Vijay - Thank you. I will enter this picture in some competition upon your advice.
Krishnan - Thank you again.
Prithvi - Your first guess is correct. The distortions are from a very harsh reflection of direct sunlight in the water. But no, it wasn't shot at night. As I said, this was in broad daylight. The black background that you see is a result of reducing saturation and playing around with the curves.