We first travelled to India in 2001, spending a month backpacking through the country. We had an incredible time, seeing the Taj Mahal, mystics, countless temples, wild tigers and many other wonderful sights, and didn’t give any thought to underwater attractions.
However, when asked to go to India for work for several months in 2007, we thought we better checkout
the
diving options. A quick search of the internet show there was diving at the
Andaman Islands and Ladshadweep Islands, both sounded fantastic, but were well
of the coast of mainland India, and would require too much travel time. The
other option was Goa, only an hour flight from where we were to be based in
Hyderabad.When we first visited India, Goa was one place we avoided, as we had heard it was over run with tourists and a bit of a hippy hangout. Goa is the smallest state in India, and a former Portuguese colony, unlike the rest of India which was under British rule. The Portuguese were finally kicked out in 1961, leaving behind a large Christian population.
Today Goa is India’s beach side holiday destination, popular with foreign and local tourist. We found the beaches to be very average compared to Aussie beaches, but Europeans flock here to swim, sunbake, party and also dive.
We contacted Barracuda Diving, one of the oldest dive operations in Goa and organised a week of diving in November. Now, diving in Goa is seasonal, October to April being the diving months, the other months are monsoon time, rough seas and very dirty water.
Barracuda Diving is owned and operated by Venkat Charloo and Karen Gregory, and assisted by several expat instructors and a number of local staff. They are based at
the Goa Marriott Resort and offer dive courses and daily boat dives.Venkat has been diving the waters off Goa for over a dozen years and is quick to point out to visiting divers that they shouldn’t expect crystal clear waters. The visibility is usually 6m to 12m, but can vary from 1m to 20m. But even with poor visibility, the water is warm, 27C to 29C degrees, and there is a good mix of tropical marine life to be seen.
Barracuda Diving offer a morning double dive each day, when the water is clearest. We met at the dive shop at 8am, signed our waivers and were soon on the dive boat heading out to Grande Island, where there are over a dozen dive sites.
While safety practises in India can be laxed at times, Barracuda Diving run a very professional operation, with safety their number one priority. As we travelled the forty minutes to the dive site, we were given a safety briefing on the boat and diving.
Our first dive was to be on Goa’s most popular dive site, the wreck of the SS Rita. This 130m long steam ship sunk in the 1950s after striking rocks off Grande Island. She broke in two, with the stern section remaining near the rocks, while the bow and mid section of the ship drifted quite a distance before sinking in a cove off Grande Island.
Once in the water the legendary Goa visibility lived up to its reputation, only 3m. However, this didn’t stop us enjoying the dive on this broken up wreck. Much of the bow section is intact, with winch gear and anchor chain on view.
Going no deeper than 9m we spent almost an hour exploring the bow section. The marine life on the wreck was quite impressive; moray eels, bullseyes, bream, angelfish, butterflyfish, scorpionfish, rock cods and sweetlips. There were also quite a few gropers residing on the wreck. Many of the species were familiar to us, but there were also many Arabian Sea species we had never seen before.
Photography was a real challenge, the surge stirred up the sand and lots of fine silt hung suspended in the water. Macro was the best option and we found lots of crabs, one colourful nudibranch, molluscs, hermit crabs and small corals to photograph.
Our next dive was at Shelter Cove. The visibility was a little better here, 4m, and a highlight was all the sand
gobies.
Popping out of every hole in the sand was at least one goby keeping guard while
their pet shrimp did maintenance work on their shared home. The site here was 6m
deep, with a good coverage of plate corals and sea whips. We saw quite a few
reef fish, including blue triggerfish. At the end of the dive we found a shy
cuttlefish. Venkat informed us that they sometimes see olive ridley turtles and
bamboo catsharks here.The next day we returned to explore more of the wreck; the visibility was much the same. For the second dive we got slightly clearer water at a dive site called The Jetty. This sheltered site is only 6m deep and has lots of plate coral. With 5m visibility we found more gobies and a good variety of reef fish. Everywhere you looked at this site there were small green sea slugs. But other interesting critters were hermit crabs, a bizarre hairy crab and a fire worm. At the end of the dive we also found a moray eel out in the open.
