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hey guys and welcome back to another bite size and another interesting topic today we are taking you on board our whale watching tour in Marisa this is a part of our recent trip to Sri Lanka that we haven't shown you yet wow this is amazing look at that size see the fish hanging onto wow yes we like I has one of the most beautiful and diverse wildlife in the world and we've been very fortunate to see loads of it there are crazy road trip we're also going to recap our whale watching tour we did on the opposite side of the island in Trincomalee and we're going to be talking to a marine biologist who knows much more about the effects that whale watching tours is having on the animals
hopefully we can give you all the information you need on whether taking a toy in Sri Lanka is something you want to do so let's roll the intro and start this really interesting budget here's bite-sized just before we get into it a quick mention in that Skillshare are giving you guys free access to their online learning platform stay tuned to the end of this video guys because you are not gonna want to miss this one enjoy sis Marissa is Sri Lanka's most famous place for whale watching it is known for getting lots of visitors desperate to see these giant majestic creatures so let's pick up the action first thing in the morning as Patti and I make her way to the jetty where we
board our large boat sign a few safety warnings and get served free breakfast and coffee before we set off into the deep thirty other and it's not for you seasick tablets now thank you very much that's nice but they offer you to be honest the hospitality on board was really on point and as we headed out to sea we saw about a dozen other boats that were also busy boarding and getting ready to head out the price of this tour we negotiated down to 7,000 rupees per person which is just under 40 US dollars the price includes your transfer to the boat breakfast as well as about three hours onboard they can't always guarantee sightings but all of the staff on board seemed very relaxed and
positive that we would see some whales it took about one hour to get out to the areas where the whales typically visit and we made our way there along with all the other boats the pace was really slow and steady although even just that small swell was proving difficult even for some people but it was really nice to see that the staff were there to apply relief and medication if requested and soon enough we were starting to see whales in the distance so it was surely only a matter of time before we got close enough to really see the scale of these massive mammals here we just saw a few blue whales popping up out of the water there was actually multiplied at least three they were a bit smaller
than the ones we saw in typically but basis are powerful they were way too far away though to even attempt to film it we're usually kilometer away but these alignments in between whale signs are quite peaceful just I feel looking and typing that the whale will appear if he calls my problem say pop up anywhere we like that way most of their eyes at the old hopefully for the next 30 minutes or so we just stay together with all the other boats forming a big circle of vessels that seemed about one kilometer in diameter the idea seemed to be that whales would rise up for air and the nearest boat would get to enjoy the closest encounter we saw about three to four wheels rise up to the surface during this time but unfortunately for us we were never lucky
boat near city whales instead we just kept our circular shape and hoped that a whale would surface close to our boat and after another thirty minutes or so of waiting we had a change of fortune we're really lucky when the nearest part of this time and the cop and slowly today they're not going fast at all they go down all right let's do up Wow they like practically not even moving oh I want to jump in and swim in them now this is Wow and another one right here they're literally going like walking pace slower
than walking we've yeah our engine is off now everybody's coming but we are here first wow this is amazing look at that size see the fish hanging on - Wow my fire on that one that was really peaceful there's somewhere down there now boys hands look at the hole that it's made me just chillin so as you can see the Marissa whale tour turned out to be pretty nice and we didn't seem to affect the animals too much this was certainly a contrasting experience to our whale watching tour in trincomalee which we had thought would have been actually a much more natural way to see these animals but as you may have seen in our episode during our main sri lankan series where we documented our travels
around the entire island we actually had a pretty mixed experience yeah our boat was much smaller and there were only three or four other boats in the vast ocean so on paper the experience should have been much better however the write was terrible and her bags and legs were sore for days after banging around on the waves for six long hours we did get close to some blue whales but we also felt like we were harassing and chasing the whales with our loud engines and in the back of our minds it's fair to say we weren't too happy about that so much so that as you can see Lina was put off by a whale watching completely and decided to skip the whale watching in Marisa altogether as a result if you want to know more about what happened
during our tour in Trincomalee please watch the episode of our travel series linked below for now however let's sum up our whale watching experiences and talk to a professional who can inform us more on this important issue so clearly I did not go on the Marisa whale tour when we went in Trincomalee I don't know if the whales were affected it wasn't necessarily all terrible however I didn't like that we were chasing the whales and maybe it didn't affect them at all I mean there giant so probably not but it just it was a feeling that I had and it just didn't feel right when something becomes such a big tourist attraction no matter what it is or where it is it can lead to exploitation and so for that reason and
just that gut feeling that I had in Trincomalee I didn't really feel comfortable doing the Marisa whale-watching so for me actually the whale watching experience was the number one thing on my bucket list because I have been so fascinated by whales since I was a kid I have literally books and then books and books about whales at home and when we were in gym McCully I thought that experience was very adventurous being on that little boat with only a few other boats chasing those whales hoping that we would be able to jump in next to one as it reached for air but that experience did leave me a little bit unsatisfied because we weren't able to jump in next to them in the back of my mind it was sort of a slight worry that we were harassing them but you just couldn't
