Blue Whales, Sri Lanka

After days of watching blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda), dive in the distance, our moment arrives. We kill the boat engine and just sit quietly drifting 7 kilometers of the coast. We get a visual on a blue whale about 200 meters in front heading away from us. It surfaces with a huge blow, then as if it is meant to be, it turns towards us. Everyone onboard remains completely silent. I start to gear up, slipping on my fins, mask and grab my camera, check my f-stop and slip over the side as quietly as possible into the blue.

After swimming about 5 meters from the boat, I see nothing. So I gesture to the guys onboard to ask, if they have a visual. They shout "it’s coming straight towards you". I look down once again into the blue, excited and scared at the same time, my adrenalin starts to pump. Then it comes into view from 50 meters away. It’s like a submarine moving towards me at speed, as it nears it starts to dive. Its head fills my 16mm lens and we make eye contact for a split second, its sheer size is overwhelming. I dive with it. At about 15 feet I start to compose a full frame shot of the whale—only its tail in view. I fin a little longer as it starts to surface again, capturing an amazing tail shot—just like a 747 from behind. I try to keep up with this amazing creature but have no chance. As I reach the surface I’m speechless, I know deep down that it doesn’t get better than that. A moment with a blue whale.

Since the introduction of the whaling ban, studies have failed to ascertain whether the conservation reliant global Blue Whale population is increasing or remaining stable. In the Antarctic, best estimates show a significant increase at 7.3% per year since the end of illegal Soviet whaling; but numbers remain at under 1% of their original levels. It has also been suggested that Icelandic and Californian populations are increasing, however these increases are not statistically significant. The total world population was estimated to be between 5,000 and 12,000 in 2002, although there are high levels of uncertainty in available estimates for many areas. The Blue Whale remains listed as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

In Sri Lanka Blue whales migrate annually past the southern-most point, at Dondra Head. Here the continental shelf comes very close to land, bringing with it a rich bio-diversity of life, feeding on the nutrient rich waters. From December to April, Blue Whales can be seen in numbers far greater than almost anywhere else on the planet, making Sri Lanka the number one destination to see these majestic beings.