Lakshadweep, which means "hundred thousand islands" is one of the most beautiful Union territory India has. The islands are closest to the keralian province and is rich in coral diversity, hence is a scuba den for the Divers.
By the title it's quite clear that my trip of Lakshadweep was fully devoted to Scuba. I visited only Kavaratti island where i did a course of open water diving from Lakshadweep sports tourism scuba diving centre.
I believe choosing to scuba dive was one of the very few correct decision I took in my life and then turned a memory and desire for life.Scuba diving isn't just a fun task to do but to know the under water world, to feel it, to experience it is surreal and beyond words.
I felt very lucky that in today's moving urbanisation, to scuba dive isn't an elite job to do or only specifics can do the job kinda task.It's easily accessible for all of us now.
This wholesome wonderful experience of scuba costed me around 3o,000 INR
NOTE: You don't need to know swimming for doing Scuba diving, you just need to be confident cause even I don't know swimming till date.
My trip started from Mumbai Airport and I was travelling in April. I booked a Mumbai to Cochin return ticket for Rs.5000 and an additional Rs.5400 for Agatti Island to cochin flight during my return, this was a month prior to my travel. I flew with Air India, cause they are the only who fly from Agatti islands :(
I flew from mumbai at around 2 0'clock in the night and reached Cochin by morning 4:00 AM.
From cochin we had some different plans, we were going to board a ship from Calavathy Boat dock to Kalpeni Island (The closest to Keralian province) and From there to Kavaratti island, which was our destination island. We were sailing with MV Arabian Sea that day.
NOTE: Seven passenger ships – MV Kavaratti, MV Arabian Sea, MV Lakshadweep Sea, MV Lagoon, MV Corals, MV Amindivi and MV Minicoy operate between Cochin and Lakshadweep islands. The passage takes 14 to 18 hours depending on island chosen for journey. The ships offer different classes of accommodation: A/C First Class with two berth cabins, A/C Second Class with four berth cabins and push back/Bunk Class with A/C seating. A doctor is available on call on board. MV Amindivi and MV Minicoy also offer comfortable A/C seating ideal for a night’s journey. During fair season, high speed vessels operate between islands.
The ship idea saved a lot from our pockets, it just took Rs.400 and a government permission to enter the island.
Travelling in a ship for such long time was a wonderful experience, looking at the sun set and rise in the middle of the sea is ethereal.
Though, you need to take care of your proper medication, if you ain't a pirate soul!
We took a halt at the Kalpeni Island to sail further for Kavaratti. Kalpeni doesn't have a ship dock for the bigger ship like ours, so the ship stops at some distance and few boats come to pick you up for the Island.
Kalpeni Island is a very small island of around 25km square area. The island majorly depends on fishing and coconut farming for the economy.
Till the time of leaving for Kavaratti, we chilled at the beach pool with some coconut water.
And by the noon we left for Kavaratti.
The journey took 4 hours for us to reach Kavaratti on a speed boat, from where we had to start our Scuba course.
Kavaratti is the capital island of the union territory and is popular for it's dazzling white sand beaches and super calm lagoons which makes it one among the popular tourist island in Lakshadweep like Bangaram and Kadmat islands.
I've never seen the sea so blue, as in Lakshadweep.
We had our accommodation sorted in the state guest house in Kavaratti.
On the evening we hit Kavaratti, we just chilled in our rooms, had dinner and slept.
This was our first day of scuba lessons in the ocean, we already had taken basic pool training (confined water dives) in Mumbai before going there.We were trained by Lacadives , Bandra, Mumbai as they were the one who arranged our scuba course.
The confined water dives is about knowing the equipments and being familiar with the water.They also teach assembling and dissembling of your equipments such as attaching your BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) to the air cylinder and to check the correct air pressure of the BCD after inflating it.
The lessons include few measures to be taken if the BCD doesn't function or some emergency occurs and the signs to communicate underwater.
NOTE: If you are not done with your confined dives before landing at Lakshadweep then need not to worry cause you'll be taught those things in the shallow water initially and then will be taken for the deep sea dive.
DAY 1: On the first day of open water training, we were taken to 10 meters of depth in the ocean and that spot was called the classroom, this was where the dive masters gets your pool training procedures revised. There's the first and most important rule in scuba diving that you never go for diving alone and always take a partner along which is called the buddy, we were partnered with one another similarly.
The dive master makes sure you are able to pull off all the techniques taught during the pool training or not on the first day.
After coming out we were tired we just hogged on the food. Scuba is actually tiring but is a great experience when you get to enter the dynamics of the aquatic world.
It feels like under water life is altogether a different realm in itself. It is so calm and peaceful inside the water. I can't just explain the feeling of being inside and diving with fishes and aquatic animals, you've only seen in aquariums or aquatic museums.
We had one dive everyday and it was a 4 days training with 4 dives. We had completed the session and were free to rest for the remaining day.
DAY 2: We were all ready to dive today with more excitement as we had been told that today we get to swim a bit and we won't just perform procedures being at one place at that classroom.
Today we were asked to perform certain training procedures again with the buddy.We learnt few things to perform if the snorkel of the BCD doesn't work, like ascending with the alternate snorkel of the buddy, to ascend without the snorkel and buddy, also to maintain the buoyancy of the body while diving and then we were left to dive around for a bit in the dive masters super vision.
Again after completing todays dive, we went and ate our lunch and then stayed at the beach itself till the dusk, playing and chilling around.
DAY 3: We were going to dive a little more around the ocean that day, we had a great experience on day 3 as we explored a lot more than earlier days and we were taught to find location and directions under water that day.
The lessons on this day were a bit more engaging and exciting to perform. After completing todays lesson we were told that we are done with our course and will get a free dive tomorrow where we'll dive at the depth of 18 metres twice.
DAY 4: We started our day little much earlier than the usual as we needed to take at least a gap of 18hours between our dives and the flight.
we sailed on our boats to a point called garden, took the giant stride and went for the craziest experience of my scuba diving course.
We went deep down to 18 metres and explored a lot of sea creatures and scenic beauty of the sea. This was the day when I felt earth is much more mystique then I have ever thought. The sea deep inside has it's own mountains and valleys, when I started discovering more and more inside it started showing me more.
Scuba diving made me fall for it, I never ever thought that I can see and know this much of water without not knowing swimming.
After completing the final dive we left for our guest house and then left for Agatti the very next morning.
Agatti is the airport Island of Lakshadweep, and the most beautiful airport of India from an aerial view.
Agatti to Cochin is a 1hour 20minutes flight.We reached cochin by 12:30 and then had a flight for Bombay after 5 hours. We spent our time watching a movie at the mall nearest to the airport and flew back to mumbai then.
FACT: Cochin airport is fully solar powered.
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