Scuba diving in Netrani!

Have you ever fantasied to swim underwater with colorful fish and corals? I did and my dream came true. Read on, you can accomplish your underwater fantasies, as well as explore the hidden cultures of India.

I did the open water course from Planet Scuba Bangalore. After completing the confined water pool sessions, it was time to test the waters! I headed to Netrani Islands, Murudeshwara, India.  

Murudeshwara Town – Day 1

After 10 hours of journey in a sleeper bus from Bangalore, I reached Murudeshwara, the temple-beach town. Took an auto (tuk-tuk) from bus stand to Sea View Resort, on my way I saw the tall temple tower known as Gopura in Indian languages, and a 123-feet tall statue of lord Shiva. The 20 storied Gopura is the entrance to the temple. Lord Shiva is considered as the destroyer and one of the most powerful gods in the Hindu mythology (there are millions of gods in Hinduism!). Whether you are an atheist or not, the four-hand Shiva statue is mesmerizing and a masterpiece.

Due to holiday season, hundreds of people had already thronged near the temple. Many people had tonsured their head; this was their way of showing gratitude to the god for answering their prayers.  This town is not for a foodie or a party animal, it is for divine seekers or adventure buffs.

I reached Sea View Resort which is away from the maddening crowd and faces the Arabian Sea. The Netrani dive shop is also located in this resort. Whilst I had Idly-Vada, the typical South-Indian breakfast, I looked at the water-sports menu. Jet Ski, snorkeling, banana ride, boat trips to nearby Islands, kayaking were being offered. Since I was anyways diving the next day, I chose to do 60 minutes of kayaking by paying INR. 500. This town is not card friendly, so remember to carry cash or be ready to walk near the temple to find an ATM.

It was time to explore the town by foot. The town has small souvenir shops, selling idols of gods, apparels, sea shells, and quick bites. Just like any coastal area, there is a fish market too. Dinner in Sea Side View Resort wasn’t great, just the normal boiled rice and Indian vegetable gravy cooked with spices, but watching the sunset has a soothing effect on the soul! Time to hit the sack as a big day waits.

Scuba Diving in Netrani – Day 2

I was ready by 8:00 AM and waiting for my dive instructor Andy just outside the resort, near the big blue container which houses all the scuba gear. Just when I started conversing with the dive shop boys, saw a jeep with Netrani Diving written on it. The jeep was driven by a white man, with a batman ear stud, I guessed it was Andy, and Andy it was. Andy has over 15 years of diving experience and has clocked over 7500 dives, and has been diving in Netrani for over a year. There were about 12 DSD divers and I was the only Open Water Diver for the day. Andy met all of the DSD divers and gave an orientation of the DSD program. Since I was doing the OWD program, I had to assemble and fix the scuba gear without anybody’s help. I managed to fix my gear, thanks to my confined water trainer Aaliyah. The dive shop boys helped me choose the best fitting wet suit, mask, snorkel, fins, and a six kilogram weight belt. Andy asked us to head towards the beach with all our scuba equipment.  It was exciting time, the boat was waiting. The fishing boat was converted as a dive boat. We loaded all our gears on the boat and started our dream journey.

The motor boat started the one hour sail to Netrani Island. On board was Andy, about 5 divers, the dive shop boy, and our helmsman. Netrani is a heart shaped island, which is inhabited only by goats, perhaps Indian version of Robinson Crusoe can be shot here. The villagers from Murudeshwar and surrounding villages drop live goats into the island if any of their prayers are answered by Lord Shiva! The dive shop takes all necessary permits from the local government for sailing and diving in the sea. Night diving is prohibited in Netrani, restrictions imposed by the local officials.

Andy spoke like a native and brand ambassador of dive site in Netrani whilst looking up the sky for sea gulls, no wonder he has made Murudeshwar his home for over a year.  Sea gulls can actually drink salt water because they filter out the salt from their glands and excrete it from their nostrils. Sea is pretty calm, but heard it gets rough during June and September, that’s when the diving industry in Murudeshwar shuts shop.

