I am a nature animal and want to spend as much time as i want with nature. Nature has a certain rhythm in many of its creations, which puts back certain natural rhythms into our body and calms us.
I decided two
weeks back to do other than the normal cycling or swimming or walking, something
exciting and adventurous which will leave behind an exhilarating and a thrilling experience.
I suddenly thought of
scuba diving and discussed with some people and they were laughing and thought,
it was another of my crazy idea at this age.
I suddenly started
searching for information about scuba diving and zeroed in on Netrani adventures ltd located in Murdeshwar, a coastal area on the
west of India. Netrani adventures ltd conducts scuba diving programs at
Netrani Islands, which is 20 kms away from the beach at Murdeshwar. (
www.netraniadventures.com )
Murdeshwar is a popular tourist spot having the famous Murdeshwara temple. It is
about 4 hrs by road from Mangalore and nine hours by road from Bangalore.
I contacted Netrani
adventures about the program and got
all the details. I also asked some of my
friends and relatives to join me.
Finally my brother in law and his friend joined me.
I did the online advance booking for Scuba diving program on
7 April 2018 morning. I also
booked tickets on sleeper bus from Bangalore to Murdeshwar for
travelling on the night of 6th April 2018 and the return tickets for
the night of 7th Apr
2018 back to Bangalore from Murdeshwar.
Three of us reached
Murdeshwar on the morning of 7th Apr 2018 at about 7.45 am. We
checked into a hotel and got freshened up. Then we reached the office of
Netrani adventures ltd and finished all the formalities of signing certain
documents.
There was another group of about 27 people who had also
booked for the same program and we waited for them outside the office as the below picture shows.
Finally all of us a
total of 30 participants left on a
steamer boat from Murdeshwar beach to Netrani Island about twenty kilometres away
from the mainland beach.
In about 75 minutes
time we reached Netrani island
for the scuba diving program. The steam
boat ride was really a good experience
for all of us from cities. As we
were moving away from the beach and away from the madness, we could see
the sea water becoming crystal clear and pure. We were continuously witnessing the dance of small
waves ebbing and falling. The vast expanse of sea in front of us was
welcoming all of us in her
embrace and cooling our minds. As we
were nearing the island, we could see a small cave
which looked like they were carved inside the island and had water flowing in them. We
were all surrounded by the pristine
nature in all its naked glory. The sight
itself was fulfilling, soothing and left us asking for more. I feel it is a
curse to be born and bred in a city and
not amidst the nature’s midst.
Our boat was anchored at one of the spot near the Netrani island.
Initially we were all given
instructions to follow for scuba diving
and with certain do’s and dont’s.
They were five
instructors and in batches of five
the scuba diving started. Each participant will be monitored by each instructor inside the water, The entire program is about 30 minutes for
each participant inside water.
My exuberance forced me to volunteer for the first
group along with my brother in law and his friend.
We were fitted with life jackets and oxygen cylinders at the
back and we have to breathe in and
breathe out through the mouth only using the gadget which gets oxygen from the
cylinder. Certain techniques we were thought to reduce the pressure on our ears, whenever the pressure increases on the
ears as
we go down into the water and into its depths.
We sit on the edge of
the boat and we are pushed backwards
into the water and we literally feel at
the edge of the seat experience. We
are down into the water and lo and behold open our eyes to a totally different world, meanwhile we
are guided continuously by our individual guide and with certain sign
symbols we get instructions and can
indicate our discomfort and help if required.
We slowly wade through the deep waters and look at the life
below, the colorful fishes and other plant life and it is a totally different world at the bottom of the sea about 25
feet to 30 feet depth.
It is like a giant
aquarium and we are inside the aquarium and have fishes and other live forms as our co- companions swimming along with us. Life is definitely beautiful out there and it cannot be described
in words and one has to personally experience the thrill and get the novel experience.
After about 30 minutes
we come up and for a few minutes still feel overwhelmed
with the different experience we had.
As the other participants
were having their turns, we used life jackets and were swimming and
floating around our steamer boat for
almost three to four hours. The
water was clear and it was not very hot also. We
were literally soaking in the coolness of the island water and all our worries found its way into the water and left us
totally relaxed, exhausted and thrilled
with the water experience.
In the evening we were back to the mainland by boat. We visited the Murdeshwara temple and grabbed some dinner and popped into the sleeper bus at 9.15pm and were back to Bangalore on 8th April 18 Morning by 7.45 pm
Some of the pictures of our scuba diving follows below:
Padmanabh's Pictures
Ravi 's picture
Mahesh 's Picture
