Day 9 - Raja and the Whales

13:00
The 05:00 alarm is brutal, but in a good cause. We drag ourselves out of bed, squinky and squinting. It’s pitch black outside. We’re ultra close to the equator here, meaning sun up and sun down are pretty close to 06:00 and 18:00 each day. A tuk-tuk collects us at 05:45 for the short drive to Raja and the Whales’ office. Short doesn’t really do it justice. We could have walked it in 5 minutes. We’re checked in and boarded onto our boat by 06:15, and see a beautiful sunrise emerge to the East of us. By 06:30, we’re underway. We’ve been given travel sickness tablets in case of sea-sickness. The boat is gently rolling in the waves, but no worse.

Almost immediately, we spot a small pod of dolphins. I took this same trip with the same company two years ago, and we saw hundreds of the things. So beautifully graceful through the water. We didn’t, however, see whales - and I’m hopeful our luck will change today. We head South/South-East for an hour, towards a 2000m deep channel that various species of baleen whale use for feeding. When I’m on these kinds of wildlife adventures, I always like to learn the spotting skills used. For whales - there are 3 primary signs to look out for, broadly in order of from how far away you’re likely to spot them:

1) Seagulls over the water - indicating that fish are being driven to the surface by a feeding whale.
2) Fish jumping out of the water to avoid the whale’s giant mouth.
3) The whale’s blowhole waterspout.

We see plenty of gulls and jumping fish, but no whales initially. The boat crew suddenly explodes with excitement - a blowhole spout is off to the left of us. The boat’s engine increases in power as we hare off towards the spotting. In the distance, we see the dorsal fin of a whale gracefully emerge from the water, and then disappear back beneath the waves. There are perhaps 15 other similarly sized boats around us, and I can’t help but wonder if the whale is doing its best to avoid human contact. On a few occasions, boats come worryingly close to hitting each other. There are strict guidelines for how the boats should approach a whale in the wild, but I think most of that goes out of the window as soon as a whale is spotted.

We spot another Bryde’s whale, again a little ways away from us. After perhaps 90 minutes, most of the boats disappear back towards the shore, and just 2-3 are left with us. I find this relaxes me. In the next 90 minutes, we spot a further 3 whales, including a Sei whale. We catch a great view of a Bryde’s whale from the rear, which really emphasises how giant this creature is. Females can grow to 15m in length, and weigh as much as 20 tons.

Highly satisfied with our whale watching experience, the crew head us back towards Mirissa. Along the way, they receive a radio call from some local fishermen who are surrounded by a big pod of spinner dolphins, and we stop by to take a look. They’re much smaller than their bottlenosed cousins we saw earlier, and we spend a joyful few minutes watching them play around the boat.

Back at port, we decide we’re not that fussed about eating. There’s a great little restaurant by the harbour that serves the best prawn curry I had on my last visit, but we’ll come back when our appetites will do it justice. Back at our room, the 05:00 alarm call catches up with me, and I fall into a deep sleep.

22:30
We’ve had a low powered afternoon. After nearly 2 hours sleeping, I join the others at Surf Bar. A beer is accompanied by some simple fried rice. It’s also accompanied by a less than brilliant pair of live musicians. He’s playing acoustic guitar, but not that well. She’s got a slightly querulous voice, and is doing a disservice to most of the songs she’s attempting.

We decamp to A++, where Bobby Bobster steals first Simon’s sandal, and then my flip-flop. She’s a mischievous little scamp. We manage a drink each and a snack, before turning in for the night. Vicki and I are both hopeful of deep, restorative sleeps. HOLD TIGHT FOR FEEDBACK.Läs mer