On our way to Netrani, we saw a tiny island known as Piegon Island. Netrani Island kept growing bigger as our boat approached it, the blue water started to appear as green. Andy asked me to put on my gear as the first dive would be mine. He also briefed on the dos and don’ts of the first dive. While still on board, I noticed fish movements in the waters, although the visibility on the surface is not clear like one of those beaches in Phuket. Andy threw the anchor to the shallow waters, and the boat came to a halt.

I wore the BCD jacket, spat on the mask to defog it, and wore the fins. Andy asked me to do the buddy pre-dive safety check, the way I remembered the BWRAF abbreviation was Blonde Women Really Are Fun, which translates to Buoyancy check, Weight check, Releases check, Air check, Final check before diving. It was my first open water dive, and I was on top of the world to explore the underwater. The air temperature was 33 degree and water temperature was 28 degrees. Andy was ready already and did a back roll entry to the open water, and shouted on me to follow suit. Wearing heavy dive gears and breathing through mouth feels a bit uncomfortable, without wasting any time, I did a back roll entry. The sea water was warm compared to the pool sessions I had. I was floating because my BCD was inflated. Andy called me near the anchor line and asked me to hold the rope and descend slowly.

It was Dive #1, I was descending and my ears started aching due to the pressure underwater. It was time to equalize the sinus by squeezing my nostrils and blowing air thorough my nose. Andy asked me if I was ‘okay’ using the diver’s sign language, I gave him the okay hand signal and continued my descent. I was stepping into a different world. Objects underwater appear 33% larger than they actually are. Within minutes I was 18 feet deep and my legs were touching the sea bed. I had to let go the rope and was floating like an astronaut in a spaceship.

My first sighting was a yellow and black bannerfish. I was still getting accustomed to breathe at ease and not use my fins to stay under water. Underwater is a different colorful world, I saw sea cucumbers which looked like dead dark black cucumbers. Andy asked me to partially flood my mask and remove the water, this was part of the exercise. It was not difficult to remove water from mask when we were 18 feet deep. I just had to look up, hold the top frame of the mask from my hands and blow air from my nose. The second exercise was to remove the regulator from my mouth, put it behind my shoulder, blow bubbles, search for the regulator and put it back in my mouth. Second test was a pass too. After spending 30 minutes underwater, I had to use the anchor’s rope and surface back. Andy was still underwater and asked a couple of DSD divers to dive with him.

DSD diving was completed in about 35 minutes; it was time for my Dive#2. I was much comfortable this time, but was still learning to float just above the corals and watch the marine life. The visibility had reduced, and was around 15 meters. There were less fish this time, perhaps it was nap time for them and were hiding under corals. There was a bit of surge too, and I was drifting away from Andy. The trick was to swim slowly and control buoyancy using the BCD and slow breathing; it sounds easy but requires a bit of practice underwater. Looking up and kicking legs would mean ascending, I was trying to look down and kick slowly as to be swimming just above the corals. Andy signaled me thumbs up, which was sign for STELA ascent, Signal, Time, Extend, Lookup and Ascend. Dive#2 was satisfactorily completed.  It was snack time and feedback session on the boat whilst we sailed back towards the shore of Murudeshwara. The boat reached the shore and we had to remove salt water from the dive gear by washing them in fresh water.

The second sunset of my stay in Murudeshwara had arrived. It was great to hear Andy’s adventure dives and his views on best dive sites in the world, while sipping a pint.

Scuba Diving in Netrani – Day 3

It is 9:30 AM and the boat was ready to take us to Netrani for my dive#3 and 4. This time there were two young couples who wanted to explore DSD. Thirty minutes journey in the sea and folks on the boat started having sea sickness!  Andy asked them to concentrate and look at the horizon instead of looking at the water, and it looked like the sea sickness had stopped. Today’s air temperature was 32 degree and water temperature was 28 degrees. The girl in the boat started puking again, and this attracted a variety of fish!

Dive#3 was a fun dive as I went down with Andy and a DSD diver. It was a 5-point descent, SORTED, Signal, Orientate, Regulator in, Time, Equalize and Descend. I was pretty comfortable controlling my buoyancy and swimming underwater. It was a sight to see schools of tiny zebra fish enjoying their meal. I had to perform two skills underwater, clearing the mask, removal and fixing back the weight belt.

