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Temple Adventures Christmas party!
Temple Adventures Christmas party!
Time for some presents! Christmas is a time for lights, joy, great food, wine and Santa Claus! The time for all of us to be showered by gifts from our friends and loved ones! While the world celebrates the birth of Christ, we at Temple have been hard at work designing and bringing out new and exciting activities for you to be involved in Pondicherry! For this Christmas, test your underwater…
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Looking back, life at 18m
Looking back, life at 18m
Guest Post by Padma Rao. Padma is a diver first, traveller second and a motorcycle aficionado when not doing either of that. She has dived across India and Philippines and considers Temple Reef to be one of her homes. She is very interested in Reef Building work, marine conservation and the ocean in general. Sonia and me were destined to become long standing dive buddies, looking back at our…
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Forts for the defenseless
Forts for the defenseless
Pondicherry is a land of history – tales of trades from the era of the Romans to that of the French, and of course India. It has a history that spreads across the lands, from the beautiful architecture on the streets to the tiniest sand grain on the sea bed. Wondrous creatures both on land and the oceans have endured the test of time. Fighting the weather to the wars, delicate coral life and the…
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The week that was - 6th to the 13th!!
The week that was – 6th to the 13th!!
The week began with some deep diving at the Wall, which meant we brought home some very happy divers. Jean in particular, seemed rather impressed after his first deep dive. James also joined us for a couple of dives on Sidemount over the week. The air at the DC has been full of reef-building fervour this week, with plans being made, and materials being assembled at the harbour. The team went out…
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Photobombers' Ahoy!
Photobombers’ Ahoy!
“Photobombing”, the art of ruining another person’s photograph intentionally and graciously. Well, most of the time many of us have come across Photobombers across the world, ruining that perfect picture on which you spend a couple of seconds for that full Auto mode, framing and getting that right light and that right mode! And there you go, at that very moment, you have a Photobomber, bombarding…
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Tinku - A Day in the Life (Part 2)
Tinku – A Day in the Life (Part 2)
Continued from Divemaster Doggy – A Day In The Life My diabolical plan came to an end when that evil, evil soul walked into the dive shop, with that maniacal grin upon his face. Mr. Ambi had arrived. Don’t tell anyone, but I am terrified of that man. He’s big and scary, and he walked into MY Temple Adventures with no fear at all of the precious and scary, big-toothed guard dog that was me. This…
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Breaking Boundaries
We are always inspired by stories of divers who do fantastic things underwater, and break boundaries for themselves. This story is one that we were happy and honoured to be a part of. Justin Vijay Jesudas, age 36 is a quadriplegic. This means that he is paralysed from the neck downwards, all the way down to his tailbone, following a spinal cord injury. Life must already be a battle for him, and…
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Ocean Defenders - Here We Come!
Ocean Defenders – Here We Come!
A few weeks ago, Captain Ravi’s boat TA1 set out to sea with a unique bunch of diving enthusiasts – several children from ages 10-14 from local schools came to Temple Adventures to learn more about marine life and its conservation. Since over a year, our very own Temple Adventures Instructor Jonah Skoles has been working with these children in an attempt to teach them about the importance of the…
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Looking back - Pirate Weekend
Looking back – Pirate Weekend
Guest Post by Jonah The sun is high in the sky as I sit here drinking my rum wondering where my men have gone…when will they be back? I wait for them, wiping a sweat, hoping for their fast return. The ocean is calling us and we must head to the seas together and explore what Pondicherry has to offer. The life of a pirate is an exciting one. And what makes it exciting is all the potential loot…
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Divemaster Doggy - A Day In The Life
Divemaster Doggy – A Day In The Life
It has been a long, long night. I, Ms. Divemaster Tinku, found my usual spot under the office table and was snoozing for a few minutes until a bang, shout and a scream echoed through the Temple Adventures office…a few seconds later, that dreadful pest of a cat landed on me, his claws digging into my back. Furious at the disturbance, I got up and approached the lady responsible for this ridiculous…
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We LOVE the adventure of diving in Pondicherry, or anywhere else for that matter, simply because we never know what to expect! Usually, the unexpected is in the form of rare marine life, a few gregarious divers that quickly prove to be your lifetime friends, and the many cats and dogs at Temple Adventures who love diving as much as you do!
