Bad Title. I want to hit myself.
So since next month is going to be HECTIC (don't miss the all caps), I took a weekend off this month and went off to Murdeshwar, originally just to snorkel and see the place, but last minute decided I wanted to scuba dive as well.
And boy, am I glad I did that!
The whole trip is pretty easy and weekend-doable. Left Bangalore on Friday night, reached Murdeshwar on Saturday morning. We were staying at a place called RNS Residency which isn't too far away from the temple and the beach. The temple. by the way, is apparently 'renovated', but it looks very new and sharp, and its painted in all gold and silver, which is a extremely painful on the eyes in the daytime. Surprisingly not so bad at night:
We were introduced to the scuba equipment, practiced and got used to it on day 1. All in the swimming pool. I cannot begin to tell you how cool it is when you first go underwater and begin to breathe with an oxygen tank.
Practice over, we went right to the top of the 20 storied Gopura next to the temple to watch the sunset. And we made it juuuuuust in time, of course it was a little packed with locals to we had to make do with a squeezy bit of orange through the window for a sun. And what would a trip to the seaside be without 'Fish Naked Fry' and Crab Masala for dinner? (And silly people who will never fail to make jokes about it? I swear after we heard 'Fish Naked Fry' the giggles went on for an hour.)
On the second day, we were up early to get our equipment and get onto the boat for the one and a half hour boat ride to Netrani island from the shore.
Ladies and gentlemans, here's a tip: ANTI SEA SICKNESS PILLS DO NOT WORK. Neither does nimbu. Or smelling an orange peel. This coming from the girl who spent majority of the boat ride with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and her head glued to the edge of the boat despite trying all of the above. The only thing that works is not eating.
Vomititious, it was.
But once we got there, strapped on our gear and began, it made up for the discomfort by a million gazillion times.
The scuba diving was happening one at a time, so the rest of us who weren't doing that grabbed our snorkels and dove into the sea. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I'm going to say I felt a little bit like the Queen of the Ocean surveying the going on's from waaay up above. It was like watching a busy city from the clouds. There was fish-traffic, coral-buildings, and an occasional big blue policeman fish or two. Eels hiding in the coral waiting for unsuspecting tiny fish to swim into their mouths, Stonefish attached to the coral that I would have missed except that someone else pointed it out to me, schools of tiny silver fish that would all change direction in a snap with the movement of your hand. And so much more!
Going scuba diving is just one step ahead from snorkeling. While snorkeling, you stay on the surface and just watch, but while scuba diving, you actually get to go down into the area you've been surveying and oh man, it is so worth it! I was one of the last to go, and a little hesitant originally because I was a little tired from all the alternating sea sickness and snorkeling, but two minutes into the depths and I was hooked.
Fish of a hundred different shapes, sizes and colors everywhere I looked, a large angelfish that followed me and that I found staring at me inquisitively every time I turned around. Sea Cucumbers, anemone, and the most gorgeous colors ever, especially with the sunlight filtering through the top of the sea. The coral: so much better than watching the Discovery Channel!
This is a weird comparison, but they looked like little tame kittens. I wanted to pet them all.
It is a little scary when you're down there and you suddenly realise you're hooked onto an oxygen tank and some extremely heavy gear, and if it malfunctions you're slightly.. um.. dead...but the divers train you well before you get into the sea, and also, the universal rule is that nobody dives alone, you always have a partner, no matter how experienced you may be, so that's comforting.
The water pressure creeped me out at the start because I thought I'd come up with a nose bleed for sure, but, nope. I was longer underwater than the other beginners and nothing happened. I was also worried that my mask would fill up with water and I wouldn't be able to purge it, because I couldn't really do it in the pool, but I tried it 2 minutes into the sea and it was so much easier. So yes, I had great vision under the sea because I could wear my lenses and go! The other basic thing they make sure you learn is how to grab onto your mouth piece again if you drop it : you stuff in into your mouth, purge it of water and start sucking oxygen again; a little weird the first time around because to begin with, you are only breathing with your mouth and if you don't purge the mouthpiece and just suck, you get a mouthful of water instead of air, and I guarantee you will panic a bit especially if you're ten feet below the surface of the sea.
So anyway, I recommend you all try this if you're not on medication, not trying to get pregnant, don't have any blood pressure issues, don't have sudden panic attacks and are generally all-round healthy.
Anyway, here's to Murdeshwar and meeting some people of quality.Two of 'The ladies', who are married and have wives, and two more real ladies, one whom I couldn't help but fall in love with the minute she gave me a \m/ sign underwater when, and also because she snorkeled with me, and the other was kind of a floozy but I give her points for having the courage to actually go through with it, because IT IS INTIMIDATING especially when you're not even a swimmer.
All of you should try it, just so that you can ask existential questions after :) Totally worth the sunburnt back. :D
