Whale watching tours are pretty popular in Sri Lanka but not all are created equally. Like the turtles, whales have a long history of exploitation so we tried to go with an ethical tour, although it’s not always obvious even after you’re on the boat.

The first downside was the early start – 6am tuk tuk pickup was brutal. The next, is that the Indian Ocean can get quite rough so our tour provided anti sick sickness pills, plus ginger tea and ginger biscuits once on board. We all opted to take the pills and they worked for most of us. For one of the kids… well, let’s just say she’d probably go on the Tower of Terror again before another whale watching tour.

Leaving Mirissa harbour was quite pretty and calm at least…

On the way out we got a bit of an introduction to the types of whales we might see and how they shouldn’t be “chased”, so the boats should go alongside the whales, not directly behind or in front.

We were on the look out for various whales and dolphins. Of course, there’s no guarantee as these are wild animals so you could see absolutely nothing, so we kept our fingers crossed! We could be guaranteed to see local fishing boats though 🙂

We were pretty lucky to see a few Bryde’s whales. You did have to be quick though – often one of the staff on the roof would spot them first and call out so you knew which direction to look. It was quite easy to be on the other side of the boat and completely miss it. (or be vomiting and not looking at all! 🤮)

We had a few Bryde’s whales surface:

And a pod of dolphins, including a baby, and one that jumped out of the water, swim around the boat at one point. I was looking the wrong way during this time, as I was focused on the dolphins at the bow of the boat and missed seeing the baby and the jump out of the water. At least our vomiting child did see the jumping dolphin. (Although I am not sure it made up for how she was feeling.)

It was a pretty successful outing really, even though there were a few people feeling unwell. This is obviously pretty common as they have a dedicated bin 😱

We returned to dry land about midday – so just in time for lunch, which we did all partake in… once a bit of time had passed 🙃