Cliff Jumping – St Mary’s Island by Rammohan Paranjape
Coconut Island, popularly known as St Mary’s Island, is a tiny strip of land in the Arabian sea, off the coast of Malpe, Karnataka. This island was formed by sub-aerial, sub-volcanic activity, and apparently was once a part of Madagascar before it drifted away some millions of years ago. The island is full of crystallized basalt rock – a unique geological formation of hexagonal shape.
And who named the Island St.Mary’s? Well, according to a local legend, in the year 1498, Vasco da Gama landed at St.Mary’s Island, fixed across, and named the island – O Padara de Santa Maria as a dedication to St.Mary, before he proceeded to Calicut.
Around 5 years ago, when I was still naive for any kind of adventure, I got an opportunity to visit St.Mary’s Island with a couple of adventurous friends. For someone like me, new to the adventure, this was just the opportunity to start a new life of awesomeness. Yet, I was nervous and felt uncanny about the island surrounded by the vast sea. However, once on the island, we had a good time exploring and snorkeling. The island was captivating with mesmerizing rock formations, long palm trees, an amazing bay with deep blue ocean sparkling under the bright sun, and there was this sense of surrealism around us all the time.
Apart from all the regular fun we had, there was something more planned out for the day and that was to cliff jump from a pentagon lava cliff. Well, there was no way I was going to be anywhere near the edge of the cliff. I had no experience jumping such heights (40-45 feet), and to plunge into the deep blue was an insane thought. But then, I didn’t have much choice either. My friends were just too good at convincing me in a mean way, “Either you jump or get pushed!”. Not that they wanted to put me at risk, but they wanted to get me started. And, the next few moments changed my life as we did plenty of solo and group jumps into the gnarly sea beneath us. Every jump off the cliff removed my fears and got me addicted to adventures ever since.
Truly an Alive is an Awesome adventure experience to remember and I look forward to going back there once again with my friends.
All of us surely need an awesome moment in life to get adventurous – this was mine!
