An affair underwater: Adventure in the Andamans

 

“We are almost there”, said the thin man. A trifle unfair maybe, as on any other day he could have passed off as wiry. Jumping up from my perch, I walked across the length of the deck and stared at the land mass, just like all sea captains do, puffing out their chests and assuming that strategic conservative glimmer in the eyes.

“Land ahoy”, I muttered and marched off importantly, leaving wiry boy wondering why all tourists were consistently obnoxious. But it seemed like the right thing to say then.

An hour later, I was moving back into the sea, this time on a small dunghi and wearing a scuba suit, the waves hissing and spitting all around. “Oops”, I blurted. It seemed like the right thing to say then.

Earlier in the morning when the sun was not even out, we had slipped out of our hotel, and run across Blair’s jetty, a fine drizzle helping us hasten to the ticket-office.  “Four tickets, Havelock Island,” Murali panted. A couple of hours’ ship ride from Port Blair, Havelock is the pride of discovered Andaman.  Its Radhanagar beach was voted as Asia’s prettiest a few years ago, a fact that inspired a surge in google clicks. I haven’t traveled the world, but today it is my favourite.

Sharp at 1130 am, we were standing in the interiors of the scuba diving school.  The floor was of sand, the dining table an upturned canoe.  “Welcome to Havelock” said Mario, a wide smile rendering him beautiful.  As he ushered us to his ‘baby’ – a computer that was so ancient that it seemed to have descended from the middle ages -  and showed us a few diving videos, I realized he was one of those men that you could not but instinctively like.  His eyes twinkled as he made fun of you, he’d laugh warmly at your retort and he loved what he did - exploring the sea and showing it to the world. I liked our curly haired, tanned instructor.

“I can’t swim, you know “, I informed him. “Then we’ll have a little more space on the boat while coming back” pat came the reply.

We rushed into the changing rooms and changed into our scuba costumes excitedly. A few moments later, we were all standing under the sun in one row wearing tight figure hugging bright yellow-and-black, a happy menagerie of exotic African animals.

All diving sessions are preceded by a short half-hour training stint in shallow waters.  Once there, Mario taught us the basic communication signs to be used underwater, and how to breathe with our mouths and the oxygen mask.  Underprepared and nervous, we finally set out for our first real deep sea diving experience in the Indian ocean. Earlier Mario had told us how it was absolutely safe inside the water and how marine animals never attacked humans. “What’s that deep scar on your leg?” I screamed over the din of the engine. “Shark,” he yelled back, helpfully.When we were in the middle of the ocean, he stopped the dunghi’s motor and asked us to take the plunge. The blue looked ominous. The fact that there were two trainers, each allotted to a set of two divers did not do much for my confidence.

It is hard to describe how one feels once they are inside the ocean. In the initial moments, all I could do was try to concentrate on my breathing. But soon, the corals appeared out of the darkness, and between them flitted fishes in hundreds, and thousands. Puzzled at this human intrusion, they came out of their homes and inspected us, up and down. Conscious, I put my best angle forward, slicing my hand through water hoping they’d form an honourable impression. As it goes, they looked quite disgusted with the effort and left soon, their cute bottoms swaying in the water as they glided away.

Spotting an elephant nose fish, I turned to flag Murali and that’s when I noticed that he was frantically showing the thumbs-up, a sign that he immediately wanted to go to the surface. Mario, our trainer, was nowhere in sight. Clumsily, I made my way towards my teammate, and we made our way to the surface. “Are you alright,” I gasped as we floated on the water, the water up to my nose. “Oh, I just wanted to burp,” said my friend.

I would have wanted to put a dagger through him, but keen observation told me that the sea was pulling me further from the coast. On the surface, with my body vertical I was finding it hard to pull myself back into a horizontal swimming position and though I wasn’t under immediate threat of drowning, with every passing second the coast looked more of a distant speck. It looked quite un-macho I think, to let that cunning sea play with me such. Then just when I decided that enough was enough and only prayers could save the day, Mario emerged from the depths of the sea, just like those heroes do at the exact moment, not a second before.

When I accusingly (read: splutteringly) demanded of his whereabouts, he told me that he was just checking as to how we would react under duress. I won’t say much about how I felt then, but as we resumed our dive, some of us went cursing while others oddly guffawed. But once inside, everything changed to happiness. Surreal finds its best example inside the ocean. It is only when you are there that you realize that there is a life, a world that you have never known of and you cannot help but feel overwhelmed by it. Everywhere around me there were fish in resplendent hues of orange, yellow, purple and a thousand other colours and my heart sang as we walked on the sea bed, putting out our hands gently to just know them, to feel them. Few sports leave you more humbled.

I stayed that night in Havelock. It was the only time when I lay on the beach for a whole night.  The next evening, as we left the island, we stood at the deck and stared affectionately at the shore for some time. Somewhere in the water, a little clown fish was telling its father, “Ooooo dad, you know I saw humans today! Isn’t that cool?!”