We enjoyed a more relaxed couple of days at Mirissa with its beautiful coastline and the bonus of a turtle hatchling release.
We stayed at the lovely Mirissa Lantern Boutique Hotel which is right on the coast with a beautiful beach in front. There were lovely shaded beach hammock beds which I took full advantage of. We're not usually beach people but we'd had a very hectic schedule up to this point so it was really nice to relax for a while.
We were warned not to swim in the ocean here, there is a steep drop-off and a strong undercurrent. The sea always looked very turbulent.
One evening there was a release of baby turtles on the beach in front of the hotel. There is a turtle hatchery nearby and they have an arrangement with the hotel. They first smoothed an area of sand from the release point down to the water. Once released the young turtles scramble towards the ocean where they are swept up and out to sea, you could see them bobbing on the surface for a while. It was a really nice experience.
Without doubt this was the worst "whale-watching" trip we've ever been on.
We had a 6a.m. start for the harbour to board a Sail Lanka catamaran. Left harbour at 7a.m. and saw what were probably fin whales, more than likely the same one or two a number of times. They could as easily have been Sperm Whales, though Idon't think they were big enough to be Blue Whales - it was hard to tell from the little we saw and the crew seemed clueless.
Fin whales are the second largest animals on the planet, second only to Blue Whales, growing up to between 20 and 26 metres long. They are the fastest of the whales, earning themselves the nickname "greyhound of the seas". Sadly they are still a threatened species by nations, including Iceland, that indulge in whale-hunting. The whale meat will mostly end up in Japan.
Two of the whales we saw seemed to have damaged dorsal fins, which wouldn't be surprising given the huge number of boats chasing around like maniacs.
We also saw a lot of dolphins and a single turtle. It wasn't surprising we didn't see much - there were quite a number of boats literally racing to any possible sightings, including two or three local double decker boats that were absolutely jammed with people. The poor whales don't stand a chance and didn't hang around. We saw very little of the one or two that were spotted. The crew were very poor in alerting the passengers as to where the wild life was, yelling "there, there" instead of giving an actual direction such as "at two o'clock"
We actually went quite a long way out but, bizarrely, returned to anchor just outside the harbour for a swim in the Indian Ocean, which was very refreshing.
We left Mirissa heading for Galle, stopping first at a viewpoint over fishing boats then to see the stilt fishermen.
This method of fishing is pretty much no longer practiced and these were purely for the tourists, a fee being payable.
The stilts allow the fishermen to perch above very shallow water where small fish can swim in times of abundance.
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