We recently spent a week diving Goa with Barracuda Diving, which is based in the Goa Marriot Resort. Barracuda Diving have been taking divers to explore the dive sites off Goa since 1993. Operated by Venkat Charloo and Karen Gregory, Barracuda Diving offer dive courses and daily boat dives to the best dive sites in the area.
Diving in Goa is seasonal, only possible from October to April when the conditions are calm and water reasonable clear. As Barracuda Diving point out on their website, if looking for crystal clear water then look elsewhere, as the visibility averages 6m to 12m, but can vary at anytime from 1m to 20m. However, what they do offer is warm water, 27C to 29C degrees, and the chance to see tropical marine life, with many species unique to the Arabian Sea.
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. They have over a dozen sites they regularly dive, with the most popular being the wreck of the SS Rita.
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. We did three dives on this part of the wreck, in visibility from 3m to 8m, and had a lot of fun exploring the wreckage. While parts of the wreck are broken up, there are still many intact sections that can be identified and investigated.
The wreck is now decorated by small corals, sea whips and gorgonians, and home to crabs, nudibranchs and abundant reef fish. We encountered collare butterflyfish, blue ringed angelfish, triggerfish, rabbitfish, globefish, lionfish, damsels, wrasse, scorpionfish and white-eye moray eels. Schools of bullseyes shelter inside the wreck, while swarms of snapper engulf parts of the wreckage. A
highlight was all the resident Malabar gropers; we saw at least four on each
dive, including some a metre long.The stern section of the SS Rita lies near the rocks that sunk the ship, about 2km from the bow. 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. Venkat also informed us that there is wreckage from a mysterious older ship nearby.
The diving around Grande Island is on sand, rock and sparse coral in depths from 3m to 9m. All of the dive sites are silty, a legacy of several nearby rivers, which can make underwater photography a bit of a challenge.
At Shelter Cove we saw lots of plate corals and tropical fish. This site is also a good spot to observe shrimp gobies sharing homes with their pet shrimps; they are all over the place. We also saw Indian goatfish, blue-lined rock cod and a shy cuttlefish. On The Rocks is a dive site with amazing sea whip forests, which cover almost every inch of the bottom. Stingrays and barracuda are sometimes seen here; we didn’t see any, but did find nudibranchs and thick schools of collare butterflyfish.
At Grand Banks we found lots of plate and brain corals, plus a wealth of reef fish. The highlight at this site was finding a large Malabar groper getting cleaned by a tiny cleaner shrimp. While at The Jetty we saw moray eels, reef fish, crabs and thousands of green sea slugs, similar to a nudibranch.
None of Grande Island’s dive sites are protected and suffer from fishing pressure and anchor damage to the delicate corals. Venkat would love to see the whole island protected as it is a very unique part of India. However, as the island is used by the Indian Navy, who denies there is any coral around the island, there is very little chance of this happening at the moment.
When not diving we enjoyed many of Goa’s topside attractions. Goa is the smallest state in India, and a former Portuguese colony, unlike the rest of India, which was under British rule. The Portuguese finally departed in 1961, leaving behind a large Christian population and many historic churches and forts. The food in Goa is superb, great curries, but you can also get excellent western meals. Goa’s beaches are famous, but from an Australian perspective the beaches are very average.
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.
We enjoyed some interesting diving in Goa, but one thing we missed out on was a trip to Netrani Island. Barracuda Diving offer regular three day trips to this island, five hours drive south of Goa. Netrani Island lies 10 nautical miles off the coast and is blessed with clear water and incredible marine life, a good excuse for us to return to this fascinating part of the world.