Sun and rain in paradise

We woke to the sun and after a substantial breakfast went snorkeling and later went out in a two man kayak. We circumnavigated the island that gave us a waterfront view of the various bungalows and facilities. We spent a lot of time floating over the shallows of the "coral garden". The coral is badly damaged not from the Tsunami as is the case in Sri Lanka but from the rise in sea temperatures that occurred from about 2010. There are still corals but not as wonderful as before. The fish are in great number and variety. With the still water we could see them with the bright blues, yellows, pink and every colour.
Later in the afternoon Rob swam the coral trail and was rewarded not only with good viewing of corals and fish but also conga eels, turtles and a variety of marine life. At any point of time you could see a hundred fish of varying size and colour.

                                                            Bird on a spit!
This is the only resident of the sand spit near our room. He is part of the scenery!

We have walked along the sand spit and swam in the waters on each side.

During the night the weather changed again. It rained all day and we only ventured out for meals.
The photos above and below were taken in the rain when we realised that on the previous day we had been swimming and had taken few photos.

Our holiday on Gangehi is almost over. If the weather clears tomorrow and our seaplane can pick us up we fly to South India
Despite the mixed weather we have had an enjoyable time in the Maldives.

More from The Maldives

We have had mixed weather since we arrived. The weather closed in on the afternoon as we arrived but the next day was warm and sunny. The swimming from our bungalow is wonderful and the fish most interesting.
We had great viewing as we stood on our deck early in the morning. We saw all sorts of sea life in the shallow waters very close to our steps that lead down into the water. There were black tipped reef sharks, white tipped reef sharks, some other shark species, large sting rays and much more.

    Hard to capture as the water surface was choppy. Think this one is an Eagle Ray.

                                                    A Manta Ray we think!

                                                   A Black Tipped Reef Shark

The sharks are nothing to worry about. They are small and are often on the very edge of the water. Some of them are only 30cm in size but we watched one like this circle a school of very small fish still without a catch.

The next day was rain from breakfast all day. Late in the afternoon we finally went for a swim and walked out along a sand spit. In the shallow water saw lots of fish, a few sting rays and a few small sharks. It is a wonderful place to relax but we are looking forward to sun tomorrow!

Gangehi Island, Maldives

It is not a long distance from Colombo to The Maldives but it seemed to take most of the day. The flight from Colombo to Male could not land at first but we were down and after collection of luggage and immigration we walked to our seaplane transfer.
The seaplane docks are busier than the airport! We were eventually aboard and headed for three stops. Visibility was not great but we saw the many islands, some inhabited and others not. There were lots of atolls that were only out of water at a low tide.

                                                                Our Twin Otter.

The weather closed in and the plane avoided the worst of the storm. We landed at our destination first to our surprise. They then told us that the weather was too bad to fly on. We believe that people eventually were picked up by speed boats from the respective islands. The plane stayed at the dock for the night! We went ashore by boat and were taken to our room.

 Taken from our boat transfer. The others had to wait on this little platform for hours. We were the lucky ones!

Gangehi Island from the sea plane dock. It was misty so whilst we were soon in comfort others were not.

The resort has an unusual policy on time! They have a private time zone. We put our clocks forward to their special daylight saving time. We will have one hour less at the resort no doubt!!

                                       Sunset day 1.  Taken from our steps into the lagoon.

Our accommodation is wonderful. An over water bungalow with a huge room that is well equipped. It has a private deck with lounges and a set of steps into the water. Near us is a sand spit that extends right out into the lagoon and to deep water. We can see lots of fish from the deck and there is good snorkeling directly in front. We did try it out on our first morning/

                                A Lion Fish taken from our steps. You can see it at Gail's feet in next photo.

                           
                                   Gail on the steps. That is a Lion Fish just off the step.

                                            We swam and swam then swam some more.

We certainly tried out the bar and the dining room. We have a full board rate and staff are great.

                                                                   Sunset Day 2

Galle, Sri Lanka

We drove down to Galle the site of the early Dutch fort. It is an interesting place to visit as the old town occupies the old fort area. From the outside most of the walls remain and the centre is a labyrinth of old streets and lanes with museums, shops, restaurants and hotels.

