Sharavati Part 4 - In the backwaters!

No one gets into the water without life jackets, whether they know to swim or not. Period.

-King Julian

He cared about his comrades as much as he cared about his spaceship!

Most of us, save a few lazy bones, were up at 6:00a.m in the morning to see the sun rise from the hillocks that surrounded the backwaters. A few photographs later, we were off to the base camp for our morning rituals and then a nutritious breakfast of ragi dosa, uttapams, chutney and rasam. Then the real fun began! We were back to the ochre yellow landscape decorated with brown tree stumps. However, now, unlike the night, a hot breeze had started to blow and the sun had already begun showing its might. The calm water was beckoning us. We rushed into our tents and got into water friendly clothes, put on our life jackets and lined up at the shore with water kissing our feet. We were divided into 2 categories: swimmers and non-swimmers. Everyone had to reach a tree in the middle of the river about a kilometer from the starting point and then swim back. 

King Julian’s lost spaceship was cozily lodged near the tree and he was overjoyed to find it finally. We just had to reach there now.

King Julian!!

ready to dive in the water..!

The swimmers were sent in first for obvious reasons. The non-swimmers were taught the basics of how to move their hands and feet in the water. They were also taught to trust the life-jackets. But, the fear of the “unknown” or “not knowing” is always a dominating factor. Thus poor Nachiket, a helpful swimmer, had 3 people holding on to him in spite of the life jackets; as he struggled to make them comfortable in the water. Then there was poor Ram, a helpful non-swimmer, who was helping a terrified Prachi to adjust to water. Then there were a few non-helpful swimmers like Aditi who were just floating blissfully face up in the water. Then there were some other acrobatic swimmers like Malur, who was trying to climb a tree to dive into the water. The smooth tree trunk made slippery by his wet body made the task more difficult. He fell down many times but finally managed to get the grip and technique to go up the tree and got himself a well-deserved dive! Finally there was Achlesh who had got himself a canoe and was doing the noble job of capturing our antics on the camera to keep the memories alive!

diving from trees!

fun in the water..

For the next one hour, we were floating around in our life jackets. Even the non-swimmers had come to trust their life jackets and there was no fear now… only fun… lots of it! Then we had rounds of kayaking and canoeing. A special mention here to the great rower - Arun Mysore, who sped in the kayak like a professional while the rest of us were struggling to hold the oar properly!

Then there was the coracle – a round tub like boat which was even more difficult to sail around than the canoe! We made the boat spin round and round as fast as we could and left it that way. It felt good just sitting like that in the rotating boat. We did it over and over again. Unlike a merry-go-round, we were not falling out from the sides when the boat went round, we could just hold on to the edges, close our eyes and let our head spin.

Canoeing in Sharavati!

The coracle

At 2p.m in the afternoon we came out of the water, quite reluctant to do so. That is when we realized the intense heat that the sun was spewing. That is also when we realized that we had got ourself a bronze tan in a matter of hours. The fairer amongst us had got a red tan! The ground was hot and our tents had become ovens. We changed into dry clothes and put on our sun protection gear. The tents were removed and packed. We were back at the base camp where a hot lunch of pulav, rasam, plain rice and papad was awaiting us. Then after a round of photography and good byes, we were off to the same old life at Mangalore and Bangalore respectively!

After a "tanny" day in the water

Date: 23rd and 24th March, 2013.

With: Achalesh Jayaram, Ashwin Karanth, Varun Iyer, Prathamesh Mathre, Ankit, Jayaprakash, Aparna Pal, Sutonuka Mazumdar, Ramaprasad, Vinayaka Akkasali, Arun Mysore, Aditi Vishwasrao, Charan Walke, Nachiket Velankar, Hannan Shaikh, Venu Gopal, Smitha Upadya, Gayathri Holla, Prachi Bhosale, Giri Tanari, Mahantesh Paramraj, Karthik Malur.