My Poseidon Adventures in Goa

Standing with my back to my favourite shack Sam’s Paradise, I gaze out at the enormous immensity of the blue-green Arabian Sea before me. I have learnt how to swim far out into the sea but the sheer unknowingness of it always fills me with a flutter of trepidation. On the mornings that I need to exercise, a small ball of unease lies in the pit of my stomach like a lead weight and I lie awake in bed for minutes after I open my eyes. This despite the fact that I am a good swimmer and have always had an affinity with water being born under the fish sign of Pisces.

When I first moved to Candolim I didn’t know what to do for exercise.  The main strip was always so crowded with traffic that even walking along the broken pavement was an ordeal and cycling just out of the question.  I longed for the days of Parra when I used to whirl blithely along open green fields, feeling the wind in my hair.  Then my French friend Patrick paid me a visit and with the nonchalance of a true Bretogne, plunged through the foaming surf and disappeared from sight, his head bobbing up and down in the waves.  I was truly impressed and vowed that I would learn from him and overcome my irrational fears.

I set my towel and swim bag down on the same front row table that I always do, check my waterproof Orange Swatch and adjust my Speedo Goggles. I have become friends with the shack guys and I tell Shankar my main man that I will swim to the left today, out towards the pleasure boats.  He has the number of Santosh my close Goan friend on his phone.  A necessary precaution should something happen and I fail to return.  Not something to dwell on and I push it out of my mind.

The sea looks calm today with gentle undulations as far as the eye can see, the sun is sparkling on the water and it is a picture postcard Goa scene.  I move down to where the waves are breaking on the shore, my feet sinking into the deep sand. Most people who don’t know how to swim are unnerved by these waist-high breakers smashing into them which keep them huddled close to the shore.  I am quite unperturbed, walking backwards into them or diving under as they curl above me and thus escaping the brunt of their giant energy.

I come up on the other side and now the water is up to my neck.  Each swell of the ocean lifts me up weightlessly before my toes can feel the welcoming sand again.  I take a deep breath, settle the cups of the googles firmly to cover my eyes, glance at the Swatch and forge out into the open sea leaving behind the safety of the shore.  Fifty steady strokes, a hundred and I stop, popping my head up like a seal while I tread water.  The sounds of the day trippers reveling on the sand are fading while my homing point, the first pleasure boat bobbing at anchor still seems far away.  I am conscious suddenly of how alone I am.  I have no idea how deep the water is below my feet, how far down is the comforting sand.  If I were to slide silently beneath the waves who would even know?

I quell the panic rising in my throat and take a few deep breaths.  As if to shore up my confidence, I can feel the great ocean buoying me up as the salt water keeps the body from naturally sinking.  As my heartrate begins to calm down I push the goggles up to re-orient myself in the direction of the boat and then push determinedly on, counting off the strokes in my mind.  The hull of the Sea Grass looms larger in my watery horizon, a few more strokes and I am within grasping distance of the anchor rope. I hoist myself up, fashioning a swing out of the rope, one hand gripping it just below the prow and the other pulling it up under water where it plunges into the depths.

This is a needed rest and I bob happily up and down with the boat as it rises and falls with the sea swell, gazing out at the distant sparkling shore like King Poseidon surveying his watery realm.  I am all alone out here as it is too early for the boatmen to come out and take charge of their craft but now I feel calm and relaxed.  Tiny unseen fish in search of food nip at my torso like irritating mosquitoes but they quickly give up and disappear into the depths. I am conscious of time passing but this feeling is just so pleasurable that I feel like I could carry on swinging in this liquid Garden of Eden forever.

My thoughts turn to the time that we ventured down to the Deep South and discovered Agonda, one of Goa’s most beautiful beaches.   At sunset the ocean lay before us like a sheet of molten gold as the sun sank into the horizon.  To the far left where the beach tapered off a huge rock jutted out of the sea like a giant shark’s tooth.  Next morning my daughter Mallika and I set out for the distant stone beacon.  It was her first ocean swim and I was a little anxious. I needn’t have worried as she stroked strongly for the rock, leaving me far behind.  When I got there Mallika was sunning herself spread out on her back like a white starfish gazing up at the huge rock.  I swam closer and tentatively touched its barnacle encrusted surface, home to thousands of tiny crabs. Below my feet it plunged into the green gloom reaching unknown depths. Ocean green, a life marine, so much that remains unseen.

On my last weekend in Goa, I took a cab down to pristine Galgibaga beach, just short of the Karnataka border.  Very few people ventured here and it was the perfect isolated wilderness experience.  At the end of the beach was a clump of rocks which marked the point where the estuary of the Galgibaga River entered the sea.  Next morning with the tide still coming in I plunged into the surf and pushed off giving the rocky outpost a wide berth.  Below me the water was a translucent blue and I could make out the dark shapes of the submerged rocks.  I floated above them like a giant airship looking down on the lost drowned city of Atlantis. My body slowly turned with the sea swell until the powerful current caught it and pushed me back into the mouth of the Galgibaga. Sailing into the calmer waters ahead, I eventually found that I could stand chest-deep up in the river, feeling the excitement of an explorer who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope!  Cars whizzed by on the elevated highway that spanned the river ahead oblivious of my existence but my Poseidon’s cup was brimming over.

The daydreams fade and now it is time to set course for home.  I leave the safety of the anchor rope and push off in the direction of the next boat in line.  I float like a butterfly amidst a sea of flowers bobbing out at sea.  The only threat is from the racing jet skis that come roaring out from the shore with their full load of thrill-seekers.  The sound of the engine is amplified underwater but I ignore it and forge onwards.  They never come close to me and I only have to put up with the whiff of noxious diesel fumes that last a few seconds.  I move from boat to boat taking time to perch on their anchor lines and survey the shore.  When I get to the last one, a modern fiberglass vessel called Flying Dolphin, I orient myself with a distant red flag on the beach. 

This last leg is a long one and I stop a few times and tread water as the flag grows gradually larger.  Like an ancient navigator, I use my sense of the sun to keep me aimed at my destination; warming the center of my exposed back it brings me home to the welcome shore. I try and judge when my feet will feel the sand again but am thrown off by the surging tide which changes the depth of water in an instant.  Finally I feel the shifting warmth beneath my toes and a wave of relief passes through me.  My body relaxes completely and I pull myself out onto the shore. Ocean deep, life is cheap, once more I can sleep.

The route I have completed on my swim is that of a trapezoid and I am now at the long straight edge of the giant imaginary figure.  I walk back along the shore, through the throngs of screaming day-trippers, goggles swinging from my fingers. Nobody pays attention except a couple of Jet Ski jockeys who hail me peddling a chance to ride their broncos out to the anchored boats.  I turn and tell them that I have just done that using my own muscle power.  They shake their heads disbelievingly – what kind of dumb tourist would make up a story like that?  I walk on towards Sam’s Paradise and breakfast.