Dolphin Watching and a Trip to Pigeon Island in Trincomalee, Sri Lakna

My Srilanka trip was in June 2016. Sometimes I feel what I can remember about a trip after 4-5 months is actually what the trip was about! I hardly take any notes on my trips. I reconstruct them more through the pictures I click. But I clearly remember the day when I went Dolphin watching and to Pigeon Island in Trincomalee.

To go dolphin watching we had to get up really early. I had been up till late the night before because I was completing my Eastern Sri Lanka blog post so that it would be eligible for the awards! When the alarm went off in the morning at 5.00 am I wanted to flung the cell phone against the wall. But I got up somehow and went to our boat which would take us on the dolphin watching tour first.

Early on, I saw the Koneshwaram Shiva Temple in the middle of the sea! Even to my sleep filled eyes it looked worth exploring but we were not stopping there. Later while searching on the net I discovered that the temple has a fascinating history. It was destroyed in 1622 and the main idol were discovered in 1953 by Sir Arthur. C. Clarke on a scuba diving trip in the region! You can read more about it here.

The water was choppy that day. We were getting splashed from all sides in the boat! I think the water woke me up! After a while the leathery escaped. However, if I have too many tiring days in a row I do get scared because I might get an injury. My body was protesting for sure on that day.

And then there were dolphins, only there are no good pictures of the sighting in my camera. We must have traveled for 45 minutes in the choppy waters. Suddenly our boatman would point out at a spot and say dolphin and sure enough dolphins would surface out there!

A photo posted by Himal Kotelawala (@himalkk) on Jun 5, 2016 at 8:53pm PDT

To me it all looked like ocean water, I don’t know how he could spot where the dolphins were and point to the exact spot before they surfaced! And yet I could not click one good picture! Actually the best picture that I saw of the dolphins was taken by Himal, on his cell phone which I have embedded above!

After the dolphin watching adventure we were headed to the Pigeon Island. While going to the island the sea was less choppy.

Pigeon Island is a national park and some restrictions apply. For example, some members of our group wanted to fly their drone but the permission was denied. It is a coral island and the snorkeling is beautiful.

In fact it was here for the first time I realized that I wanted a camera that I could take underwater, the snorkeling was that beautiful. I thought I would go back and buy a GoPro. Later I won a GoPro at the awards night in Sri Lanka for a twitter contest!

Later when we headed back to our hotel, Trinco Blu, I realized I had forgotten the fatigue. But when I got an hour free in the afternoon after lunch, I spent it sleeping in my room instead of going to the pool! I must have been really tired in the end! And yet I remember the day fondly.

PS. I was part of the group of 60 international bloggers invited by the Cinnamon Hotels for the TBC Asia 2016.