At six in the morning in Mirissa harbour, while the fishing boats are still creaking at their moorings and the last of the night stars are fading above the coconut palms, a small group of travellers gathers at the waterfront for an excursion that many of them will describe, years later, as the single most extraordinary experience of their lives. They are going to look for blue whales. The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever existed on Earth. Reaching lengths of up to 33 metres and weighing as much as 200 tonnes, the blue whale is a creature of a scale and power that the human mind struggles to fully comprehend from a textbook description. But out here in the deep water off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, where the continental shelf drops sharply away and the ocean turns a particular shade of deep indigo, you will comprehend it very quickly and very physically. The vessel clears the harbour and makes for open water. Within twenty minutes, the first spinner dolphins appear – a pod of perhaps fifty, riding the bow wave with athletic grace, leaping and spinning in the foam as if they have been waiting all morning for the entertainment of an audience. The guide tells you that spinner dolphin pods in these waters can number in the thousands during peak season. For now, fifty is enough to produce smiles and gasps and the frantic clicking of camera shutters all around the deck. Then the shout goes up from the bow. There: a spout of water vapour, rising six metres into the morning air. The captain cuts the engine and the vessel drifts, and slowly, unhurriedly, the blue whale surfaces. The back appears first – a vast expanse of mottled blue-grey skin that continues to rise and rise well beyond the point at which any animal you have ever seen would have been fully above the waterline. Then the dorsal fin. Then the slow, majestic roll as the creature dives, and finally – the moment that makes every passenger on every whale watching boat in the world fall temporarily silent – the enormous tail flukes rising against the blue sky before slipping beneath the surface without a sound. Sri Lanka is one of the very few places in the world where blue whale sightings are reliable rather than exceptional, achieved on the great majority of excursions during the November to April season. The waters off Mirissa and Dondra Head lie directly beneath one of the major blue whale migration routes, and the combination of warm, nutrient-rich water and abundant krill creates the conditions in which these extraordinary animals feed and gather. On a good morning, multiple individual whales can be observed at close range over the course of a two or three-hour excursion. Ceylon Escape Holidays arranges whale watching excursions through carefully selected responsible operators who maintain strict guidelines for approaching marine mammals, ensuring that the whales are not disturbed or stressed by the presence of vessels. We believe that the privilege of witnessing these animals in the wild comes with the responsibility of ensuring they continue to thrive, and we choose our marine partners accordingly. To book your whale watching excursion as part of a south coast day tour or round tour package, speak to your Ceylon Escape Holidays travel designer – and prepare to be astonished.