What's next?!...'What do I do with my yacht?'? Most of us would just not want our precious water-ladies to be sitting pretty in the harbor and getting 'sun-tanned'.
Most yacht-owners would want to take their yachts for a regular spin with their friends or associates...some would take it one step ahead and get thrilled with watersports at the back of their boat.
BUT one of the most sought after 'things-to-do' for owners is the BOMBAY TO GOA 'ODYSSEA' !
GO GIIRA ! GO GOA !!
Venue : Gateway of India
Date : 6th March
Time : 0530
Event : The Sun, Sky, Sand, Surf - and a Sea Ray going home to GOA ! The euphoria and the excitement that Team GIIRA felt was at a different level.
Boarding boats of different sizes is a daily affair, but boarding one and going ALL THE DISTANCE to Goa, was something that really
Team GIIRA got an opportunity of its lifetime, to board a Sea Ray 330 heading home to Goa after the Mumbai International Boat Show '08...and thouroughly enjoyed this Odyssea.
READY! GET SET!! GO!!!
TWILIGHT - the first light of the day welcomed the start of our journey...
On-board the Sea-Ray were a total of eight of us...'Captain' Malcolm, 'Commander' Milind, 'Lieutenant' Wally, 'Officer' Dilip AND of course the 4 of us.
With all our lugguage stowed away in the cabin of the Sea-Ray and with engines warmed-up to the right temperatures, it was time to get moving.
Thanks to the jetty constructed for the MIBS '08, getting ourselves and the lugguage on to the boat was made easy, which would have been quite a task without the jetty...jumping on and off a tender (small row-boat) with lugguage and load.
CROWDED HOUSE
Almost pitch-dark, when we started off - the ever-expanding Mumbai Harbor - seemed like a small task to waiver around all the boats.
We sailed close to the Pride of the Mumbai Harbor - The Indian Empress. On closing in, we realised how BIG she was in all her beauty.
ONCE UNDERWAY...
...the fresh and cool breeze...kept us all in high-spirits! The team was really excited and did not know what to expect of the journey...but the feeling of being on the water with the surf created by the Sea-Rays twin stern drive engines and the Mumbai skyline slowly diminishing in the background was enigmatic..!
With Malcolm setting course on the Satellite-Navigation equipment and Milind keeping a look-out for the fishing trawlers and their nets with their beacons, we felt quite safe and secured to be in the right hands and on the right track.
Wally would keep ensuring that we ate and drank plenty, in order not to feel sea-sick but sadly since it was one of our first times being out on the sea for so long, got the better of some of us.
MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE
Now lets talk about the best part of the trip - BEING AT THE WHEEL OF THE SEA RAY !
YESSSS ! - we got to drive this fast-moving (30 Knots+) beast...and we felt a million bucks and in complete control of the immense power of this 640 Horse-Power monster...
The thrill and the euphoria you feel is way beyond comprehension. If you feel that the fastest car would be able to excite you as much...then you are wrong!!!
Nothing gets close to giving you the Sun over your head, silver-blue Sky, pristine white-sand beaches on your side and the powder-y Surf behind your back...would it!?
Thanks to Malcolm, who gave over the wheel to 2 of us and was guiding us how to ride the waves in order to feel least number of bumps and water splashing in...the drive was a great experience!
THANKS MALCOLM !
JAIGARH - AN OASIS IN THE SEA
Half way through and 5 whole bouncy hours into the drive...and the fuel alarm buzzers about to...we saw the Jaigarh jetty on our Sat-Nav screen...and felt quite relieved.
Because it was the first time that most of us had been so long on a boat moving fast on choppy waters, it did tae a lot physically and otherwise too...with the constant glare of the sun above our head.
Tanned we already were...but the sappy nature of the seas had us quite dehydrated.
Due to such an experience, we strongly suggests that if you ever plan to go to Goa in a yacht make sure that it is a good-sized one with an enclosed deck...or the weather would get the better of you.
But thanks to the Marine Solutions team, we were all well taken care of through the worse part of our experience.
Jaigarh - truly turned out to be an oasis in our case. But what an oasis it turned out to be?!...
We enter the creek that led us to the jetty. Surrounded by the famous Jaigarh Fort's architecture and green hills, we were excited to know what lies ahead.
Sadly, for a mult-crore yacht with a capacity of 1200 ltrs, we had to pump in every litre using a Sudanese pump, and once that pump broke, we had use the galli ka mechanic method of sucking the petrol and using small pipes.
A small fishing town, Jaigarh lives around its jetty. With fish being the staple diet, the jetty houses many a fishing trawlers with a bazaar to take care of its people's needs.
The small huts and cottages on the hilly terrain - that were home to the people there looked beautiful and the quality of life yet untouched by the cities around it.
SNOW-WHITE BEACHES
Once we filled the our stomach at a local eatery and the Sea Ray's really hungry belly with 1200 litres of fuel to suffice our 2nd and last leg, we headed out of Jaigarh underway to Goa.
As the waters got more choppier, what kept us happy was the fact that the waters were getting bluer and the snow-white sand virgin beaches along the Ratnagiri coast.
Dabhol came up with beaches with many windmills and then we had the Vengurla rocks which are commonly known as 'Burnt Rocks' - these are vertical land protrusions (islets) that come almost more than a kilometer into the sea.
Malcolm and Milind contemplated whether to take the channel running through the Burnt Rocks, but the final decision was taken by Malcolm to completely evade any danger to craft or human-life and we swayed out of course and away from the Burnt Rocks and carried on with our journey towards Goa.
THEN COMETH GOA
10 and a half hours !!! - that's what it took us to get Goa showing on our Sat-Nav systems.
First Anjuna then Baga...Calangute...Aguada and the Goa Creek.
The Governor's bungalow atop the cliff to the entrance of the Goa Creek was a fascinating structure.
Watch this space for what happens next in Goa...
(Hint : A Southern Oceans Sail-Boat and a Indian-made International Quality Speedboat...apart from all the fun)
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