Day 14 & 15 - A holiday within a holiday!

Time for a mini break from Galle for a weekend in Mirissa, a town further along the south coast, it's less developed than unawatuna but had some lovely bars and fresh fish restaurants all along the bay. We got the bus there which took around 1 hour, and hit the beach straight away, the beach was gorgeous much quieter than the others we have been on and the sea was lovely and warm. Nadine our friend who is on elective from Germany came with us for the day too.

We went to check in to our guesthouse for the night which was interesting, it was down a little side local road and was recommended for nature lovers in the guidebook and it certainly was out in the wild! There were all different fruit trees, birds, lizards and lots of mozzies! We had booked 2 rooms without A/C which we soon regretted..

For the evening we went along the beach and watched the sunset with cocktails which were on happy hour from 5pm- 10pm so we made the most of that, it was really pretty along the beach as all the bars lit up with fairy lights and lanterns. We then went to one of the fish restaurants along the front, we got to pick the fish we wanted off the front table which had been caught that day! Me, rach and Nadine had jumbo prawn which was almost like lobster, while Jess had the tuna and Catherine had the chicken fish! Very tasty!

On the walk back to the guesthouse, it was pitch black down the country lane and a little scary! There were lots of dogs which were a little over friendly, they were jumping up and following us, normally this would be fine but as we are all paranoid about rabies and the fact it was pitch black we were all pretty terrified, think the dogs could smell our fear despite us trying to walk as calmly and swiftly as possible! After that fright trying to sleep was rather difficult, it was very hot with no AC and the beds were a bit itchy, that in addition to the thought of getting up at 5am for whale watching meant it was not the best night sleep with all sorts of weird and wonderful dreams.

A tuk tuk came to pick us up from the guesthouse at 5.55am, again we were greeted first by an over excitable dog! We were taken to the 'Raja and the whale' boat where we were given a cup of tea and ginger biscuit to help with sea sickness! They gave us all a sea sickness pill which was unusual we didn't know whether to take it or not as the the other girls from Warwick came last week and 2 of them ended up hallucinating and sleeping because of them, in the end we compromised and took half a tablet. They provided us with food and drink throughout, fresh fruit, omelette and cakes! Raja himself gave us a little talk about the whales, he has studied them for 7 years and is currently undertaking research into blue whales so he was very knowledgable, he knew how to find them while also losing the other whale watching boats following us! As we were travelling out we spotted a turtle and then hundreds of spinner dolphins jumping in and out of the water, sometimes spinning mid air and splashing back in. We then travelled quite a way to find a whale, The travel sickness pills started to affect me and Rachel and not in the anti sickness way.. Rach started to feel sick anyway and we both became very very sleepy!! And conked out on the deck.. Woke up when a whale was spotted luckily! We saw the blow hole spurt out in the distance, it was a blue whale!! They remain at the top inhaling for about 5 mins then dive down for about 14 minutes, the crew counted down the minutes untill she popped up again... Meanwhile me and Rachel's conked out again for the 14 minutes, woke to seethe whale and went back to sleep again, it was very strange we literally couldn't stay awake!! At one point just after the whale had gone under there was bright orange stuff floating in the water.. It was the whales poo! I would never have guessed it, it was almost fluorescent red/orange, Raja appeared excited by this and jumped into the water to collect some with a tea strainer and jam jar, they send it off to the lab to look at the age of the whale and what it has been feeding on. It was incredible to see a blue whale we feel very lucky, it was difficult to grasp the enormity of it, on average 30m long, it's mouth can fit 100 people inside, it's heart is the size of a small car and it's veins are big enough to swim in..mind blowing! We slept all the way back, spent an afternoon sleeping on the beach and slept all the way home on the bus. Now having an early night and can't wait to go to sleep again! Think it was a mixture of the tablet, the poor sleep last night and the early morning!