                                                    The old Dutch Reform Church.

                                                      The entry to the Maritime Museum.

                                                          All Saints Anglican Church.

                                                                 The Light house.

We met the man in this poster! It is correct ...he is a crazy jumper! When he collects enough money he jumps into the shallow ocean pool.

By now it was raining so we spent the next few hours either checking indoor venues and shops or walking in the rain. Lucky for us we found a nice small and dry cafe.

One of the indoor venues was a Buddhist temple where we were the only visitors.

Surf coast, Sri Lanka

We travelled down to the popular south coast. There are many small towns along the beach front each with a range of accommodation. The beach front is lined with coconut trees and the water is clean.
We stayed at the town of Ahangama that had some good hotels and a nice beach.

The area has stilt fishermen and they make an interesting sight as there are large groups at the best fishing times.

                                      When we had a camera there were only a few fishing!

On the previous day we swam on this beach but today the red flag was out. We enjoyed both the surf and the pool.

                                               
                                                   The water was a perfect temperature!

As we left our hotel we had another local stop. We had rejected the whale watching and mangroves by canoe in favour of a relaxing time poolside. We stopped at the Sea Turtle Conservation Project. The local villagers once sold turtle eggs to local hotels but now they sell them to the foundation and the turtles are released into the sea.

                             Whoops..looks like the same one! But all you turtles look the same to me!
They had at least four species. Some had lost a flipper or two and couldn't be released.

We drove on headed to Galle and the end of our time in Sri Lanka.

Elephants of Udawalawe

The winding road continued as we travelled towards Udawalawe National Park. Our first stop was Niewar Eliya but we had lots of interesting stops.

                                                                    The Rawana Falls

We reached Udawalawe National Park in the late morning, a period when elephants are resting. We were told that we had a 10% chance of seeing elephants. We saw lots even if they were less active than our previous elephant safari.
We also saw lots of birds and other animals.

                                             We have seen lots of peacocks during the trip.

                                                         Various species of eagles.

                                                     The beautiful green bee eater.

                              The largest crocodile that we have seen on the trip.

We saw lots of elephants both in large groups and lone males.

                      

                                        A large group resting under the shade of a huge tree.

                                      They were sound asleep! All adults sleep standing.

                                    There were three baby elephants with this group.

                                  This large male woke up and had a stretch.

                                                                  Trunk up.

By the last hour of the trip we no longer stopped for the odd elephant sighting. We saw buffalo a few times.

                                                  Water buffalo and elephant.

                                                                 Cooling off.

 Monkeys are everywhere. They are often at our hotels and sometimes steal your food. These were where they should be ..in the National Park.

We left the elephants behind and drove past rice paddy and headed for the south coast with its famous beaches.

Ella

From Kandy we travelled up into the highlands. We were over 2000 metres at times and it was a lot cooler. We did take a jacket but didn't need them. The cooler climate attracted the British to move to this region and many grand homes remain. It is also the centre of the tea industry after coffee production was destroyed by disease.

Before leaving Kandy we went to a high viewpoint with great views over the lake and the town.

Taken from the same spot of the large Buddha that you might be able to make out in the previous photo.

On the outskirts of the town near the university we stopped at this great tree. This is as high as we could manage!

The temperature fell as we climbed higher into the mountains. The tea plantations dominated.

                                                    One of the local tea pickers.

Normally the tea is picked by Tamil women but Rob was a master. If you pick just the one top leaf then it is made into Silver Tip tea, top two leaves for green tea or top three leaves for black tea and this one is fermented.

The women are paid Rs2000 or less than $A20 for 18 kg of leaves. Rob would have earned about 5 cents!

We drove on. Today we must have gone around over 100 hairpin bends. Very windy mountainous road.

                              One of the many waterfalls that we passed on the way.

                                    No sunset photo but this is the view from our room in Ella.

Ella is a "hippy" type of town, popular with backpackers. Instead of staying in the town we were at "Heaven's Edge" up on the mountain top. The views the next morning were spectacular.

                                                The view from our balcony.

I took so many photos that I could have made it into a time lapse video!!