BackColombo, Sri Lanka: The thrill of wrecks
Sri Lanka offers round-the-year diving and has some of the most interesting wrecks in South Asia
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We come upon the ship from the stern. From the main deck we travel up the ladders, one deck at a time, not hurrying—quite stealthily, not wishing to spook anyone. We were told the captain and some of the crew might be waiting for us, so we pause, a little beat of respect.
And there’s the captain, an imposing grouper, boss of the bridge. A curious batfish flutters about like an anxious first mate, scything through a group of damsels to come towards us. The grouper barely spares us a glance as we enter the bridge. We accept the dismissal and exit, following the batfish out of the shattered wheelhouse of the Medhufaru.
We descend gently to the main deck, and lower still, at times touching 30m, and move towards the bow through a swaying, swirling forest of fusiliers, past the exposed upper hold, with its bags of cement and a front-loader vehicle. Large mackerel attack the fusiliers. Tuna dart in to feast. A school of barracuda barrels slowly above us. Pufferfish slink away, watchfully tracking us, but not before a grey one with large kohl eyes flirts with us.
At the top of the Medhufaru’s bow, I do a Leonardo DiCaprio, back arched, arms flung out, hovering alongside marine life and the deepest blue, dazzled by slim shafts of sunlight. Nishan Perera, my dive buddy, and old enough to have seen the movie Titanic, laughs. I know so because the air bubbles come out of his mouthpiece in a rush.
Cheap thrills. It’s also why I dive, a sport that is Zen with a tinge of foolishness and a lot of edge; realization of mortality as sheer exhilaration. There is such joy at seeing life underwater—planet scuba. It’s like carrying religion in a 12-litre aluminium tank of pressurized air strapped to the back. It makes children out of grown divers.
But the reason I am here, under the water off the coast of Colombo, is because here lies the best wreck-diving in South Asia—indeed, some of the best wreck-diving in Asia away from the atolls of the South Pacific and their World War II relics. After the war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009, the government gradually began to relax its cordon sanitaire and eventually opened up a diving wonderland off Colombo that had been off limits to leisure divers for nearly three decades.
Not far from it is the Pecheur Breton, now a wonderland of coral, stunning fish life, ghostly shapes and opportunities to swim though broken holds teeming with fish, crustaceans and nudibranch. It sank in 1994, a large cargo vessel carrying scrap to India.
Chief Dragon, a car transporter near Colombo’s port, came to rest in 1982. Nilgiri, a wrecked tug, is a sanctuary for lionfish, and has delicate white and purple soft coral fronds on its bow. The massive 155m-long freighter Thermopylae Sierra is today a jaw-dropping marine park. A longer boat ride away is the beautiful and haunting SS Perseus, at 40m, sunk by a German warship during World War I.
And on, and on, in a delectable buffet for dive junkies—and I most certainly am one. Certified too, heh. I experience severe withdrawal symptoms if I can’t get my fins wet every few weeks or get my “nitrogen fix"—breathing compressed air in a range that extends to 40m below the surface, the prescribed safe limit for recreational divers with deep-diving training and experience. Below that is the realm of tec, or technical diving, another holy grail.
The diving in Colombo is very accessible, dive certification and weather permitting, of course. There are direct, daily flights from New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru—my point of departure—and several smaller cities in southern India, besides one-stop connections from a couple of dozen cities across India. I reached Mount Lavinia, the location of Island Scuba, the dive shop I use in this southern suburb of Colombo, in an hour and 15 minutes, using the swank new Katunayake Expressway from Colombo’s international airport, school-rush traffic included.
I actually managed a dive the morning I arrived. After checking into a hotel I strolled across to the shop, discovered the boat was still 30 minutes from departure, and signed on right away for a super dive on the Pecheur Breton (but you don’t need to be that dive-obsessed. First, get some rest).
For me, Colombo also works because I can catch up with friends and visit numerous fine and casual-dining establishments and cafés. These are like icing on the cake, as it were, after the cheerful mom-and-pop eateries that serve peerless hoppers (like appam, but crispier around the rim) and string hoppers (idiyappam) of both red and white rice, frequently eaten with chicken, tuna or cuttlefish curry. A sunset Chardonnay or Chablis on the open terrace of the creaky but gorgeous Mount Lavinia hotel—my favourite after the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo—overlooking the expanse of the Indian Ocean, is bliss. Especially after a day’s diving.
The country also offers year-round diving, quite a luxury in this part of the world, buffeted as it is by the monsoon that stirs up wind, sea and sediment. Diving along Sri Lanka’s west coast opens up in October; the seas settle from November, and it’s mostly good to go through till April. This seasonal arc takes in middling diving in Negombo, just north of Colombo, to superior diving further south, at the former hippie surf-and-song den of Hikkaduwa, a couple of hours’ drive from Colombo. And even farther south, to Unawatuna.
The south offers a mix of interesting reef systems and old wrecks—the 19th century sail ship SS Rangoon, and SS Conch, a late 19th century steamer. I’ve done some great dives out of Hikkaduwa.
When this coast shuts down for the monsoon, the north-east coast, sheltered and dry, is open for diving from May-October. Trincomalee is a revelation for most divers, as the area was practically inaccessible during the war. During a post-war dive trip off Trinco, as it’s fondly called, I was blown away by the variety of coral and fish life—and around Pigeon Island, masses of black-tip reef sharks, a real thrill.
As far as diving holy grails go, the waters off Batticaloa contain HMS Hermes, the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier, sunk by Japanese bombers in 1942. She lies at 53m, and I would love to visit. Some rate it as among the best wreck dives in the world. But the Hermes needs time. This coast is several hours drive time away from Colombo. She also needs respect, not only on account of the fact that the Hermes is a war grave. Fairly intense dive planning and additional training is required to reach that depth.
Meanwhile, there is the wonderland off Colombo. I can’t wait to return. Nishan and his business partner, Naren Gunasekera—I’ve also dived with them in the Andaman Islands—rave about Thermopylae Sierra. She apparently attracts the greatest variety of marine life in these parts. I’ve missed the experience so far because of choppy seas.
And, anyway, I need to pay Nishan and Naren back for what they have done to me. They posted photos on Facebook, of whale sharks sighted near the Medhufaru. I hadn’t seen any during my dives, damn my luck.
The only revenge I can think of is to go below, with Nishan and Naren on shore that day, and hope one or two of those gorgeous, gigantic creatures turn up while I’m hovering at 5m, doing a mandatory decompression stop at the end of the dive.
Getting there
There are direct flights from New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai to Colombo. A return ticket from New Delhi costs around ₹ 20,000, while one from Chennai costs less than ₹ 10,000. From Colombo, you can travel by rail or road to other diving destinations, such as Hikkaduwa and Trincomalee.
Places to stay
There are plenty of accommodation options in Colombo. The Mount Lavinia Hotel, near Colombo, is over 200 years old and used to be the governor’s residence before 1947. A room will cost upwards of ₹ 7,500 a night.
Places to eat
Colombo has a mix of fine-dining restaurants and delicious street food. If you are a cricket fan, you may want to try Ministry of Crab (Old Dutch Hospital, 94-11-2342722) in the hope that you’ll bump into two of the three owners: Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara.
Things to do
You can go both wreck- and reef-diving in Colombo. There are plenty of other spots along the coast that are great for diving. You can also try other water sports—Sri Lanka is known to have good waves for surfing.
Sudeep Chakravarti is an author and writes the column Root Cause for Mint.
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