Ian Lockwood

Underwater snapshots of branch and soft coral in waters near Pigeon Island.

My son Lenny and I had a chance to explore Pigeon Island National Park on Sri Lanka’s north-east coast just before the school year started. For Lenny this was an informal extension of his IB PYP 5 exhibition project where he studied the ecology and conservation of marine turtles in Sri Lanka. The visit to Pigeon Island on Sri Lanka’s north-east coast near Trincomalee was a brief, lightening trip enabled by overnight train travel. July and August is high season for (mainly European) visitors on the east coast and we were challenged to find a place to stay. However, that was not so much a problem given that we spent as much time on the island and underwater as possible.

Significant coral gardens still survive around Pigeon Island in spite of growing numbers of tourists that visit (as many as 500 on the first morning that we were there). It is an ideal location for both diving and snorkeling (which we like because of the simplicity and lack of complicated gear- we hope to get our PADI licenses later this year). Overall the national park is well managed and we were lucky to do an initial snorkel session with one of the park guards, who was knowledgeable and helped us better understand where to see fish and coral. There is significant pressure on the island, mainly from the sheer numbers of visitors. Damage to shallow coral by careless visitors and small bits of food which attract crows were two obvious issues. Highlights for us included a dozen or so sightings of Black Tipped Reef Sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus), green turtles (Chelonia mydas), and numerous reef fish. The pictures here were taken with a basic underwater camera.

OSC PYP5 students Lenny and Tristan study the conservation of Sri Lanka’s marine turtles for their culminating IB Exhibition project. In this initial part of the study they visited Hikkaduwa National Park (HNP) and the Kosgoda turtle hatchery. At HNP they had a close and intimate encounter with Rosy the Green Turtle…a great way to embark on a project of inquiry-based exploratory learning!

Google Earth view of Pigeon Island in 2015

Fish diversity (and Lenny) at Pigeon Island, including anemone-fish (Amphiprion sabae) fish and a black tipped reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus).

Varieties of coral, much of it bleached, but otherwise undisturbed near Pigeon Island. The parasitic “crown of thorns” starfish in the center. Green turtle over coral in the bottom left.

Snapshots from Tincomalee’s KoneswaramTemple (Swami Rock) a fascinating place that I have childhood memories of.

FURTHER READING

IUCN. Reefs: A resource book for secondary school students. Colombo: IUCN Sri Lanka, 2003 . Print.

Jayawardena, Dharshana. Dive Sri Lanka. Web.

Perera, Nishan. Coral reefs of Sri Lanka. Colombo: The National Trust of Sri Lanka, 2011. Print.