January 27: Pigeon Island National Park

I had an excellent start to my day — morning coffee and workout.  I also made my famous mango salad, which we ate on the ride to Nilaveli.  

We were super fortunate to witness a traditional Sri Lankan wedding on our trip.  Of course, we stopped and took several pics and videos.  The family was very gracious as we crashed the wedding ceremony.

Nilaveli beach was beautiful as we ate lunch and had a tasty and potent Lion stout beer.  It knocked me on my butt a bit as it was 8.8% alcohol and I’ve only had 4% beer for the last few months.  Lunch was delicious as we sampled rice, pork, and kimchi.  

It took us a while but eventually we got a deal for a boat ride and snorkeling to Pigeon Island National Park.  Once we arrived at the island, Kimchi and I snorkeled for about 2 hours.  We saw a ton of colorful fish, beautiful coral reefs, a turtle and four sharks. Of course, the go pro ran out of battery before seeing the sharks so you're just going to have to believe us on that one.

On the way to our hotel (Pigeon Island Beach Resort), we ran into a herd of cattle -- quite the unique traffic jam.  We eventually got to our room and relaxed in our spacious and clean room.