However, one of the rarer unexpected surprises is new dive sites. Pondicherry is famous on the east coast for great seafood. Therefore, it is not uncommon to meet fishermen who happen to have a secret place or two where they get their catch, and we divers love making friends with them…for where there are fish, there is a dive site waiting for us!
And that’s what a team of divers did, led by our instructors Jonah and Khush. They asked around to a few fishermen and voila! – a new dive site was found!
Tex Mex, or the Mexican Playground, is a 12m dive site, therefore very close to the shore. It’s a great site to dive on your way back from Temple or Pirates, and gives you a nice, long bottom time due to its shallowness!
Of course, the marine life is fantastic, if that’s where the fishermen go – lot’s of interesting things to see, and a great landscape…rocks, corals, some sand and plenty of crevasses that are bursting with morays and shrimps, there isn’t a boring moment there. And there are a few extras you see there too – butterfly fish are beautiful, and they haunt this site. They are so very colourful that somehow, everything around them seem black and white or faded in comparison. We loved the few different types of eels spotted, the barracudas, and quite interestingly, both hard AND soft corals could be spotted here!
This site is a friendly one – it does not require any prior training to be able to dive there, and it gives you as much time as you want with it. This easy diving is a welcome aspect, especially in our latter dive, when our energy levels are a bit lower. Perhaps the only thing that you need to keep in mind is the fact that because it is indeed a fisherman site, there is always net around. Bring over your cutting device, or pick one up from our shop and do your part for the environment by removing old nets, ropes and other polluting debris from around the site!
We look forward to meeting you soon, and taking you to Tex Mex! Join us, and book your day of diving ASAP and experience, once again, the advantage of Pondy diving – dive where few have dived before!
Diving Discoveries – Tex Mex We LOVE the adventure of diving in Pondicherry, or anywhere else for that matter, simply because we never know what to expect!
Diving for Women - a few tips!
Diving for Women – a few tips!
Guest Post by Neela – We got hold of Neela to share some tips for all the ladies out there. Neela, is India’s first female Sidemount Instructor and also the first PADI female Tec50 diver in the country. She loves to teach and is always keen to share a helpful pointer or two. Diving in India is getting bigger and better all the time. These days, there’s almost as many women who join in and enjoy…
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Coming up - GoPro with PADI!
Coming up – GoPro with PADI!
That wonderful time of the year is BACK again! We’re hosting yet another Instructor Development Program, right here at Temple Adventures, for all you aspiring Dive Professionals out there! In 2013, Temple Adventures became the first ever Dive Centre in the WHOLE of mainland India to host an IDC. The response was phenomenal – people from all over the South-East Asian region came over to learn from…
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The Week That Was - DSD Quarry Day
The Week That Was – DSD Quarry Day
Everyone who’s ever heard of Temple Adventures already knows that we love first-time divers (known in the diving world as Discover Scuba Divers) because we have the joy of giving them their first ever dive…and you know what they say – you can have only one first dive! A few weekends ago, we had a great day out at our favourite quarry, with a big group from Renault. All of them signed up for the…
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Leave it to the Temple Team to come up with some strange, unique ideas about how to keep diving and it’s required surface intervals boredom-free!
Owing to the success of last year’s ‘surviboard’ as we call it, Temple Adventures is organising a second trip of the same nature, in which the theme is recurring and similar to last year’s amusing one. Coming back to ‘boredom-free’ ideas, this year too is based around the idea of all divers being pirates on board!
Now, why would anyone call this a ‘surviboard’ and not a ‘liveaboard’ as most boat trips are called? That’s because, to keep in mind the theme of the event, pirates do not live – they survive – and that is the essence of your stay on our very special surviboard, and if you misbehave (well, pirates misbehave all the time, so perhaps one should say ‘if you behave too well!’), you have to walk the plank like any ol’ pirate might have to do. But you needn’t worry! With your scuba gear, you need only walk the plank with joy, as it always holds the possibility of you discovering something new underwater that your mateys on board will miss!
