Scuba diving in Netrani

Scuba diving in Netrani

My travel partner, Raj asked me sometime in mid of march, 'how about a scuba diving in Netrani island this month' ? I was kinda skeptical initially & juggling with dual thoughts to go or not. By then: Raj booked for scuba in Netrani island. Was wondering - ...with the kind of beaches of coastal Karnataka...what kind of scuba we gonna do ?

Netrani Island is in Arabian sea & about 18 KM from the shores of Murudeshwara, Karnataka. The fact that this Island is isolated from mainland and people do not visit this place, the sea life is so colorful! It was treat to eyes and adventurous to explore scuba diving.

I call it a coincidence. Just the next day, I got a chance to watch hollywood flick 'into the blue' in star movies. I couldn't even loose a minute of concentration, as my favo babe - Jessica Alba flashing zingy figure in deep blue underwater. Movie is extensively shot in the beautiful and mesmerizing deep waters of Bahamas. This movie thrilled me with the imagination of scuba diving in sucha crystal clear underwater. I couldn't resist the idea of scuba and instantly gave a call to Raj to make sure I am there in the scuba league.

Team of enthusiastic 30, in a delayed bus travel, unplanned breakfast stop over in rain-soaked Mudigere, lovely traverse in the beautiful green curves of Chickmagalur, hot-trenched Bantwal journey took us straight into swimming pool of dusky evening of Murudeshwar hotel. It was almost a drizzling twilight. Planned as a practice time for gonnabe scuba divers of next day. I was puzzled to see heaps of pipes running to and from big oxygen cylinders. It was a serious 'scuba' preparation...

The dusky dark evening, rarely twinkling lights, pool covered with green hillocks, drizzling chill air, slippery floor, and the lean & thin scuba instructors taught us the art of breathing & underwater surviving tactics. With lotta scuba gyan we made our way to not-so-great hotel which was allocated for us. It was a pitch black night when we logged into hotel room in Bhatkal to catch some sleep.

Next morning, our life jacket wrapped gang was waiting for the boats to pick us up in the temple beach of Murudeshwar. For the first time I was traveling for so long on the ocean. Gradually muddy water of the shore transformed into crystal clear turquoise blue water as moved towards the island. It was cool realize; were moving inside the Arabian sea and 18 km away Netrani island was seeming in the same shape since we've started. It was an awesome journey; vested with the great feeling of being nowhere.

Finally, in less than hour of boating we landed (rather, stranded) near the famed Netrani island. Raj & me were ready with the cam tripod and super zoom lens to clinch shutterbug thirst, but sadly, there was no beach as guessed in that island. It's a mammoth rock peeping out of the vast water mass. Boats were anchored right besides the island on the water. Ditto into-the-blue movie types.

What I call a heavenly day kicked off with few of us wrapped in a life jacket, dived into sea water. Wow ! floating on salty and crystal water snorkeling looking into deep sea, was out of the world experience. Two scuba experts started scuba diving with 3 of us each. Not bad, Indian Arabian sea is a vast pool of underwater beauty with lotta cute and colorful fishes & wonderful reef inside. I managed to spot beautiful variety of never-seen-before fishes, blue and yellow lined fishes, variety coral reefs, beautiful but odd shaped stones etc., After my scuba dive, spent long hours floating on the water looking at cloudy sky. Felt like 'if there's anything called - nirvana, this is it'.

I was wondering about the scuba technique of controlling breathing with oxygen cylinder and waving fins attached to feet, which makes you float and swim underwater even if you don't know swimming. It was certainly a godly experience to see exhaled air creating randomly shaped bubbles going up in lovely designs under clear waters of ocean. Never knew the scuba dive in Netrani takes one to sucha lovely destination under the ocean.

While coming back in the evening, it started slowly drizzling followed by heavy downpour. I enjoyed every bit of it sitting on fore tip of the boat. A mild weather, shadowy and dusky light, no sign of any boats as long as one can see on the ocean. A solitude married to creamy weather. I was drenching for hours till we reach the shore. My mood was humming...

