some aquarium or TV kind of experience, just that you were physically very close to them and you may get to see them next to you in water. What if that glass breaks? Very interesting thought, but I chose not to think about that :) As we were moving far from the shore the scene through the glass bottom was getting better and better. We got to see innumerable variety of corals and fishes. All of a sudden we noticed them to be making some formations underwater. Later we realised that one of the boat guys was throwing some food for them. At some point we were amazed to see all these beautiful fish swimming along the boat and we could see them next to us instead of through the glass. Soon we reached the main channel only to get shocked. Through the glass it looked very deep blue and the boat guy told us that it would be easily few hundreds of meters deep. one could clearly see the difference between the coral reef and the main channel, it was an amazing sight. The boat guys were not in hurry but were very nice and gave us a detailed tour of the world underwater. Slowly they got us back to the shore, leaving us with a great memorable experience.
They offer this one week course on Open Water Scuba Diving for Rs.15,000. Other expenses like accommodation and transport might cost another Rs. 10,000. The cottages they have are very decent. The only phone that works over there is from BSNL. The whole place looks blissful. Over all, one of the best destinations to be with the someone special ;)
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