India is not well known as a diving destination, but there is exceptional reef diving to be experienced at the Andaman Islands off the east coast and Lakshadweep Islands off the west coast. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to reach these remote island paradises during a recent extended stay in India. Instead we headed to Goa for week of Indian mainland diving.
Goa is located on the lower west coast of India and is best known for its beaches, hippies, back-packers and old churches. A former Portuguese colony until 1961, Goa has a much different feel and look to the rest of India that was under British rule.
Now first a few words of warning, Goa is not a world class dive destination, as Venkat Charloo of Barracuda Diving is the first to point out. The visibility is limited most of the time and we found the species diversity to be poor. However, the species we did see were in quite surprisingly abundant numbers.
The majority of dive sites off Goa are located around Grande Island, about a forty minute boat ride on Barracuda Diving’s comfortable dive boat. We did a number of dives around the island in depths from 3m to 13m. Around this rocky island are gardens of hard and soft corals which give way to a forest of sea whips in depths beyond 8m.
On most dives we encountered colourful reef fish such as blue ringed angelfish, triggerfish, rabbitfish, globefish, lionfish, Indian goatfish, peacock rock cod, damsels, wrasse, scorpionfish and also moray eels. The most abundant fish species was the thick schools of collared butterflyfish, which swarmed around us at times. The sandy bottom between the corals and rocks are a haven for shrimp gobies. We have never seen so many shrimp gobies, they were everywhere.
We were quite surprised by the poor variety of invertebrate species, only a handful of nudibranchs, featherstars, shrimps, crabs and worms. The one exception was green sap suckers, which covered the bottom in some spots. We did see one lovely little cuttlefish and Venkat informed us that they also see crayfish, turtles, bamboo catsharks, eagle rays and stingrays on occasions.
The most popular dive site off Goa is without doubt the wreck of the SS Rita. The SS Rita was a 130m long steam ship that sunk in the 1950s after running onto rocks off Grande Island. The ship split in two, with each section now a distinctive dive site.
The main section of the wreck lies in 9m on a sandy bottom and is nicknamed Suzy’s Wreck. This part of the wreck includes the bow and mid ships. While parts of the wreck are broken up, there are still many intact sections that can be explored.
The wreck is now decorated by small corals, sea whips and gorgonians, and home to abundant reef fish. Schools of bullseyes shelter inside the wreck, while swarms of snapper engulf parts of the wreckage. But the highlight was all the resident Malabar gropers. We saw at least four on each dive, including some a metre long. These large fish could be seen resting on the sand or wreckage, and being accustom to divers allowed us to get very close for photos. One even had an escort of several juvenile golden trevally always around its head.
The stern section of the SS Rita lies near the rocks that sunk the ship. This part of the wreck is known as Davey Jones Locker and sits in 8m to 13m. While there
are
beams, plates and pipes scattered on the rocky bottom, the main attraction is
the intact stern. This section of the wreck is around 20m long, and includes the
rudder, prop and winch. Reef fish are attracted to this large section of the
wreck like a magnet, and we saw schools of trevally, sweetlips and fusiliers.The best dive we did at Goa was on a towering column of rock called Sail Rock. Located south west of Grande Island, Sail Rock sits in 20m of water, and rises 12m above the surface. We had 15m visibility when we dived Sail Rock and were amazed by the abundance of fish here. Schools of trevally, fusiliers, blue triggerfish, surgeonfish, Indian bannerfish, wrasse, parrotfish, snapper and Indian vagabond butterflyfish were just some of the species we encountered. As we did a slow circuit around the rock we also found a painted crayfish, blue ringed angelfish, moray eels and gropers. This site is also visited by eagle rays, barracuda and stingrays at times.
None of Grande Island’s dive sites are protected and suffer from fishing pressure, pollution and anchor damage to the delicate hard corals. It would be great to see this whole island protected as it is a very unique part of India and a great place to ‘chill out’.
