Where are the Traffic Lights?
Whale watching south of Sri Lanka necessitates crossing the main northern Indian Ocean shipping lane, and can mean some quick sprints or a slight delay, much like crossing a busy highway or rail line. Coming back in from our tour, we were treated to the sight of a 30-foot whale boat playing chicken with a 75,000-ton Chinese container ship doing 19 knots as it steamed for Abu Dhabi. Shot with a Canon EOS 600D and EF-S 18-200mm lens at 120mm, 1/2000, f/10, and ISO 400.
Big ships like this rely on their size and speed to discourage Somali pirates who have been known to operate as far east as the Maldives and Sri Lanka. 200mm, 1/2000, f/5.6, and ISO 400.
Needless to say, the whale boat skipper blinked first. The Hanjin Tianjin‘s crew would be in no mood to worry about small boats such as ours; this container ship was attacked by Somali pirates east of Yemen in 2011.
Dwarfing the whale boat, the ship is still a good 200 meters off the boat’s bow. Our own boat was just a third of the size of the whale boat in the picture.
We never saw a soul on board. It was like being passed by a giant train.
WOW! That was some really nice shots, i felt like i was there with you on that boat.
Thanks