19-Sep-2002 -- The team of S.P.A.C.E.(science popularization association of communicators and educators) has geared it up to take the responsibility on its shoulders to cover as many confluence points as possible in India. Thus when I (Sachin bahmba) one of the team members had the plans to go to Mumbai (Bombay) due to some work, obviously the covering of at least one of the three possible confluence points was on the schedule along with the other work. This was the third confluence covered by our team two earlier are 28N 77E and 28N 76E. The three possible confluences were 18N 73E,18N 74E,19N 74E which were in vicinity of Bombay and fell in the route of my travel. C.B. (chander devgun) geared me up (as he always does) with the equipment and details and told not to try 19N 73E as it lied in some marsh land near thane (maharashtra) and was accessible only in high tides and has been tried by some local group without success.

The two other obviously were on my list as one (19N 74E) was very near to my halt place that is Narayangaon and the other (18N 74N) was near khandala on my way to Narayangaon. It is the place where famous G.M.R.T project has been set by T.I.F.R, I had planned to stay at the site and do some observations. So on my way to Narayangan from Mumbai I got down at lonawala, beautiful place and hot choice for film shootings, I reached there at around five in the evening after taking what ever possible accommodation I checked the G.P.S and to my horror is was no way near to 18N 74E. I checked the map again and found out that there was one more khandala on pune-satara (distt. Of maharashtra). Thus having wasted my precious time due to little negligence and confusion, I started for the wanted khandala at 9:30a.m next day.

Traveling through the distt. Of Raigad (Maharastra), and Pune( Maharashtra) I reached distt. of Satara(Maharashtra)at around 12:00 noon.The G.P.S showing 18.11.xxx degree north and reducing and 73.56.xxx degree east and gaining thus showing that the point was near by within 12 kms or near about. As I was about to reach shirwal a town in Satara I suddenly saw my G.P.S suddenly showed showed jump from 77.69.xxxE to 74.68.xxxE it was a real strange feeling I turned back and again checked and it happened again. Although not understanding the reason I attributed this to limitation of my equipment and went on towards the point taking a little hill road we reached khandala a sub urban town. I was thrilled to see that this point also appeared as reachable and near the highway as had been our other two points, may be the luck was favouring us.

Following the G.P.S we continued our drive on highway(Pune-Satara) and reached a place called "vele" just 6 kms before a town called "wai" at around 1:30 pm where the latitude reading showed 18:00:000N on G.P.S. we took off from the taxi and driver of the taxi had grown curious too by now so he joined me for the search. G.P.S. was showing the point to be some 400 mts away in the fields. We reached the point following G.P.S and took photographs. I asked my taxi driver to collect some information from the villagers and so we left for Panchgani a tourist spot just 27 kms away from the point. Covering other point 19N 74E was not possible as I had to reach back Bombay next day and we did not get permission to go to G.M.R.T site in the evening. But I did motivate some of the local students to do the point may be they do it before I plan to do it myself.