BEACH HOTEL NEAR GALLE - WHALE WATCHING TRIP FROM MARISSA - VISIT TO TURTLE SANCTUARY - CENTRAL COLOMBO TOUR AND DINNER
WEATHER: full on sunshine all day, lovely sea breeze and a flat calm sea.
We had a bit of a mish-mash morning, some of the group remained at the hotel, some went walking along the beach and some went on the whale watching cruise.
The beach near Galle
The whale watchers saw the most birds and cetaceans of course, but they never saw a whale!! The usual sighting of a Striated Heron in the mariner at Marissa was a bonus for those that saw it. But the 5 hour whale watching cruise produced very little. The best of which was a couple of sightings of Bridled Terns with one sighting comprising of a group of 20+ terns.
sunrise at the Beach Hotel on the morning of the Whale Watch Cruise
Lesser Crested and Great Crested Terns were seen from the beach along with Whiskered and Gull-billed Terns. Small pods of both Spinner Dolphins and Rossi's Dolphin were seen from the boat. Green Turtles could be seen from ther beach as well as from the boat and think tat just about sums up the morning sightings apart from a White-breasted Sea-eagle which seen from the hotel.
a back-of-camera shot of Rick's Tern picture taken in Galle yesterday. The Terns with orange bills are Lesser Crested and the larger and darker Yellow-billed Tern at the back is the Great Crested Tern. The lower Tern with a black bill is a moulting Gull-billed Tern
here is Rick and Big Phil having breakfast on the cruise
We all met again at lunchtime, it was 1:30pm when we boarded the bus for the final drive back to Colombo and then onto our hotel for the last night.
Brahminy Kites, House Crows, Egrets and Herons were seen all along the way back to Colombo, but nothing new or really exciting popped out. About half way to Colombo we stopped at a Turtle Sanctuary where we had guided tour of the place. it was extraordinary, we could see many turltes that had been rescued from tangled ropes and fishing nets, some had been permanently damaged and need to be looked after for life.
The Nursery tanks for the Green Turtles - these are just 2 weeks old, they are released when tey are 4 weeks old.
we were allowed to handle one or two Turtles, Sue and Ali are watching over this one
A section of the sanctuary was devoted to conservation efforts, we were shown tanks full of newly hatched turtled, tiny little beings that fit in the palm of your hand. This one sanctuary had raised and released 1.5 million turtles since it opened. We saw seven species ranging from the small
the 7 species of Turtle that have been found in Sri Lanka
For our dinner on this last night we had a real treat! We were taken to Kingsbury Hotel at the docks in central Colombo. We also stopped a couple times to admire some of Colombo's architectural, historical and famous landmark sites. The Building to mark Sri Lanka's independence, the Memorial Hall was one of the sites we visited and we passed by the Gangarmaya Temple.
Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo
The Kingsbury Hotel was where we ate the most wonderful food you could imagine. The buffet-style service was out of this world and the variety and choice was just incredible. Everyone had a fantastic time and really enjoyed some delicious plates of food. The sweets were innumerable, colourful and spread for miles, out on long counters. What a perfect ending this was for our wonderful holiday. We had to leave around 9pm in order to get back to our last hotel unfortunately we did not stay at the Kingsbury Hotel.
at dinner in the Kingsbury Hotel
We arrived at our last hotel (which happened to be the same hotel we stayed at on the first night), Rick had to be leaving us at 11pm to catch his early morning flight, so we said our last goodbye to him. The rest of us slept until 6am when we left, in the dark, for the airport. Only Phil and Sue remained, they had booked an extra week of relaxation (lucky beggars). At the airport we said goodbye to Dhammi our guide, to Nuga our driver and to Sandu our helper.
Little Phil and Sue stayed on at the hotel for another week. This is one of his many pictures that he sent to us. It is a male Small Minivet, abird that we failed to see during the tour. He loved it when he found this bird!!! Common Redstart I say!
We all had long flights ahead of us, but everyone got home safely without any delays or mishaps. All's well that ends well. It had been a great trip with a really lovely group of people, we saw 235 species of birds 20+ mammals and lots of butterflies, interesting insects, reptiles and amphibians.