Year 3 -1 February 2026 - Habarana -Trincomalee -Sri Lanka

We had a reasonable start, breakfasted and left the hotel about 10.30am bound for Trincomalee (Trinco) on the East coast which is Sri Lanka’s third largest town.

Trinco is best known for its harbour which is one of the world’s largest and finest deep-water anchorages. The harbour has been used for centuries and has been used by the Danes, Dutch, Portuguese, French and of course the British. It was bombed by the Japanese in WW2 in 1942.

Trinco has at its centre a Fort -Fort Frederick. It was originally built by the Portuguese in 1623 and then passed into the Dutch, French and finally British hands over the years. It is now used as an army barracks but you are allowed to enter and walk through. There is a parkland in the fort with various colonial era buildings.

 We drove from Harabana on the A6 which passed through a lot of towns and villages with lots of land being used for agriculture. We came across a dam made some thousands of years ago at Kinthale where the dam was 2.2 km long. An impressive structure to be made by hand in those days.

We reached Trinco by about 1.00pm and decided to have some coffee and a snack which we had at a local café. We then went to visit a famous Hindu Temple called Thirukoneshwaram. It is a classical medieval Hindu Temple and a religious pilgrimage centre in Sri Lanka. It was very colourful and had all sorts of shrines to various gods and was on the edge of the cliffs. However we all thought it was not terribly clean and was rather gaudy. To access the temple we went through Fort Frederick which had an impressive stone gate and there are quite a lot of deer in the town which are tame and many seem to feed them.

Once we finished we came to our hotel Trinco Blu -Cinamon which was a nice hotel on the beach with the waves roaring in and a large swimming pool. We were all happy to get to our rooms which looked over the beach and were modern and decorated with beach type furniture. Our room looked over the beach and the waves roared in and there was that lovely sound of the waves crashing on to the sand.

 We were now well away from the mountains and it was good to see the sea again. Chinta informed us that it was Navram Full Moon Poya Day – a significant public holiday for Buddhists and that the hotel will not be selling any alcohol. However Chinta had anticipated this and had bought some beer and wine for us. We had this in Paul and Judith’s room before supper. The moon was shining very brightly on the sea and one could see the waves clearly in it.  

 We are going by boat to Pigeon Island tomorrow where there is a coral reef to snorkel on and apparently Hammerhead Sharks. 

 The picture of the day is view from the pool down to the beach from our hotel at Trinco.

 Need/Opportunity Year Three

In year three I will be going from Thailand to Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and then on to Mauritius, Reunion, Cape Town, St Helena, Azores and back to the UK. 

I am looking for crew from Mauritius/ Reunion Island to Cape Town (mid June to end of July) and from Cape Town to the Azores and then to the UK (mid August onwards). If of any interest do email me.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com