Last year’s phenomenal success of the surviboard was commemorated by the naming of a new dive site discovered by our happy pirate-divers called Pirate Booty. A stunning 24m dive site, it holds some very interesting and quintessential Pondicherry diving! The major part of your trip will be to explore your favourite dive sites around Pondy, and very often from a new perspective – expect some dawn dives and night dives, which always holds some special marine life that we don’t get to see very often when we usually dive in full daylight. The relatively minor but still integral parts of this pirate-filled journey will be on-board barbecues (pot-lucks are welcome, and fishing lines too!) plenty of games, perhaps some swimming, and definitely pulling up the ginormous pirate-boat anchor at some point (don’t forget your pirate-calls then – ‘yo-hoho and a bottle of Nitrox’ is our preferred one) will keep you busy! And watch out for those snoring pirates – remember, the plank is a very versatile piece of equipment (pity we don’t sell one in our store), so feel free to throw the noisy yet unsuspecting diver out of your new home! And don’t feel bad – if he wakes up, at least he’ll know he’s not that bad a swimmer!
If you’d like to learn more about our phenomenal Surviboard Trip of 2016, please send us an email to [email protected]. Follow us on Facebook, Google+ and Instagram for frequent updates, and we will answer to all your queries within 12 hours, as usual. We look forward to sharing our boat-space with you and remember, early pirates always get the treasure, so look out for a freebee or two, if you get through to us fast enough! Remember, it’s all about survivin’, matey!
PS from the Temple Team: Carry a cabbage with you. You’ll thank us on the boat!
Surviboard 2016 – Conquering the seas! Leave it to the Temple Team to come up with some strange, unique ideas about how to keep diving and it's required surface intervals boredom-free!
To know how to dive gives us access to the world’s most abundant beauty – the ocean! And it never fails us, always holding surprises and wonders. And the best part? It’s so HUGE that you can never fully know all it’s treasures, and therefore always have more to look out for. While most recreational divers have access to some of the most stunning parts of the sea, Technical divers have the ability to explore a bit further – deeper, and for much longer time. And that makes them hungry to explore more, where few others have gone before.
Some of us Technical divers from the Temple Adventures Team did an exploratory dive at the famous Aravind’s Wall earlier this week. The Wall has been dived several times over the years by divers from all over the world, but a Tec Exploration was inevitable and necessary for one simple reason – it has scarcely been explored in the past, due to it’s depth that limits bottom time, and of course, the perils of diving such depths without the proper training.
The Wall, we believe, is the end of the Indian continental plate. It is approximately 15 kilometres from the shore, and runs parallel to it. Discovered by one our instructors Aravind, we were happy to name our newfound dive site after him, several years ago. The Wall is approximately 6 kilometres long, and most dives there last not more than 10-15 minutes at the bottom due to the rapid absorption of nitrogen by our bodies at greater depths. However, we Technical Divers have no care for the problem of decompression (nitrogen absorption) for we have found ways to overcome it. Three tanks apiece to support our one and a half hour dive, all connected to top-of-the-line Scubapro regulators that give us the amount of air we need at higher pressures, a carefully filled and analysed Nitrox tank for each one, plenty of reels, torches and other essential dive accessories and 3 Technical diving courses later, the trio which comprised Julien (PADI Tec Deep Instructor), myself and Das (Tec Divers) made up the team for this adventure.
The dive began at Ravines, one of the sites at The Wall. The wind and visibility Gods supported the dive in every way that they could – although the surface was a bit wavy, the current was minimal and the visibility underwater was pretty stunning! Perhaps 30+ metres all the way to the bottom, we caught site of the convoluted, varying landscape of the Wall right from 20 metres above it during our descent.
Upon arriving there, after a few safety checks and S-Drills, the exploration commenced. Das had his camera that would help him capture many memories during the dive, Julien his yearning to find a cave or cavern somewhere around so that he might teach a cavern course there someday, and I concentrated on working on my trim and enjoying the feel of my brand new side mount harness, there was no doubt that though we all had our own agendas, our common interest was but one – to complete the mission of the dive, which was to find ‘the hole’ a few hundred metres South of the ravines, as GPS evidence suggested there was a such a structure that existed around there.
