Morning Latte

The kayak prepared and ready for a first light launch

After the crystal clear waters of Sri Lanka and the clean water of Goa and Alibaug, I was back to a morning coffee run in the latte colored waters of Mumbai.  

The photo is a trick,  the water was filthy

A friend who had moved to the north of the City had told me that Marve beach was very clean and he had started fishing there of a morning.  A clean beach in Mumbai was like being told a bout a sighting of a white whale so I organised a Sunday paddling trip from the clean beach of Marve to Vasai to finish up at an old Portuguese Fort.

Sunup on the water, where else would I want to be?

I arrived before dawn to launch at the ferry landing at Marve on the romantically named Mud Island.  The beach was clean but the water in the river mouth was filth.  The tide was ebbing and the current was strong so I am sure that they contributed to the detritus floating by.
















That said the beach was clean, probably due to the large Navy Base on the foreshore who probably took responsibility for cleaning the beach.

The line of fishing boats I counted 32 all heading to sea

A temple just after moving out of the
estuary and turning north

While loading the kayak, I gathered the usual crowd of onlookers when I hear one gent describe the kayak in Hinglish to the others and he seemed knowledgeable.  As it turns out he was a keen amateur fisherman who had been out since 4 am fishing off the beach. He proudly showed me photos of a large Kingfish and even a Barramundi which he had caught off the beach. He told me that he knew a Scotsman who had kayaked and fished his way from Mumbai to Goa.  I had read the blog that resulted from this trip and had gathered a lot of information from my outings on the Konkan/Goan coast.













I set out with a strong current easily keeping pace with the conga chain of fishing boats heading out for the day.  Given my encounters with authority while kayaking in Mumbai, I tried to keep a fishing boat between myself and the Navy base on the shore to avoid being apprehended by a Navy launch.

A rocky island just off-shore, complete with navigation marker and temple

Out of the current, I swung north at 7 kmph, a good speed.  The coast line was interesting. There was no sign of inland development and the shore line was rock with sizable fishing villages occurring at regular intervals.  Off shore there was a series of low lying rocky island which served as natural break waters for the otherwise exposed anchorages.

A fishing village, note the Union Jack on the stern

As I paddled past I noted that the fishing vessels were much larger than those coming out of the Manori Creek near Marve.  They seemed capable of mutli-day excursion and there were no boats heading to see.  I could hear the ubiquitous brass/drum bands in each village.  

Much bigger than the boast from Marve

Not really sure what Christ Prem means

On closer inspection of the boats, it became obvious that the local were Christian.  The boats were colorfully painted, much like the Tata truck you see on the roads, and all had Christian symbols painted on the boats along with a Tahitian scene, a mermaid, snow capped volcanoes and even several paintings of Sydney Harbour including the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.











After the bands fell silent, the crews started to emerge in open paddle craft and started boarding the boats.  I assume that the fleet was in town for weekly mass.  As I passed the fishing villages that were mainly set into hillsides above the coast I noticed barren terraces with no obvious sign of agriculture.  As I rounded the point into Vasai Creek the wind changed and I realised the purpose of the terraces, fish drying.

The smelly terraces

The pull out point was at Vasai Fort, sometimes referred to as Bassein Fort and I had arranged to meet Mansoor, our driver, at a small stone jetty which I had identified from Google Maps satellite view.  Unfortunately with low tide there was muddy, oily industrial goo filled with broken glass and all forms of waste that I needed to navigate to get to the jetty.  It was like quicksand and, despite the assistance of some helpful locals, it was an quite effort to get the boat and myself onto the jetty with no damage. That said, I still am worried about infection in my still healing wounds from the Sri Lankan trip.

I know know what mud, industrial waste and human excrement feels like!

The Fort Sea Gate

The Portuguese were active on this section of the Coast during the 1400’s and discovered the Arab Sultanate of Khambat or Cambayexpanding the fort in the early 1400s.  After a failed attack on the Fort the Sultanate of Cambay ceded the fort to Portugal by the Treaty of Saint Matthew.

The fort was the Northern Court or "Corte da Norte," second only to the City of Goa and the headquarters of the Captain of the North.  I wish I had a title like Captain of the North sounds very Lord of the Thrones!

The Sea Gate doors.  Luck they are being restored
 by the Archeological Survey of India!

Due to the Portuguese influence, Vasai became a vibrant and opulent city.It was responsible for administering the Portuguese presence on Bandra Island, Juhu Island, Dharavi Island and their possession in what is now Oman and the UAE

In the 18th century, the fort was taken over by the Maharatha Army in 1739 under  Chimaji Appa after a three-year campaign. The British shortly attacked and took over the territory from the Marathas as the price for supporting one faction of the Marathas against another.

The door surrounds in the Church are amazingly intact

The Fort is the largest of the Coastal forts that I have seen with an outer perimeter wall about 800 metres by 400 metres.  Much of the perimeter fortification is overgrown with vines and many of the internal buildings are gone but the remains give you a good appreciation of the scale and grandeur of the place.

Despite my less than spectacular landing point, it was a good 3 hours on the water and an interesting section of coastline.