Rain Clouds in the sky, I don't know why
They make me blue, when I'm thinking of you
Maybe they want to cry, As I walk on by
Hiding my tears, in a world of good byes

Rain drops and dance, strange kind of romance
I don't know why whether to cry out loud, But I'm feeling fine
Watch the rythm of the rain falling down

...Indian Rain from Colonial Cousins. It was Wow !

In the evening, we few of us went to Murudeshwar temple and took darshana of Lord shiva. Ironically aatma linga in the temple is so-tiny compared to the mammoth shiva statue evoked behind the temple by a business tycoon. Towering idol of Lord Shiva believed to be the tallest in Asia.

It was a long journey way back to Bangalore, a long night melted with mast dance and masti of Nishant for a Kannada HMT remix ! He could make anyone & everyone rocking with his well timed wits, mannerisms and puns. Finally for his sansani entertainment speed he was named as -aajtak ;D

>> View scuba gallery

Energy

Energy

Most of us in the IT field, used to do one thing before leaving for the day from office, Press Ctrl+Alt+ Del and leave to home happily. That means your PC is still on. One normal PC in the sleeping mode (Hibernation) will consume 35 watts/hr.

Based on this we will do a small calculation.

• For one week 24 * 7 = 168 Hrs
• Of this if we consider that we are working for 68 hours, then
• the PC is in sleeping mode for 100 Hrs a week. For one month 4 * 100 = 400 Hrs
• In a normal IT office, if we assume approximately 250 PCs are there, 250 * 400 = 1,00,000 Hrs (Sleeping Mode)
  
• So the power wasted in an office in a month is, 100000 * 35 = 3500 KWH or units.
• If the charge per unit is Indian Rs. 6, then totally the wastage value is approximately 21000 Indian rupees.

Here the sad thing is not the money loss to the company but the power loss to the country. (Hope no company is bothered about this procedure of keeping the system in sleeping mode)

Apart from the loss to the country we need to think of the efforts people are putting for producing the power in the Mines, Thermal Stations, Hydro electric Stations, etc. If this is to continue, the cost of unit power will go up & at one stage we will not get power even if we are ready to pay any cost. So before leaving to home take some time to shut down the PC and do some favor to the country and the organization you work for.

If you feel that this point is to be considered, let your colleagues know the importance of energy saving...

via email: Sachin

Chording Almighty ?

Chording Almighty ?

Birds don't fly as high. Airplanes don't go as fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description.

The exhaust column pictured is from the Space Shuttle Endeavour after last week's night launch to visit the International Space Station. Endeavour's rocket engines create the dramatic glow from above the clouds. From a standing start, the two million kilogram rocket ship left to circle the Earth where the outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is little noticeable onboard gravity. Rockets bound for space are now launched from somewhere on Earth about once a week.

>> Endeavour to Orbit

Urban Art

Urban Art

What's the first thing you look for when you want to move into a new house ?

A perfect house with a good ambiance & neatness melted inside four walls ? or a spacious house which can accommodate all your stuff ranging from furnitures to large house hold items ? I know few of my friends who've rejected good houses citing the reason that the house is smaller to accommodate their existing collection of lotta furnitures !

Think again, if you're on that league, smart urban ID or interior designers have intelligent solutions for you, only if you like to adopt.

Checkout this interesting link where small box is converted into multiple set of furnitures, or a small, single foam chair is flexed into lounge bed. If you call it flexing in disguise; you are right, it's also blessing in disguise too.

>> Clever Furnitures

Bluetoothing...

Bluetoothing...

My new bluetooth gizmo stuff : Plantronics Audio 910. I use it to talk on the phone, use it in a car with a bluetooth enabled car stereo, answer calls on google talk & skype in a crystal clear, wind noise canceling technology.

It comes with a nice design & effective technology. And it's packed with simple pairing technique with any mobile having bluetooth feature. A bluetooth dongle with it enables connection with laptop. I paired it with my windows mobile in less than few minutes. For me it comes handy while driving, allowing me to drive without picking up a call holding phone or even can resume the talk by pairing it with bluetooth enabled car stereo.

Shall we call it a late-futuristic gadget ;) ?