Diving Karnataka And Cultural Trip In South India.
This is a review about a diving tour in India. This particular trip was in March 2005.We had dived many times from the Marriott Hotel in Goa from where Barracuda Diving are based but fancied doing something a little different whilst enjoying our favourite hobby….scuba diving so this time we opted to go South. This review is based on the trip itself and the diving rather than the dive school of which I have already done a review. I have only given a taster of the trip as don't want to bore people.

We set off on yet another one of Goa's idyllic hot days. Thank goodness for the decent air con. We passed many little towns and villages and the first couple of hours soon passed by and we stopped for a spot of lunch. This was in a little town of Karwar. We pulled up at a restaurant (probably the sort you may usually pass by). We were warmly greeted by the staff and were soon drinking a ice cold well deserved Kingfisher. We all ordered food and lunch was soon served. We had various variations of curries, popadoms, and pakoras and of course rice. It was as you would expect freshly cooked and delicious.

As we approached our final stop we could see the magnificent golden statue of Shiva. (More about that later)

RMS Residency Hotel.
This is a 3* hotel facing the Arabian Sea surrounded by a picturesque sea shore and virtually empty beach. The hotel has 90 luxury rooms ( by Indian standards) although we were more than happy with our clean spacious room complete with air con, a bath ( a luxury in India!),shower, TV and in room safe and with a little balcony facing right over the sea giving us a magnificent view of the beach. We were actually the only guests the first day!

We all met for a drink and our guide who had now arrived took us to sunset point and the Statue of Shiva. The statue of Shiva looks to be a least 100ft high but carved with incredible attention to detail from the long shapely fingers, intricately knotted hair, the serpent coiled around its neck to the tiger skin he's seated on. It's certainly impressive to say the least. We walk around the temple and other statues (all magnificent but would write forever on here if I included them) and we draw a lot of attention from the local kids. The locals don't see many white people especially white women. They were all harmless and were really interested in our digital cameras and camcorders. They loved it when we could take a photo and then show it to them. Most of our cameras cost more than they would ever earn over many years. Our guide Vikas was a bit concerned we would find them too much and was going to tell them to go away but we are well travelled and it didn't bother us at all. I did indeed have some idea of how Michael Palin must have felt on his travels. We went into the church which also was fascinating Vikas being an excellent guide. We watched a splendid sunset, after snapping many photos.

We then went to a restaurant for dinner and sat outside under a myriad of twinkling stars .We had first class service from the waiters. We each ordered a variety of dishes and Vikas ordered some things for us to try. Our table was soon covered with various dishes of hot food, rice bajis, poppadoms, pakoras curries. My favourite is always paneer curry which is cheese based and is absolutely delicious. It was like a banquet fit for kings. Food is flavoursome rather than hot and spicy in South Goa. This restaurant served beer as our hotel didn't serve beer as not all places do outside Goa.

Jenny's Aquarium.
Our fabulous dive began a small cavern. Visibility was around 15metres.The surrounding rocks bustled with Moorish Idols, Bannerfish, Blue Ringed Angelfish and a variety of schooling butterfly fish. We also saw honeycombed morays and lobsters. We gently drift past the sheer walls of the island which form a superb backdrop for a huge variety of fishes common to this site. Our dive lasts 57 minutes before our assent to the surface.

T55
This was such a nice dive, very gentle drift, lots of little corals. Loads of Honeycombed Morays, Eagle Rays. Lots of triggers and Bannerfish to name a few. Lots of very small fish. Saw bits of the T55 which was cool. An hour was not long enough Just wanted to stay down forever. Depth 12.5m. Visibility around 15m.

Just kitting up for dive and saw a Whale again! Too quick to photograph though. Also saw Dolphins.Saw nice Parrotfish and Groupers and barracudas. We followed a gentle slope of hard coral and rocks towards the island. Honeycombed Morays in abundance along with Morays.Shallows were teeming with Rabbitfish and Sergant Majors.Depth of 13.7. Dive time 62 minutes. Surface interval then next dive site:

What more could you want?

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