Whether you are a vacationer in the city or a resident and looking for cool water sports options, now you can ride the waves of the Bay of Bengal in a big yellow banana or get a 360 degrees wild thrilling ride on the waters inside a zorbing ball and much more.
The waters of Rushikonda coast and the backwaters of Mangamaripeta are buzzing with water sports activities this summer with many a bunch of new activities introduced recently.
Even as the mercury soars to the season’s highest, crossing beyond 40 degree Celsius this week, water sports activities have picked up with the weekend crowd swelling at the two locations.
According to Sadiq Mohammed of Ocean Wave Water Sports – the firm that conducts these waters sport activities – the response has been great from both local crowd as well as tourists.
“Several water sports aficionados have expressed interest and trying out the banana rides and zorbing. In fact, we have tourists coming from other cities like Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Mumbai specifically to experience the water sports activities here,” he told The Hindu .
Banana rides have become quite popular with the crowd here because of the fun factor. It is a banana shaped boat that is pulled into the waters by a speed boat.
The ride takes the adventure lovers through a thrilling experience of twists and turns on the waters at the end of which the speedboat attempts to flip the inflatable boat thereby dropping its passengers into the water.
“The trials were done last year and introduced these rides a couple of months ago at Mangamaripeta backwaters. Every person to take the ride is given a safety helmet and a life jacket. The banana ride is a fun and exciting activity that people can enjoy with any fear factor,” he said.
This apart, kayaking, jet ski, zorbing and bandwagon are some of the other sports introduced recently and have found many takers. Zorbing allows participants to slide into an inflatable ball before it is released into the waters. The waves give a lateral as well as circular motion.
Exciting
“You get a little disoriented because you’re flipping inside the ball. But the experience so extremely exciting. I totally conquered my fear of the waters after trying this. I even tried scuba diving and other water sports activities here and feel that there is a lot more scope to introduce more water sports in the city,” said K. Gautam Yadav, a 27-year-old who works in a shipping company.
He went with his cousins to enjoy the water sports ride here. The activities are done from Wednesday to Sunday at Rushikonda and Mangamaripeta beaches.
