December 26th 2004. 9am, Sri Lankan time.
I awake in a semi-hungover post-Christmas haze being told by Helen, my fiance that she’s going to the restaurant out the front of our guesthouse to order breakfast. The implication of this statement is that I need to get my arse in gear as we are being picked up at 10am for a trip to a wildlife sanctuary down the coast, with our friends Matt and Candy who are staying at another resort in Tangalle.
Little did I know at this point that the wild Elephants and other mammals that we were so eager to see were currently going crazy and running inland toward higher ground as quickly as their limbs would carry them. They knew what we did not. They knew that death was rapidly approaching from the east.
15 minutes later (about 9.15 am) I’m showered, dressed and sitting in the beach side restaurant area in the forecourt of the Shanika Beach Inn (our humble abode of 3 days so far) squinting at the brilliant azure sky. As I munch my first slice of toast, I marvel at what a calm, serene and beautiful morning it is.
There’s no wind, no birds singing. The normally ferocious Indian Ocean that is just a few meters from our ground floor room, is totally flat. No waves at all, perfectly still, like a blue skin of glass stretching to the heat waves of the horizon. Looking back now, I can see what an unusual and eerie scene this was, but at the time I was captivated by its enigmatic beauty. The south Sri Lankan coast is truly a place of sublime tropical luxuriance, and for a few fleeting minutes that morning it held me spellbound.
Before I’d finished that slice of toast, it happened, and my world changed forever. >>
