Aquasports in Karwar
It has been a string of long weekends (I could get used to this 
). On a whim my friends and I decided to go to Karwar on the Northern part of the Karnataka coast. It was organized by the Bangalore Mountaineering Club. We left on Friday night via Tumkur to Jog Falls. The road to Jog Falls was not good and we could not get much sleep on the overnight journey. Finally on Saturday morning we reached the Jog Falls. I was disappointed to see that there was not much water in the river (due to less rain in the region and a dam upstream) and the waterfall was almost dry. They now have stairs which go to the bottom of the waterfall (about 1600 odd steps). We did walk down to the base of the waterfall, but it was hot and humid all the way down with the sun beating down on us all the time.
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We then left for Karwar and checked into a hotel near the beach. In the evening we went to the beach but it started to rain. But after the sunset, the rain subsided and we did get some good photos. On the way back we had a whole array of delicious seafood (oysters, mussels, prawns and crab amongst others) at Amruth Restaurant. The food was fantastic and very cheap as compared to Bangalore or other coastal cities.
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The next day we tried out various kinds of aquasports such as canoeing, rafting, coracling and kayaking. I saw some islands from the shore and started kayaking towards them. The water was fairly calm and I was enjoying the kayaking and negotiating the waves fairly easily (they get higher as you go more into the sea) but the people from whom we had rented the boats were not confident that I could come back as people do not venture so far into the sea usually. So they sent the boat to look for me and I had to return on the launch. I almost managed to reach the island (just 200m away from the island’s coast). The island itself was about 7 kms off the beach shore. Later when I turned back, I realized that I had ventured so far into the sea as I could not see the coast but could see a few fishing boats. It was about mid-afternoon and we just spent rest of our afternoon floating in the sea with our lifejackets on. It was time well spent.
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Later after going to the hotel in the evening, we went to the far side of the beach as the sea had become rough and it was tougher to do the banana boat ride in the sea. While awaiting for the our turn for the banana ride, I got to take some photos of fishermen returning with their daily catch. We found that there were some exotic fish they had caught such as the the Kopra (the large fish with the mouth wide open) and the sting rays.
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I tried to take pictures of the Banana ride while sitting on bow of the launch pulling the inflated banana boat but it was extremely difficult as the waves were hitting the fast launch and causing it to jump in the air. Also there was a danger of the camera getting wet due to the splashing water. Nevertheless I did get a few photos but not as good as expected. The Banana ride was eventful as we kept falling in the sea ensuring good laughs for the bystanders . Later in the evening we went to the Amruth restaurant again to hog on seafood, this time with a larger crowd before catching the bus back to Bangalore. Karwar is a good 2 day trip from Bangalore if you like a good beach and great seafood. I felt it was much better and cheaper than the over-hyped and crowded Goa coast just a few kilometers up north from Karwar.