A variety of colorful parrot and trigger fish were sighted. Parrot fish has the ability to changes its sex, the females are generally light in color, whereas males have bigger foreheads and dark in color. I saw many parrot fish excreting sand; they were basically digesting the corals. It is known that a parrot fish excretes over 100 kilograms of sand in one year. Trigger fish is an aggressive fish, and was seen eating sea urchins. I also saw some of the trigger fish attacking smaller fish, was not sure if they were hunting or simply guarding their territory. 35 minutes flew like a minute, and I had to perform the 5 point Ascent - STELA.

Whilst on the surface, Andy asked me to remove my BCD and put it back. It was easy to remove the BCD, but was challenging to put it back. I had to slide my hands into the jacket on the surface, I somehow managed to wear the equipment and tighten the buckles. As part of the second surface task, I had to swim using a compass, Andy pointed me to an object and I adjusted my wrist-compass needle pointing at the object and started swimming towards it by looking at the compass. As part of the final surface task, I had to exchange snorkel to regulator and back for about 5 times. Dive#3 was a successfully completed.

Folks on boat took turn to puke, and I still had time for Dive#4. I made use of the break time to snorkel around. Small fish relished the puke, and this in turn attracted couple of the medium-sized predator fish. The predators were on the prowl and were harassing and eating away the small fish. Many colorful fish are in Netrani, the sighting of them depends on the visibility, dive site, patience and a bit of luck! I had all the four elements on my side; I even saw a moray eel peeping though its burrow. Morray eels are territorial creatures with poor sight; they are seen with their mouth wide open to breathe.

When snorkeling, avoid swimming around jelly fish. Although they are tiny and transparent, their sting is painful and will look like red goosebumps on your skin. I heard quite a few goats bleating from the Island, ours helmsman said these were new domesticated and scared goats let by villagers. Andy surfaced with DSD divers and some fish hooks. People in Netrani are nature lovers and fetch any unnatural things from the water thus keeping the waters clean.

Andy asked the helmsman to steer the boat to deep waters for my Dive#4. I could sense the water was deep, the current was high too. Andy and I were ready and did a back roll entry again. I was supposed to perform a buddy pre-dive safety check at surface this time. We had to descend; I deflated my BCD and started the free flow descent without using the rope. The descent is so fast, and within minutes we had reached 60 feet. The visibility was around 6 meters, and I could barely see Andy in front of me. I looked up but could hardly see the sun rays. The surge was very strong and pushing me away, I must admit I was scared losing sight of Andy. I felt Andy betrayed me and took me deeper than 100 feet; I looked at his dive computer to check the depth and realized it was only 60 feet.

Now the scariest moment of all the three dives, mask removal and replacement. Andy was holding my jacket to ensure I do not go deeper than 60 feet. As soon as I removed my mask, water was gushing through my eyes and it started itching due to salt water and underwater pressure. I was consciously telling myself not to breath from my nostrils. I replaced the mask, and started blowing through nose to drain the water; I had to blow around five times to clear the mask. Sigh of relief, now the second exercise was to use the compass as navigation underwater.

Andy pointed towards a direction, and I had to adjust the compass and swim towards it. I swam for about 20 feet, while Andy was swimming on top of me to see if I was doing it rightly. Even a slight deviation while swimming would change the pointers in the compass. We had swam further from the anchor line, and could not see it. The only option left was to ascend to the surface. Once on the surface, we saw the boat was hundreds of feet away from us. Andy used his whistle and the boat started sailing towards us.

I was happy that I completed all the tasks successfully, only to hear Andy say CESA! Holy, I did not have energy to perform Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent. We went down again until 18 feet holding the rope, I had to breathe three times, and while ascending had to exhale slowly without inhaling until I reached the surface, this technique helps the diver in case he runs out of breathing air. I also had to orally inflate the BCD jacket to complete the task. I completed the CESA because of Andy’s persuasion and curses. I was a certified open water diver when I got onto the boat.

Now, I plan to do dives in Andamans, and Mauritius sometime this year. Try diving once!