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Trip Reports Archive » By Length » One Day » Few hours with relatives at sea

Few hours with relatives at sea

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Tags & Author Archive

Anawilundawa, Dolphins, Kalpitiya, Nawadankulama, One Day, January, Dry Zone, Sand & Beach, Birds, 2010, Boating, Photograhy, Whales & Dolphins

Author: Danushka (9 Trips)

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This event was organized by Adventure Sri Lanka (flickr) group as its 6th event and the new year begins with new hopes. This time our destination was beyond the limit of land. Kalpitiya situated about 175Kms away from Colombo was the point we plant of sail. Plan was to go on dolphin watching in the morning and get back to Nawadankulama for birding in the evening.

Year and Month January 2010
Number of Days 1 day
Crew 24 (between 20-40 years)
Accommodation Accommodation can be found around Kalpitiya if needed
Transport Car, 3 Vans and 4 boats
Activities Dolphin watching, Bird watching, Photography
Weather Weather was extremely good sunny day, calm sea, good light. Everything was good from weather perspective
Route Our Destination was Dolphin beach hotel at Kalpitiya.Kalpitiya: On Colombo – Puttalam road take the right turn from Palavi to Kalpitiya. Take the left turn (at the Three Start Three wheeler Stand) from Norochcholai to get to Dolphin beach hotel.

Nawadankulama: Pass Anawilundawa junction on Colombo-Putlam rd just after passing 104th Km Post turn right to a narrow road with the sign board “Nawadankulama”. Move directly till you come across another faairly big road. Take the right turn and move about 500-1Km till you come across a church on your left side. Take the narrow route by church to go to Nawadankulama. Return on the same route.

Tips, Notes and Special remarks
  • Dolphin watching is getting popular among nature lovers and there is a good demand for those who provide the service. So make sure you book the boats before going there. There are only about 3 hotels providing the service.
  • Better be prepared for sea sickness since you are going to stay in the sea for few hours.
  • If you carry any equipments (E.g. Photographic equipments) make sure they are protected from sea water)
  • Get a boat with a canopy or get a good shade for your self, at sea there is no cover for you from the burning sun.
  • Make sure you go there by 6.30 in the morning.
  • Road to Kalpitiya is not so good and under construction so get a vehicle with a good ground clearance to get there.
  • Take enough water with you. It’s fairly difficult to find a place with good food in the area. So if possible get them prepared from the hotel or get them from home.
  • At the birding destinations try to be at the venue as early as possible. Direct drive from Colombo will take only about 2.30 hr to get there.
  • Watch weather conditions. Bad weather can ruin your bird watching trip.
  • Dolphin watching is good from November to April. IT is the season, so try to go there in a months between November to April.
Author Danushka
Related Resource
  • Adventure Sri Lanka Flicker Group
  • Event thread on Flicker
  • Event best photographs on Flicker
  • Contact information of Dolphin beach hotel

 

Comments Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread

  • Few hours with relatives at sea

The event was organized as the 6th event of Adventure Sri Lanka flickr travel and photography group. As planed we left Colombo around 2 in the morning after going through few unexpected things on transport (Unfortunately it continued). We were travelling in three vans with 21 members of Adventure Sri Lanka group soon joined by three other members by a car at Seeduwa around three in the morning. We all started going towards Kalpitiya. On the way we looked for a place to get a short breakfast and tea. We were only able to find a place close to Palavi since it was early morning. Food was not that good, though most of our guys ate them as usual. Then we started driving towards Kalpitiya.

Road from Palavi to Kalpitiya is under constriction. Some parts of the road is as good as A2 but rest is awful. If you plan to go there get a vehicle with good ground clearance. We passed Norochcholai junction and continue our journey toward Kalpitiya. We stopped by few places to get a snap of sunrise over the lagoon.

Just before sunrise

Just before sunrise

Shooting the sunrise

Shooting the sunrise

Waiting for the sun to come out

Waiting for the sun to come out

Shooting boats

Shooting boats

Our misfortune continued as a result of my mistake again. When I called the Dolphin beach hotel, we had passed the turn off to hotel by about 8Kms towards Kalpitiya side. We had to turn back. Finally we reached the place by 7 in the morning. 30 minutes later then scheduled. We had to hurry up to the boats and get to sea. There were 24 of us in 4 boats. Within few minutes we were in the sea looking for dolphins.

Chasing dolphins

Chasing dolphins ........

or chasing our friends in the other boat ?

........ or chasing our friends in the other boat ?

I was so disappointed, my friends in other two boats were long gone and my boat was running on first gear 🙁 Yet we managed to pass one of the slow moving boat. It took us about 30 minutes to get to where our friends were, and there were dolphins all over the place. They were fairly large, not the ones we expected. Lately we got to know that those were Risso’s Dolphins. They are larger and without the well known nose. Activeness on the surface of this variety was fairly low, comparing to other two species in our ocean, so there was nothing much to photograph.

Waiting impatiently

Waiting impatiently

Experts in action

Experts in action

Here comes the dolphins

Here comes the dolphins

Dolphin watching

Dolphin watching

Dolphins close up

Dolphins close up

Dolphin watching

Dolphin watching

We spent about 30 minutes with them and saw only few surface actions. Unfortunately I was not been able to capture any jumps. We head back to main land after about half and hour with dolphins and then suddenly there was a big sound coming from the behind. Our boat driver was hanging hard to something, Oh no.. it was our boat engine and it was in the sea. That’s where the Adventure begun. Few of us jumped back and helped him to get it back on boat. But it was not functioning anymore. We shout at one of the other boats, and they got back to us.

After tying our boat with the another one, we pulled the boat for about 2 hrs toward the main land. It looked like we were floating at the same place for all that time. Without a control of direction it was really difficult to sail it to where we wanted. After making few calls to hotel finally we got a response, they came come to us with another engine. Myself with another, jumped to the new boat to reduce the weight, and that speed up both boats. We were so hungry and couldn’t wait till we step on land.

Our crew was waiting at the hotel for us. We all were so hungry and I informed the hotel manager that we have no option other then having breakfast there. We had planed to have it on the way back to Nawadankulama. After breakfast at about 11 we discussed what to do next. Some guys wanted to go to the edge of Kalpitiya so we headed that way. It was noon and the sun was burning. We didn’t come across any interesting thing. Without wasting any more time we decided to head back to Nawadankulama.

Nawadankulama was as good as every time we went there. Had plenty of opportunities for photography.

Flying Great egret

Flying Great egret

Jacana take off

Jacana take off

Kingfisher in action

Kingfisher in action

Camouflaged predator

Camouflaged predator

Bond of life

Bond of life

Dragonflies

Dragonflies

Common Moorhen

Common Moorhen

Star Tories

Star Tories

Common Coot

Common Coot

Enjoying the nature's beauty

Enjoying the nature's beauty

We spent till 6 in the evening at Nawadankulama and everybody enjoyed the beauty of Nature and caught some good memories in to their digital cams. We headed back and reached Colombo by 10pm. It was a long tired day… but worth!

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