Sea Tides

I am taking significant time to wrap up my old posts primarily due to the heavy picture editing. Also good new is that, if you have upgraded to Snapseed recently, it provides masks feature which is extremely great for people like me to do selective editing. Do try it out for your portraits and landscapes. The masks are extremely powerful to tune your image to your imagination. Some of the images here were as well edited using masks. Editing all of them with masks would consume more than a week, so I just restricted myself to few images which needed careful tuning. And it has frequent updates nowadays. You can even save the edits as a single template (called as LOOKS) for quick editing of familiar scenes.

Last year monsoon threw unexpected vibes. It started early, paused in between resumed again and prolonged till October before calling off. The May 3rd week was called as onset of monsoon season and it literally roared for a week or so. In the interim, even though winds assisted, bay sprung frequent LPAs, low humidity over region didn't help to bring moisture. It was only in August, the monsoon gained momentum again and showed its attendance. Overall, the season concluded well with above normal figures.

The seas were roaring meanwhile, heralding the onset of the monsoon season. The giant waves were surprise during 3rd week of May. We generally witness such waves only during first week of June. Giant waves crashing against the boulders, sending towering columns of water skyward with a thunderous roar, create a spectacle that is both wondrous and dangerous. Its dangerous because, people tend to play with them irresponsibly. Thanks to beach guards, visitors are quickly dispersed from the vulnerable areas

I was engrossed in gazing the wild waves striking against boulders for sometime. The photographs came in only after brief pause. The majestic movements and jumps can easily captivate nature cults.

A fishing boat moved along the horizon which provided glorious frames

Sheen on the shore was the usual attraction as always. Glistening in the evening sun, the golden carpet along the shore is worth capturing, especially with the frothing seawater soaking in the evening hues.

I was waiting for the reflection of the bleeding clouds over the swash zone. But it never materialised, as frequent waves kept washing over the shore amid the turbulent sea.

The weird cloud formation towering from west is what coastal Karnataka people expect during monsoon season. Those clouds quickly stream to mainland and pour wholeheartedly with fresh moisture from sea!

Final glimpses before we wind up the memorable day

Perhaps, the view from the lighthouse summit would have been the highlight of the day. I regret not climbing it on that golden day. There are always moments of wistfulness when you relive past experiences through the photographs you've captured.

Varadamoola - Where River Varada Originates

We returned to Sagara town post comfortable darshan of Siganadhur CHowdeshwari amma. The time was already around 5PM. Driving to native would now be daunting due to the involvement of Western Ghats. We had made plans to return next day early morning. That would be short 5hour drive to native village from here.

The lodge we booked was cozy and costing us cheaper than usual. Thanks to off-season visit, we grabbed a good deal. The receptionist suggested us to visit Varadamoola and ancient temples rich in sculptures. While visiting temple was out of our bucket due to time constraints, we decided to visit Varadamoola which was en-route to our journey. This place was just 10kms from Sagara town and is borth place of river Varada.

Morning we had sumptuous breakfast at Mysore Coffee House located in Sagara's older locality. Perhaps the best in town. Great in taste less in oil.

A 15 minute drive led us to Varadamoola. I heard voices of Malabar Trogan also here. The locality is bounded by dense forest and vegetation.

The river believed to be originating from feet of Lord Varadamba which flows to the Lakshmi Teertha point of Pushkarini facing the temple and then gathers to Larger pond adjacent to it. The river later flows as a tiny stream which expands as the flow distance increases. The width of river is significant at Banavasi town which we saw during our maiden visit.

The large pond is under partial renovation while rest still have relic look. 

This is first visible sight of river which originates from Goddess feet and outflows to larger pond.

Varadamba is main deity here facing East. The temple was closed but not locked. We had darshan of Goddess Varadamba and prayed for betterment

Sadashiva and Suryanarayana shrine is adjacent to primary shrine.

Rameshwara gudi outside the main temple.

A tortoise was peacefully swimming in temple pond.

Few inscriptions from the temple

After the brief visit, we headed towards karanagiri Siddhi Vinayaka temple.

Here is short from place.