tell or I didn't really know what the whales were thinking I think they were just I think deep down they were just doing their thing but I don't know but overall my experience was yeah obviously as the budgeteers were a bit skeptical when it comes to big tourist attractions and honestly those whale watching tours seemed like a really big tourist trap when we first came here because they tried to sell it to us on the beach with his big tourist signs but I was actually really glad that we gave it a try because it turned out to be a really nice experience both very different like a really thrilling adventure in Trincomalee and a really chill experience in Marisa both very difference so I'm really grateful for
the opportunity to have seen these beautiful majestic animals in one of the few places in the world where you can actually go and see them but because tourism here in Sri Lanka is only ten years old and it's growing extremely fast I am concerned as well I think it needs more limitations and more strict regulations so those are our thoughts regarding our experiences doing whale watching tours in Sri Lanka but as promised let's bring in a marine biologist to give us a little more information and to answer some questions that we still have you may recognize him he is a great friend to the show it's Eric our couchsurfing host from series 2 Eric hosted us in La Paz Mexico where he was finishing his studies in marine
biology he was super kind and very aware of the need to conserve his local marine environment he even gave a shark DNA as a leaving gift when we left his home in La Paz so you guys can rest assure that he has the oceans best interest in mind this is DNA of a shark and I'm gonna give you because I'm a scientist a marine biologist and I really love working with sharks and with genetics and is it for you right now one day I can make a human shark baby look at me my t-shirt yeah we went in did the whale watching in Marisa yeah Marissa soffit spot in Sri Lanka it's a really important place in Sri Lanka and there's a resident group of blue walls right there they stay for four entire life is that bad it is bad
for them not for us it's bad for them because if you want a large species in there in the ocean especially the ocean you environment doesn't change at all in DG by years okay if it's super crowded by humans the humans can start to alter your environment your home is there any evidence out there to suggest that whale watching changes or affects their natural behavior yeah but we don't know if it's altered we see that as short-term for example they will watch it if it's super crowded they are too shot I don't want to appear in the surface so they need to put more effort yeah to take to keep the breath in under the water the effect the feeding behavior that effect the pathways perfect the very Hebert in the water a
communication with other whales for example the blue whale is largest animal in the world okay and they produce the highest sound in the animal kingdom when the boats are around the blue world and know the knowledge that produced the protons the end in the water it the sound waves they travel super fast in the water we don't know if it's so like a long-term issue in Sri Lanka like in Marisa the whales aren't like they're always there they're not leaving and coming back or moving is that because of the whale watching or is that because of something else now something else they stay there because from food it's important to know them animals migrate to different places for two main reasons if I want a mate and to found some food
in this case a really good friend well one of my best friend Sophia she works with Google's and she said to me like Eric that population stayed right there they don't migrate to different places because they have enough food ok so basically the blue ones need to eat constantly all the time because if they don't eat they are going to start really going to die ok because you can you imagine super large animals they need to eat constantly because they only eat like small crustaceans okay so basically maybe they found in this place large mass of food that's why they move to different places from your personal perspective in your perspective as a marine biologists do you think whale
watching or whale tourism is ethical or no I think it's ethical if we follow the guidelines over time but if we don't do really good practices in the water we start to be not ethical we are I'm ok with whale watching but only if we do the world watching according to a management plant ecotourism is so perfect right now especially for the people it's like a solution to the overfishing and instead Lanka and I saw the bones the huge vessels with 15 vessels around a blue world that is a sturdy product for the world or the well it's not ethical to do this but why do people do this because I work in tourism I understand them it's all about money yeah that's really you know I know it just I mean ridiculously Lockhart I have
a guideline I showed it to my guest of the time enough you can see yeah this is a well okay and that's the decent as you have to be according to the size of your Bessel so a small basis can be closer and big bestest it can't be closed already to be far away on them and they will first tour that we went to do it was like zooming with the whales but we actually they we just didn't get close enough so we weren't able to but it was sold to us as whale watching and swimming with the whales do you think swimming with the whales is ethical I don't think it's about ethical or not ethical it's about your safety yeah because you're assuming with an animal that weight is like 5 10 20 tons
sometimes you just wanna arrive to this place and I want to see yeah well I want to touch the dolphin I want to see at Seattle all the time but we don't do not really know what is impact re doing when you're doing these activities or do you know the impact that you are putting in this community when you leave so I recommend to all the people that they want to travel to different places they really they need to get a lot of information at the places and they're busy thank you Eric like you think you thank you're the best it's always a pleasure to see you my friend yeah thank you guys for watching I hope we shed some light on this topic that we didn't know anything about before we came here
yeah and please share all of your comments and your thoughts and even questions that you may have for Eric share them down below with us yeah we promise we'll get back to you and we just hope that you enjoyed this video and if you want to not just see our whale watching experiences in more depth but also watch our entire epic travel series in Srilanka head over to our channel and watch all of our other plus series as well we have plenty of content for you to get into and yeah we just want to say thank you for watching don't forget to subscribe if you're new and I will see you in the next bite size we would also like to take this opportunity to thank our amazing long-term sponsor on this channel in Skillshare is an amazing online learning community for
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