Raja & the Whales, Southern Province, Sri Lanka

5Phuong Anh T 5:00 PM Jan 6, 2023

Top choice for serious Mirissa whale watching
I would highly recommend Raja and the whales for whale watching in Mirissa. They operate their own ship unlike many agencies who just sell you a ticket to the same boat. They are committed to sustainability, respect the animals and take their wellbeing seriously. They work with local fishermen to spot the animals. There were around 23 people on the boat. The open deck without chairs allowed us to walk to different sides of the boat. Seats were available on the bottom deck and there were mattresses to sit on the upper deck. It felt less crowded compared to other boats. On the trip, we saw dolphins, an orca, mating turtles, more dolphins and tunas. They had a photographer and shared the pictures with everyone after the trip. Catering: first tea or coffee and biscuits while waiting. Next is a fruit platter shortly after departure. Breakfast was egg, sausages and toast. Later in the day we got some cakes and finally a coconut. Water was provided along the way. Noteworthy is they did not use disposable plates, cups or cutleries. The only plastic pollution was the plastic water bottles. They gave us pills for sea sickness that worked for the majority of the time for me. Towards the end of the trip, I felt a bit dizzy though. By 9AM, most of the ships went back to the harbour. We were one of the two ships left and had rooms to admire the orca without disturbance from other ships and speedboats. At the end of the day, we were the last ship to return to the harbour after 11AM. Raja tries to get the most out of the trip for customers, attempting to locate more whales, while other boats just go back to harbour once they have a view of one animal. Payment was cash only, accepted in multiple currencies, although USD or EUR was preferred. LKR was quoted at slightly higher compared to other hotels and restaurants, but still a reasonable rate.

4andy 5:00 PM Dec 16, 2021

Family of 4 from Scotland
We arrived 6am after being picked up at 5:45 for free which was great. We arrived to an empty reception with no information about what we were about to do?! Eventually someone arrived and we filled in our passport details and paid. A lot of waiting around in mozi infested reception whilst others signed in etc. Still no information… I asked who was Raja as I wanted to meet him after being recommended to come here, it was the guy who was sweeping up and wandering around for the last 30mins! Would’ve been nice for him or someone to say “good morning, I am Raja and welcome” but sadly nothing. We then all walked 10 mins round the corner to the boat and after ginger biscuits (clever) and tea/coffee we set sail. We were made to wear life jackets which I took off me and my family as we were overheating but we kept them by our sides in case of Emergancy. Bit silly to think people could wear these all morning in 95% humidity!? We all went upstairs for day briefing which was clear and helpful. Boat crew were very helpful and couldn’t do enough for you. We saw lots of dolphins and some turtles but no whales sadly which is fine as it is the ocean after all! We eventually started heading back after 4hrs at sea as I think the crew were really trying to find whales for us all. The journey back seemed to take a very long time in this slow boat and we got back about 1pm with a lot of very seasick people even though the sea wasn’t very rough at all! Great experience and great crew but the welcome could do with a little bit of a better welcome and briefing if you ask me. I’ve been sailing on the sea for the last 20odd years and this was a slow long half day. Possibly a faster boat would be better for some? If you suffer from sea sickness I wouldn’t recommend this, even if you have sea sickness tablets. There was a lot of corkscrewing of the boat whilst stationary watching animals in the water, which upset most people, but not us.