Spring Break Trip to Sri-Lanka Part III - In which we venture into the Deep!

One of the big draws of Sri Lanka is the opportunity to see Blue Whales.  Yulia had scheduled us for a boat tour to go whale watching on Saturday.  We arranged with the hotel to have us taken to Mirissa to go on the tour.  We had to leave the hotel at 5:30, so it was an early day.  Our whale watching boat was a two-story boat that was about 40 feet long.  It was not a very fast boat, but it was okay.  We were some of the first ones that arrived, so we got seats on the top level of the boat.  We took Dramamine before we left to help with seasickness.

Got settled on the top deck

Lina is ready to roll. 

Yulia

These are a couple of other whale watching boats similar to ours. Most of them got really crowded. We were really happy we chose ours!

Fishing boats in the harbor

Leaving the island

Waves!

Well, the Dramamine did not work for everyone.  Sophie, who is our kid who gets carsick and seasick was the first to go.  Two of the other girls also threw up (Nika and Lina) and Lexa felt sick.  They all ended up laying down on mats on the deck for most of the trip.

Nika and Sophie, the seasick buddies!

Lina and Lexa

We saw two huge pods of dolphins (with at least 50 dolphins in each) who were very playful and social and who stayed near the boat for about 10 minutes or so.  We were out on the water from 6:30 until just after 1:00 p.m.  We were far enough out that land was not visible and we were out in the sea lanes so we saw a lot of big container ships traveling West from Singapore and China.  We were fed a nice breakfast (that was wasted on some of us) and snacks of fruit and crackers and a bottle of coke during the day.  Overall it was a pleasant day - hot and sunny.  The ocean was quite active, but not violently or overly so.

Beautiful reflection!

Dolphins!

This one got very close to the boat.

We did not see any blue whales on our trip.  Our captain told us when we got back to the harbor that he had information on where to find the whales, but it would have taken us 2 or 3 hours to get to them, and then we would have to return to shore.  He said that some other captains would stay out for 12 or 13 hours, but he wouldn't.  We had the opportunity to go out again the next day for free.  The girls were willing[1], but we opted out.  We gave it a shot and we had a nice adventure.  The nature of life is that sometimes you don't get to see or do what you want.

Back in harbor

Harbor

Some of the zillion fishing boats in the harbor

We were given a coconut (King coconut) and a straw when we got off the boat.  The coconut water is quite refreshing.  After drinking, we got in the van back to the hotel.  The driver pointed out a colony of bats hanging in a tree (they were big ones!).  He also showed us the pole fishermen out fishing.  We stopped at a sea turtle hatchery as well.

King Coconut is sweeter than the regular coconut

Huge bats hanging off the tree.

A couple of pole fishermen. They mostly do it in early morning.

At the hatchery they hatch the turtles so that tourists and fishermen and locals won't dig up the eggs.  Six species of turtles lay their eggs on the beaches in Sri Lanka.  The hatchery also rehabilitates turtles who are injured in fishing nets, so we got to see some larger (adolescent) turtles that were 10-20 years old.  The turtles don't lay eggs until they are around 30!

Eggs buried at the hatchery

Two week old sea turtles

They are super active and super cute!

I think this one was a 7-year old rescued turtle.

And another one.

Eggs of different types of turtles that come to Sri Lanka's shore.

It was a nice little detour and one that we hadn't planned.  When we got back to the hotel, we swam and napped and generally just relaxed for the rest of the day.  We had accomplished the one thing we had really planned on doing in Sri Lanka successfully!

Relaxing at the swimming pool at night.

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[1] Especially if they could do it without throwing up.