First things first, it was b'fast time and Tanveer kept harping about a Pastry Shop "Infanteria", in the vicinity. Oh yea, I completely forgot about our host, he was a young dude by the name "Abhi", who was a distant cousin of Sanjay. We never saw Sanjay after that first interaction at the Thivim station but he made sure his cousin took good care of us. So Abhi arranged for an Open-Jeep the next day, as per the wishes of Parag. The Jeep looked cool, except when Parag started it, all its parts felt like the degenerating corpses from the film, "The Mummy". Parag asked for it so he drove it, all the way to the Pastry Shop but after reaching there, immediately got down and called Abhi and arranged for the good-old-a/c-stereo fitted Santro. The Jeep was very heavy to navigate and the sun could have burnt the living daylights out of us so it was a wise move to call for the car.
Now this place Infanteria (duh...what kind of name is that anyway) was a proper white man's b'fast kitchen table. I saw the menu and I couldn’t believe he was ripping us off by beating the "EGG" in 36 different ways and serving it to us in the name of 36 recipes. Every recipe came with 2 slices of toast bread and we were left with mountains of toast breads by the time we got up and left. Honestly, if you are not the beans-waffles-omelets-bread-jam types (count me in), you should avoid this place. Someone get me a Dosa, please!! The saving grace was a cuppa coffee, God bless them for that.
Now, we were stuffed and ready for a water-sports workout ahead, got inside the car and headed straight to the Sinquerim Beach close to Fort Aguada. The first sight of the beach was breathtaking, high waves and cool breeze and down below was a stream of jet-skis, speedboats and we could see a couple of folks trying the para-sail. As much as it looked exciting, the omelets started to churn in our tummies once we put on the life-vests. Everybody was debating whether we should indeed do "this" and then came a masterstroke, we wanted Parag to take the mantle to kick start the para-sail, coz he was the only one who could swim to save his life in the sea, if something went wrong. He agreed, though not readily and we were all set
Before we boarded the speedboat, the guys negotiated the price and stuff and we agreed for 700/- per person for a round of para-sailing. One by one we boarded a small boat and then got transferred to a bigger speedboat in the middle of the sea, f*** this was going to be some experience. We all sat so close to each other on that speedboat like somebody had placed a can of "Fevicol" (like you see in the ads). Well, they called us out and Parag got up and helped himself to the harness, the guys put the shute in place and damn looked it awesome up in the sky. Parag got under the shute and got himself hooked and the boatman started to rev up his boat and slowly and steadily he increased the speed and inch by inch Parag was going up the sky...damn it looked perfectly normal and there was no shrieks or cries from our guinea pig ;) that gave us one helluva confidence. The speedboat was racing and we enjoyed the speed and water splashing on our faces while Parag started to flex his legs and arms high up in the sky, I could make out he was feeling the whole para-sailing groove. It was a relief to see him come down just the way he went up, oh as a BONUS treat, the boatman would slow down the boat so the glider can touch his feet in the sea and get submerged waist high and then lift off again. Man, that was some trick right there. Now we couldn't wait and started jumping in excitement.
I was the next in-line and I felt absolutely comfortable going up except the harness and ropes would tighten every time your body jerked in the sky and that was a little scary, I also got to touch my feet in the water, get submerged and then surge up again. I came down and Tanveer was the next to go, no goof-ups, perfect take-off and landing. Now came the real TEST, Mr. Karan Totlani weighing 120 kilos on a para-sail. The boatmen and his accomplices were pretty confident of the lift-off and said it was no big deal and the boat/shute could lift a person weighing twice that much. Well, it was time to see. Karan put on the harness and he did look like he was sweating and then when the boat started to zoom, he did indeed lift-off from the boat and started to go up the sky, as claimed by the boatmen. Guys, you have to see Karan flying, like I said, whether you like that view or not ;) A few feet up and Karan said "Bas Bas..." but eventually got used to the height and also enjoyed dragging his feet in the water and then landed on the boat like an A380 on the tarmac, perfect
Phew! that was way too cool and we would have definitely done a second round (i.e if someone sponsored). I tried my hands at the speedboat coming back to the shore and I must say it is a powerful machine. Now for the second water-sport, the jet-ski, we thought of a third too, the Banana Boat but it was way too elementary for our likes. The jet-ski was the most unexpected thrill and complicated to say the least. Don’t go by the looks, it may look like a regular gearless "Vespa" on the road but it is a totally different ball game in the choppy seas. For starters, the balance on the boat has to be spot-on coz the water below you is full of waves and you are bound to trip and it is for this same reason why each of us were given a life-guard (besides the life-vests) to take this beast inside the sea. I straddled myself up on one of these and the life-guard was behind me (like a jockey riding the horse) and then he gave me instructions to accelerate (which turned out to be the brakes) and that was that, you give it a race and it roars ahead, you leave the brakes, it slows down. This looked fine until we started going deeper inside the sea and the water was just too much to navigate, I had to keep racing coz if I didn’t, the huge waves would trip me in the sea, on more than one occasion the life-guard had to pitch in and steady the boat and at one point I felt like "when the hell is this going to end". Then I got a hang of it and it was still far from perfect and then the life-guard for the last few minutes showed me how it is done and then I felt the real thrill of a jet-ski, it was going so f**** fast and the water splashing on my face, it was an absolute adrenalin rush. Ahhh...man I got off that bike and posed for pictures and I was done.
Tanveer tried his hand at it and so did Parag and Karan, everyone went through the same thing and finally we lay our tired asses at the bottom of the sea, we just chilled out and let the sea drag us in and out of the shore, it was one helluva ride out on the sea that day. We gathered ourselves, paid the guy and headed to the bungalow for Lunch ahead....D-Day 3 Contd. on next post
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