We LOVE the adventure of diving in Pondicherry, or anywhere else for that matter, simply because we never know what to expect! Usually, the unexpected is in the form of rare marine life, a few gregarious divers that quickly prove to be your lifetime friends, and the many cats and dogs at Temple Adventures who love diving as much as you do!
However, one of the rarer unexpected surprises is new dive sites. Pondicherry is famous on the east coast for great seafood. Therefore, it is not uncommon to meet fishermen who happen to have a secret place or two where they get their catch, and we divers love making friends with them…for where there are fish, there is a dive site waiting for us!
And that’s what a team of divers did, led by our instructors Jonah and Khush. They asked around to a few fishermen and voila! – a new dive site was found!
Tex Mex, or the Mexican Playground, is a 12m dive site, therefore very close to the shore. It’s a great site to dive on your way back from Temple or Pirates, and gives you a nice, long bottom time due to its shallowness!
Of course, the marine life is fantastic, if that’s where the fishermen go – lot’s of interesting things to see, and a great landscape…rocks, corals, some sand and plenty of crevasses that are bursting with morays and shrimps, there isn’t a boring moment there. And there are a few extras you see there too – butterfly fish are beautiful, and they haunt this site. They are so very colourful that somehow, everything around them seem black and white or faded in comparison. We loved the few different types of eels spotted, the barracudas, and quite interestingly, both hard AND soft corals could be spotted here!
This site is a friendly one – it does not require any prior training to be able to dive there, and it gives you as much time as you want with it. This easy diving is a welcome aspect, especially in our latter dive, when our energy levels are a bit lower. Perhaps the only thing that you need to keep in mind is the fact that because it is indeed a fisherman site, there is always net around. Bring over your cutting device, or pick one up from our shop and do your part for the environment by removing old nets, ropes and other polluting debris from around the site!
We look forward to meeting you soon, and taking you to Tex Mex! Join us, and book your day of diving ASAP and experience, once again, the advantage of Pondy diving – dive where few have dived before!