Caving - Amazing Experience

           We watch many adventurous activities on TV, Internet on might be experience in different camps or such events. One of them Caving is the most thrilling adventurous activity, I have ever seen. We can watch caving on TV channels like Discovery, Nat-Geo or in Videos on Internet. While watching Caving sometime we think, Oh!, how can we take this experience. I thought the same when I watched the video of Caving on internet.

           My dream came true with the help of Ratnadurga Mountaineers in Ratnagiri. (Maharashtra, India). Ratnadurga Mountaineers is a group of Adventurous People who give the experience of various courageous activities just like trekking, rock climbing, rappelling, valley crossing, river crossing, camping, caving and many more.

Location of cave: At the bottom of ratnadurga fort near 'break water wall' (in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India) From Ratnagiri city we can easily get an auto rickshaw to fort.

The cave is 275 ft long closed tunnel as it has only single door (3ft x 6ft). In that cave there is 20 ft deep fresh water even if it is too close to ocean. Fish in the water are albino and blind. Sunlight never reaches there so eyes of fish are vanished. On the hanging portion of the cave we can see number of bats. Don't worry of them; they don't give any hazard to anyone. Don't be afraid of above points because total journey of this cave is very easy & so joyful with help of Ratnadurga Mountaineers. Everyone from the age of 6-7 years old can experiences the caving with is group.

My experience: We were distributed in the group of 6 people. 1^st group means we enter the door of cave. Then we got down in the cave by crawling. We went in by keeping ourselves parallel to the ground. After 6-7 ft distance there was a portion where we can stand up. Then there was a rock, 6-7 ft in height. "How can I cross this rock?"  There was no another way to go further. We were scared. But volunteers of Ratnadurga Mountaineers guided us, how to climb that. I was hearing the echo of my friends who already crossed the rock. I climbed the rock. In that fully darken area light arrangement was made by that group. On the other side of rock there was a ladder to get down. After using that ladder I saw amazing scenery. Oh! My goodness!! That was like a site of fairy tales. Long and long tunnel, glittering water, blaze of different lights… wow… that was awesome… Then we were given the life jackets and float tubes for safety. There was a tough rope just over the water level. That rope is fixed from the main door to the end of the cave. We enter the water by holding the rope.  Volunteers were giving us instructions, 'how to go in forward direction'. We were shouting with joy and the cave was replying us by echo sound. After 15-20 mins we reached the end. There was sand & the end was closed. After clicking some snaps of that end, we returned. We gave back the floating accessories to the volunteers. We turned back to exit. We crossed again ladder – rock – crawling portion and finally we came out of that magical site. Next group was asking us about our experience, but every one of us was just speechless…!!!