The dive boat Barracuda Diving operate is brand new and very comfortable. Between dives we enjoyed fresh fruit and biscuits, while watching sea eagles cruise above Grande Island. We were surprised by the number of dolphins we saw each day. These looked like a species of river dolphin, quite small and with a tiny dorsal fin.
The following day the visibility was even worse on the SS Rita, so we returned to Shelter Cove and The Jetty. The visibility was also bad at these sites, so macro with the gobies was the go.
We decided to give diving a miss the next day and explore a little of Goa topside. There is plenty to see in this area, historic Portuguese churches, old forts, and numerous markets, including the Anjuna Flea Market, where Goa’s hippies and locals sell products.
After our day off we were ready to get back into the water and were hoping the visibility had improved. Glassy conditions were a good omen, and at Grand Banks the visibility was okay at 5m. This site was fun to explore with lots of boulders and plate corals. Abundant reef fish and a large groper made this an enjoyable dive.
The second dive was at a site called On the Rocks, but a better name would be Whip Valley as the bottom here is completely covered in red sea whips. Only 8m deep, we were amazed by the number of sea whips sprouting from the rocks and sandy bottom. There were also small gorgonians and sponges. The fish life was also good, with schools of butterflyfish, triggerfish and fusiliers. We also found a couple of pretty nudibranchs and several shells. Venkat has seen cobia, barracuda and stingrays at this site before.
Back to the SS Rita the next morning
and the visibility had finally improved, 8m now. This allowed us a chance to
fully explore the wreck. We spent an hour exploring the wreck, finding a maze of
plates, beams, pipes and several intact section of the ship. The marine life was
good; lionfish, moray eels, gropers, blennies, wrasse, triggerfish, surgeonfish,
globefish, bullseyes and schools of snapper.However, the visibility at Goa is very fickle, at the next dive at Umma Gumma Reef the dirty water had returned. This is usually a spot with great pelagic fish life, but with only 2m visibility we only saw reef fish.
The following day was our last and we were hoping the visibility would improve as we were heading to Sail Rock, Goa’s most exciting dive site. Conditions were perfect, no wind, calm seas and even blue water. Venkat jumped in to check the visibility and current, and came up with a big smile. We were quickly in the water and amazed to see the visibility was 15m!
Sail Rock is a pinnacle of rock that towers out of the water. Venkat informed us it attracts pelagic fish, eagle rays and stingrays. We were just happy to finally have good visibility. We headed to the bottom at 12m, and just sat there for five minutes watching all the abundant reef fish; parrotfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, bannerfish, rabbitfish, sweetlip, triggerfish and many more.
We then swam a slow circuit around Sail Rock. The bottom drops to 22m here, but below 12m there was a layer of dirty water keeping us in the shallows. We found gropers, painted crayfish, crabs, sea whips, gorgonians and schools of fusiliers. At the end of the dive we settled on a ridge at 6m and watched the parade of fish life, which included some big trevally. This was one great dive.
With such good conditions Venkat took us to the stern section of the SS Rita, a site he calls Davey Jones Locker. The visibility on this dive was 4m to 8m, just good enough for photography as we investigated the wreck.
The stern of the ship lies in 8m to 13m. We saw large plates and beams, before finally arriving at a huge piece of wreckage, the intact stern. This section of the stern still has the rudder and propeller attached, and is about 20m long. You can safely enter the wreck, home to bullseyes and rock cod, but the best part is outside, as fish swarm around the winch gear. Sweetlip, trevally, gropers, squirrelfish and lots of reef fish were an impressive sight. We surfaced from this dive happy to have finished our diving in Goa on a high.
Goa is well worth a visit if you are in India, but is not the sort of place you plan an entire dive holiday around, unless you don’t mind limited visibility. Barracuda Dive also run regular three day trips, five hours drive south, to Murdeshwar to dive Netrani Island. This island is 10 nautical miles offshore so has better visibility, 15m to 30m, and very impressive marine life. This is a site we are hoping to explore when we return to India in 2008.