The clear green water comes alive with orange. I turn around and kayak back. I laugh and maintain mine. I get the GoPro out and take a moment to be with my new found friends. And it’s tentacles run a Mexican Wave. I dip my hand in the water when the plastic pumps. They’re Green.The next day, I chase a pod of dolphins surfacing together, forming lines of breaking spray just 3 metres ahead of me. Just Wholesale protective netting as I catch up to them, paddling furiously, they break away playfully and change course.The waters of Maharashtra are blue.When we think of beach destinations or possible tropical paradises, we think Maldives or Greece. And I have 47 more to go. However, one always wants to preserve it.

I barely snap my hand back as the water around me changes. And Orange. Plastic. Often, I’m too dehydrated or out of the way to pick it up. My paranoid mind tells me they are here to window shop for their lunch. But when I am 4 km out of the port of Ratnagiri, I am optimistic and feel I can make a difference. I know this land like the back of my hand. My kayak is swarmed with jellyfish. It’s day 36. All it needs is for you to think of them.So, when my kayak draws up next to a flat orange piece of plastic, I decide to pick it up. Surely not coastal Maharashtra or Malwan. I’ve carved up my first state of Gujarat. I find myself kayaking past it, for the second time in my life, when I set off on a 3,000-km solo kayaking trip from Kutch to Kanyakumari.

It is the enemy and no one knows this better than someone who’s seen it strewn all along our coastline. Then when I am clear of the near and present, I laugh. I paddle hard and fast out. And the orange jellyfish that I was going to pull out with my bare hand drifts away majestically. He recently kayaked the 3,000km west coast of India solo). Being on the water everyday for 7-9 hours, paddling in the harsh sun, doesn’t allow for too many detours.(Kaustubh Khade is an IITian, Asian Silver Medalist in kayaking & a Limca Book Record holder. One lone wolf consecutively dives out in glee.The beauty of our own backyard is often lost on us. Grey