Many surprises were there waiting for us, and they had 30 whole minutes at the bottom to experience them. A few very friendly (or aggressive?) banded sea kraits, a couple of colourful nudibranchs, schools of tuna, giant groupers, snappers, vibrant lion-fish and and smaller angels, scorpion fish, gobies, impressive fan-corals, smaller whip corals and a lot of colour made up the majority of the life that was spotted during the dive. However, even if a single fish wasn’t to be seen, the beautiful landscape in itself was enough to win any keen diver over. Undulated, ever-changing and almost canyon-like, the wall provided the divers with a lot of underwater fun – a few swim-throughs (Julien, with his cave training flew through even the smallest crevasses), a variety of landscapes, the great visibility and probably a high dose of narcosis made the dive any Techie’s playground. There wasn’t a boring moment, and one could’ve stayed down there forever. 32 minutes since we descended, it was now time to go up and begin a series of decompression stops, so that the nitrogen could leave the body at a slow, healthy pace. The stops, almost until 15 metres, proved to be exciting, for the landscape below was still visible. Above that, in the subsequent stops, we took the opportunity to have some quiet time as we hung around, in perfect buoyancy, at the depth of our stop for the required time duration. Julien, the dive leader, would indicate when the next stop was to be made. Soon, we had made it safely and on schedule as per the pre-planned dive time to our last decompression stop at 3 metres for 17 minutes. Das took the opportunity to conduct a small photoshoot, taking photos of the team and getting some photos taken of himself too.
I fixed my trim a little more, which I realised was absolutely necessary after a small struggle during the NOTOX switch. Subsequently, the last stop was over, and it was time to reunite with the atmosphere. As we broke the surface, our reliable boat captain Ravi, one of Temple’s oldest team members, was waiting for us already. After helping us get back on the boat, we discussed the dive. Although the hole itself wasn’t to be found, the mission of the dive was not unaccomplished – the dive was planned, and the plan was dived to the last minute. No hitches, no problems and certainly no emergencies came our way, which every Tec diver is grateful for at the end of the day. The dive was one of the best we ever had at The Wall.
-If you would like to join us on our next big Tec adventure, learn how to get trained up as a certified PADI Tec Diver!
-If you would like to visit the famous Aravind Wall, learn more about the PADI Advanced Open Water Course and the PADI Deep Diver Course!
For more info on what we have to offer, visit templedivers.com and join us on our next great exploration!
The Week That Was – Tec Exploration To know how to dive gives us access to the world's most abundant beauty - the ocean!
Guest Post by Jonah
One never forgets their first time, the first kiss, the first breath underwater, or the first set of Regulators that you buy.
I started with a MK17/ S600 and a C300 octopus, and I was hooked to the brand called SCUBAPRO. Later on, as I progressed as a diver, I got a MK25/G260 and then as I stepped into the shoes of a Tec Instructor, I got myself a MK25EVO/A700. Not that I forget, even for a moment, the multiple MK2’s I have been adding to my gear bag, which I primarily use now for stage cylinders. My regulator sets count now stand at six. With the lifetime warranty of SCUBAPRO, I can only imagine my kit to keep on growing.
Now, one may ask as to why does a diver need so many regulators? For me, every different regulator holds a different place in my heart and of course on my own kit. The best performing regulator in my kit, the A700 on my MK25 EVO, I use it for my primary tank whenever I dive Sidemount- always close and breathing at over 8500 Litres of air per min. My trusty Mk17, environmentally sealed, is always on my right side. I can set it down during stages without any worries of dirt getting in, even if it is buried in the mud (not that I am advising that). Then we come to my awesome MK 25/G260 with a S600 octopus combo – a perfect set for teaching which can take an amazing amount of abuse and when the student does an Out of Air drill on my S600 they are left to wonder how smooth it breathes.
The last few days we have seen an amazing amount of rain here in Pondicherry, so much that we can dive right in the city streets. With nothing else to do, and wait till evening for some refreshments, I sat down to service all my regulators after all it is recommended that you service them every year. But with the amount of work I put in my office, I try and service them a lot more than what’s stipulated. Servicing a regulator is all about cleaning and lubricating the system, so that it continues to deliver that amazing ease of breathing with which you fell in love with the first time.
When we go to some of Earth’s paradises under water, be it the Philippines or somewhere much closer home like the Great Aravind’s Wall, all we wish for is maximum bottom time and more gas. The easier a regulator breathes, the less is our air consumption. Of course, it also depends on a variety of other factors as well. This is especially important when we head down to 50 metres and beyond, beyond recreational limits, when the standard school regulator is unable to supply you the air you need at those great depths.
So when you dive the deep seas of India, or anywhere else in the world you really want the best set of Regulators that you can have, and Scubapro is able to do just that. Maybe to put my case in point, the MK 25 was recently put to the test in Korea with over 130 people breathing of a single First stage. All I can say is ‘Try and top that as a first stage‘.
Easy Breathing | A tryst with SCUBAPRO Guest Post by Jonah One never forgets their first time, the first kiss, the first breath underwater, or the first set of Regulators that you buy.