Dolphins … but no whales

If you are looking for a whale you cannot search for a whale in a pond. You must go to deep waters.

Prashant Iyengar

But even in deep waters there are no guarantees of whale sightings, as anyone who has ventured out on a whale-watching trip must know. Nature always has the upper hand and may surprise, delight or disappoint. Yet whatever you see, or don’t see, a day out on the water is always a pleasure.

I can never resist the opportunity for a whale-watching trip, or indeed any outing by boat. So when I saw that it was possible to do trips from Mirissa, near our hotel in Weligama, I immediately built that into our itinerary.

It meant an early start of course. Champi picked us up at 6.00 and drove us to the dock in Mirissa, arriving soon after sunrise. There was some confusion about which boat we were booked on, if any, but that was resolved in favour of a smart catamaran, the Opal.

Boarding late meant we had little choice of seats, but we lucked out in sharing a table and sofas with a friendly young couple, he English and she South African, who told us they were currently living in Hanoi and teaching English there. By some coincidence his father was from the north east, and though he himself grew up in Ipswich he was a Newcastle fan!

We set off and soon after were served coffee and a breakfast of fresh fruit, sausages and scrambled eggs. After breakfast I alternated my time as we travelled out to sea between chatting with our companions and climbing to the upper deck to take photos. There were quite a few local fishing boats, and at one point we came pretty close to a huge container ship.

Fishing boats in Weligama Bay

When we were some distance out dolphins were spotted, quite a few of them. I tried to get photos using the burst setting, with some limited success, then just stood watching them for a while. I believe these were Spinner dolphins.

Spinner dolphins

Spinner dolphins get their name from their habit of leaping from the water and spinning up to seven times in the air before falling back into the water. But although they were lively enough we didn’t see them perform like that. We also saw yellow fin tuna jumping out of the sea, but they were impossible to photograph!

We continued further out to sea in search of whales but despite lingering in what we assumed were promising areas (given how many other boats were there) we didn’t see any.

However we did come across another type of dolphin, the larger Risso’s dolphin, and I was a bit more successful in photographing them.

Risso’s dolphins

Eventually the search for whales was abandoned and we turned back to shore. We had already been out longer than we’d expected so we thought the planned stop for swimming might not happen. But not far from the port they dropped the anchor and announced that those who wanted to swim could do so.

We’d already decided against swimming as it’s a pain being stuck with wet swimwear afterwards, so we just sat and watched the fun. And we were close enough now to the port for me to take some photos (on full zoom) of the colourful fishing boats moored there.

The fishing port in Mirissa

It wasn’t long before everyone was back on board, at which point we assumed we’d head back. But no, it transpired that lunch was also included and we were served rice with prawns and tuna in a nice spicy sauce, and vegetables, followed by the traditional Sri Lankan dessert of watalappan, a delicious coconut milk custard spiced with cardamom and cloves.

Then we did head back to the port. Once we were finally back I grabbed some closer shots of the fishing boats, this time from the land side.

Fishing boats, Mirissa

Champi then drove us back to the hotel. We were nearing the end of our tour and it was time to say goodbye to him. Despite our reservations about his guiding he’d been a great driver and had really put himself out at times to ensure we had a good trip, so of course we tipped him well.

Thanks to the dolphins I have plenty of animals to share with Terri’s new Animal of the Month challenge, even if I don’t have the hoped-for whales. And it had been a fun outing despite their non-appearance.

I visited Sri Lanka in February 2026