How Do You Dream Of Going To Sea?

Writer, conservation advocate and passionate wildlife lover, Neha Sinha has been using her impressive knowledge and penmanship to highlight threatened species and ecosystems. Winner of a Sanctuary Wildlife Service Award in 2017, she writes here about the important, but mostly ignored, problem of how human trash is impacting marine ecology.

Do you dream of getting into a little coracle, waves rocking the boat gently, depositing you in a fluid ebb from a bay to the ocean’s azure expanse? Do you dream of getting into the sea in the sleekest of ships, peering out from the luxury of panelled cabins and hammocks? Whichever way you look at it, nothing can prepare you for the sea itself. Whether in coracle or a cruise liner, the sea is an interminable vastness, which hammers you into a smidgeon of insignificance.

It was early morning and I was preparing to go for a pelagic birdwatching trip off the coast of Mangalore. The word pelagic dripped down the side of my mind, pooling in its significance. ‘Pelagic’ seemed so much more fleshed out than ‘coastal’ or even ‘marine’. One can find marine life – birds, sea slugs, corals – near beaches. But pelagic refers to purposely, actually, going out unto the sea; exposing oneself to harsh skies and winds, becoming yet another speck on the huge back of the heaving ocean. That pelagic morning, I was on the still-dark coast at 5.30 a.m. In the slaty sky, orange and white Brahminy Kites circled purposefully. Cattle egrets sat on poles, stumps and boats, looking like lights that had been put out.

To get to our boat – a stolid midsize affair nowhere close to a ‘ship’ – we had to climb over other docked boats. The group – comprising amateur as well as experienced nature-lovers were prepared for the journey with motion sickness medicines, biscuits and bananas, and good cheer. Of course, nothing really prepared us for what was to follow. For isn’t the sea the final frontier of earthly comprehension and wilderness?

THE BLUE WILDERNESS