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Published: November 10th 2016
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Day 10
We were up and ready for the tuk tuk to pick us up, and our hosts had kindly made us some breakfast to take on the boat, in case that provided wasn't upto much. We'd taken travel sick tablets as we weren't sure how rough it would be, especially after the rain last night. The tuk tuk was late, and we were just contemplating walking to the meeting office when it sped towards us.
It was literally a 5 minute ride, and when we arrived we were the last to register and as soon as we had filled our names in, they called for everyone to follow them. We headed to the harbour side where there were a number of similar boats loading up with hopeful whale watchers. We opted to sit downstairs, as the upstairs had no seats, just the floor and if it started to roll a bit we thought we would be better.
No long after we had set sail, they brought breakfast, fried egg sandwich 2 frankfurter sausages and a banana, which we picked at. We continued out to sea, the ocean broken only be the sight of the occasional fishing boat
,and some flying fish. By this point, we had lost a couple of people to sea sickness, one of which laid down and fell asleep, not waking until we were half way bacK, missing all the action. The spotter at the front of the boat had really just been sat there all morning, and to be honest I thought we weren't going to get to see anything. We had been travelling for more than 2 hours and over 10 nautical miles
Suddenly, a flurry of activity, and news over the radio of a sighting dead ahead but quite a distance away. The boat set off heading for where we could just see a solitary yellow vessel, and coming in our starboard side was another boat. In all there were about 6 boats that had gathered to watch, which it didn't feel was too many. As we reached the place, we were treated to 2 blow holes. These represented two blue whales - the largest mammals in the world!
We spent our time trying to spot blow holes, co-ordinate our movements on deck, and branish our various cameras to get pictures, as one flipped over to show us his
fluke - not an easy task. After a couple of minutes, the water went quiet, no blow holes. The deck hand said they had shallow dived and would be back up in about 10 mins. The boats have to then anticipate where they are going to come up and make their way there, too far away and you might miss the action, same if you over egg it. Luckily for us, each of the 3 following times they surfaced, we werent so far away that the boat could get there before they dived again, and we managed to get some photos and video.
The deck hand signalled that we would have one last look before heading back, and again everyone kept their eyes peeled for the tell tail blow holes. We were treated to them bother coming up for air and then one showed us his tail fluke before they dived again. The captain turned the boat around, and we started the long journey back to Mirissa.
We had traveled quite a way back, when someone spotted dolphins off the front of the boat, but before we could get ourselves together with cameras, they had gone
again. The captain slowed right down, and we all waited to see if they appeared again further along, and they did and the pod came past again and we managed to get some photos as well as video.
After a few minutes they disappeared from sight, and we continued back to harbour. Back in port, we went back to the offices where we were offered fresh coconut juice . We headed back to the hotel, and were glad to be offered a nice cup of coffee and some ginger biscuits on the verandah, where one of the resident dogs decided to take up a position on Russ's lap, where she looked like she could stay all day!
We had a free afternoon, really the first of the holiday, so changed for the beach, and headed off to get some lunch watching the surfers and then take up a position for a couple of hours of sun.
About 5 pm, we packed up and headed for a drink, and the bars began setting out tables for the evening. We walked back to the hotel along the Main Street via an ATM only to remember that we had been told of a power outage whilst they fixed a fault, so none of the cash machines were working and none of the shops had any lights. It still hadnt come back on when we got back, making it incredibly hot in the room, so we sat on the balcony. After a short time the power kicked back in again, and we could put the aircon back on. We showered and changed and headed for dinner, and on the way stopped at the ATM. Disaster struck when half way through processing the transaction the power in the booth failed and we got the card back but no cash - cue frantic call to bank who could see the transaction but couldn't do anything about it, but would dispute for us that we had had the money. It seemed that all the ATMs weren't working, and when we looked it was because the power was coming from the street lights which weren't on, and we must have picked one that had temporary battery backup. Some one was going to get a nice surprise when they used the machine the next day! We went back to Zephyer to eat, it wasn't as busy but attracting a waiters attention was still as difficult!
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