Unawatuna, Sri Lanka

[kentpaul]

So I went to Sri Lanka in April, stayed in Unawatuna, near Galle. There is a quite a lot you can do there, there is a series of videos by some east europeans on youtube. I had a flu and couldnt go more than a few meters deep this time, so just did some snorkelling. Here is the video. If you swim to the edge of the bay there is a reef all the way around the headland to jungle/ rumasalla beach on the south side of galle bay. You can also get boats out to reefs and see larger fish like that. Its a bid hard to see on the GoPro, there were quite a few spearable fish in the bay, many more on the reef by the headland though, but I didnt go out there this time.




East europeans videos:



Tuna:

 

[foxfish]

In 1985 I spent three moths in Sri Lanka.
We were mainly there for the surf but I did loads of diving when it was flat.
To be honest there were not that many big fish to be seen, most of the reefs had been dynamited for the lime & the fishing fleet was huge!!
We saw hundreds of sharks being brought in every day by the local long line fishing boats!
I did catch a 175lb marlin & some other pelagic fish but the locals were intent on killing every thing we caught regardless of paying extra to release the fish !
It was a fantastic trip in a place at a time when tourism was just taking off but we saw so much animal cruelty it has stuck with me for 29 years!
There were dozens of depressed monkeys chained to post, dead & dying dogs everywhere.. oh mate horrible memories!
I am sure it is far more visitor friendly now?

 

[kentpaul]

yeah, not so many monkeys, or dogs. more 4-5* hotels. the converted villas are nice too, google sri lanka in style, they own a few. there are tons of fish in the sea, but most of the boats either long line offshore for a few days at a time or are small inshore netting boats. the stuff in between doesnt get fished much, so you see decent shoals of bait and predatory fish if you go diving (i havent speared away from shore), and the reefs by the shore have a lot of fish. out on the east coast when the herring are in, the sea is black and the pelagics are below.

 

[kentpaul]

My wife's family is near Colombo. this is 4kms off the south end of Colombo bay



looks like it would be an excellent place to try.