It was a classic wooden fishing boat that carried us in the middle of the ocean. The middle of the ocean was in the sense of the depth. If we go even five hundred km South in the sea, we may not find any depth more than 200m. But within 60km we were in water which was 1000 – 2000 meters in depth. It is the Swatch of no ground, an undersea canyon of about 10km wide and more than 2000 km long passing Sri Lanka. We cruised close to fifty knots (about 100 km) in three days stopping everyday in the swatch to look for sea creatures, from dark enormous wheels to the tiny pinkish transparent baby jellyfish – all fascinated us.
I was invited by Rubaiyat Mansur, who was doing a photo identification of the dolphins in the Swatch of no ground. Before we arrived at the nearest end of the Swath of no ground, which is about 30 knots from Katka forest station of Sundarban. We saw different kinds of dolphins, Gangetic river dolphins which often can be seen in the inland rivers and river mouths. Then Irrawaddy dolphin, Humpback dolphin and Finless porpoise can be found in the shallow coast of the bay and some even inside Sundarban. But those river and shallow water dolphins are quite difficult to see and follow. Only momentarily you may see them surfacing and diving instantly and may surface somewhere else randomly unpredictable in the muddy opaque water. In the swatch of no ground there are Bottlenose dolphin, Spotted dolphin and Spinner dolphin. Bryde’s whale also can be seen there often. Among all in the Swatch, Bottlenose dolphins are the most common, and are really playful. It is a fascinating feeling when they come close to the boat in a group and start bow riding. The Swatch is also a great place to see various kinds of fish species which often cannot be seen in other areas of our sea which is comparatively shallow. We saw many different fish species along with Marlin and Sailfish.
On the third day I saw a man coming out of his super mini cabin where he was hiding almost all the time. He was a middle aged guy where all other crew of the boat was quite young. I was not sure who that lazy guy was. He was not very vocal and from our short conversation it was very visible in his body language that he does not care that much about our universe, the educated city people’s paradigm that we breathe into. His gentle but impassive face didn’t say anything about what he was thinking. He was our captain.
I was the anchor watcher that night and on the third day I saw he was out on the starboard side and staring at the sky. It was a bright morning and only a few scattered clouds like puffy white cotton, the benign Cumulus clouds. The sea was calm, in Beaufort scale it would not go over 1, that means the wind speed was not more than 5km/h. I saw the captain, again with his blank face but with little restless eyes. With a small interval he was taking in the smell of the wind. I was surprised, asked him what he was smelling. He replied, ‘storm’, with the same blank face. That whole day was sunny and calm, but our captain was not calm that day as in every hour he was coming out, smelling the air and again hiding into his cabin minutely listening to his old portable radio for the weather forecast. That day he cruised the boat at the nearest end of the Swatch from the shore which is about 30 knots from Katka.
Next morning at 4 am I woke up with the engine noise and heavy rolling. The wind was increasing as well as the size of the waves. I came out and saw with my flashlight that the weave crests were breaking, that means this wind is about at Beaufort scale 4. I saw the captain was busy cruising us back, to face the waves, he started towards the Indian shore. As the morning light was breaking and getting stronger, so the wind, at first light it raised up to Beaufort scale 6, that means about 40km wind speed and 3-4m waves. We had a long day struggling to come back to the shore. In that long day, I didn’t see the captain leaving his helm or losing his confidence for a moment. As well as I was amazed by the diversity of the sea creatures on that trip, I was also amazed by seeing the courage and confidence of a seaman.