Mirissa's Little Creatures

Mirissa is popular for its long sandy beach, turquoise water, restaurants, and surf/beach bum culture.  All of these are fun and nice of course.  But what has really caught my attention are some of it's little creatures!

Today, while swimming, I saw two turtles!  There's a bay that's famous for them.  But really?  They'll show up on cue??  Yep.  Pretty much!  The first one just swam right into my line of sight.  Surfaced for air.  Hung out near me for a while.  Very cool!

Yesterday, while standing on a breaker made of big rocks I saw a creature I didn't even know existed!  A mudskipper.  Brown/green fish that live in and out of the water. They have front flippers like a mini seal.  They kinda flop/leap around the rocks/waves eating small crabs, insects, snails, and even each other... Apparently, these little guys, that only measure about 3 inches long, can leap up to 2 feet!  

And on Valentines Day, the ocean offered me a little sea heart.  How sweet!  Google says sea hearts come from very big vines called monkey ladders. The vines grow in the tropics, up to 100 feet in 18 months!  They climb up trees then wind through several trees making a highway for critters in the jungle canopy. The vines' brown fruit pods can be up to 2 meters long!  Imagine a huge brown green bean!  That breaks apart into about 15 compartments, each with a shiny brown seed that can float across the ocean.  How cool is that?!


Pictures
1- My new little sea heart, with some other of my treasures from/on this trip.  A new necklace from Colombo. A new lime green dog shaped pencil sharpener! My super handy purple spoon from home. A yellow pocket knife we bought in Negombo for 100 rupees I think.  Great value at 5 times the price!  And a fun coloured tea sock!
2- Tadah!  Mudskippers!  Notice their little bulging eyes...
3- One surf school has a fun sense of humour.  They made trees from lost/found flip flops and garbage from the sea.
4- This hotel has a fun decor.  It's where I found my sea heart.Theere are no monkey vines at the hotel.  It must have washed up onto shore from???
5- Mirissa beach.  Pretty!
6- A lot of the beach front restaurants set up big tables with sea food.  Customers can choose exactly which creature to eat.
7- This dog is not sad.  She just rolled around in the wet sand.  It looked like it was so yummy!
8- Yep.  I've been knitting at the beach!  A new toque for Toby!
9- Happy Valentines!  The nice lady who serves breakfast at the Peacock Wing Hotel in Mirissa, where I'm staying.  She was all dressed up in a blue velvet dress for Valentines Day.  She is so pleasant!  I just wish I could remember her name....
10- Fishermen set out in their little catamarans just before sunset.  they're really neat to watch.  Kinda sad to think that some of the beautiful fish I saw while swimming might end up on their hooks...