Sightseeing and needed rest for the team: Tucker's Jan 21st Report

January 21, 2005

Today was a day of sightseeing and needed rest for the Serendib Sri Lanka team. An early rise at 5:30 a.m. enabled us to visit some of the sights in Trincomalee, including the famous Corneshweram temple which sits atop a hill in the center of the town and overlooks the entire harbor.

Trincomalee harbor, renowned for its natural beauty and commercial as well as military potential as one of the world’s finest deep water harbors, is forbidden to public access by the Sri Lankan navy. A vain attempt to secure permission to enter the harbor met with a stiff bureaucratic response that led us to believe the process, if at all possible, might take several days.

So instead we settled – some of the team, for a tour of the local bay. Several local fishermen were hired to take us out in their outboard fishing vessels, and as they did they explained how the force of the wave struck this particular beach, burying entire huts and valuable fishing equipment under several feet of sand. Fortunately in this particular stretch, our skipper led us to understand, the death toll was relatively low.

As we had visited the most famous Hindu temple in Trincomalee, so we also paid our respects at a Buddhist temple along the return road to Ratnapura. At present we are still en route to headquarters in Ratnapura, which we anticipate reaching in about 2 ½ hours’ time. The programmed schedule for Ampara day after tomorrow remains, and so tomorrow will be a day of packing and preparation for the next Serendib Sri Lanka team mission.

Tucker

[Webmaster's Note: The following photos relate to this Report]