"A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the incongruous objects washed up by the ocean", says the great American Journalist, Henry Grunwald. And certainly, the ocean is so vast, it seems like it's never-ending.
What all an ocean can hold is beyond our perception, and incomparable. When in 2017, Asha de Vos, a marine mammal researcher started an expedition in the Northern part of the Indian Ocean, she and her team made a breath-taking discovery which no one was prepared for.
It is incredible how for some people, a simple and ordinary day can turn out be the day they create history on. Asha de Vos and her team experienced a day like this, and pages were added in the books of history.
Formerly known as Ceylon, Sri Lanka is an island nation surrounded by the Indian Ocean from all four sides. This island country has been known for it's rich rural heritage and the first-ever known Buddhist writings. But this time, the nation was going to come in limelight for something very unique.
The Sri Lankan Civil War began on 23rd July, 1983 and continued till 18th May, 2009. Riots broke out in major parts of the nation due to ethnic tension. Violence prevailed in every corner of almost all the cities of the nation.
Since the tension had been spread in the nation for so many years, a lot of civil rights were prohibited. People were not even allowed to step out of their houses except for at certain time periods. But better days were to come...
Due to the civil war, almost everything was forbidden and therefore no scientific discoveries or advancements were able to take place in the nation. Time had paused for the whole of Sri Lanka until 2009.
The Civil War ended in 2009 and peace was finally declared. People started to lead normal lives and gained back their rights. Scientists desperately wanted to dig deeper into this nation that was untouched for a very long time.
Sri Lankan native Asha de Vos, returned to her homeland after she had completed her studies abroad and she became the first woman in Sri Lanka to earn a Ph.D. in Marine Mammal Research. And this started the story of the great discovery.
After spending several years in the dark, Sri Lanka had finally come out free and on track. Because of the war, the country lagged in a lot of things other countries had moved ahead in, but now it was time for Sri Lanka to make headlines.
So far, ever since the civil war ended, people of Sri Lanka have only been to the ocean for the purpose of fishing or boating and nothing more than that. This was one of the reasons why nobody had noticed in so many years the precious thing that was under the Indian Ocean.
Asha de Vos had decided to carry forward a big task. She had embarked on a journey to research about blue whales in the Indian Ocean. Instead, what she was going to come across would be something she would have never anticipated.
The main aim for De Vos for carrying out the research was to do something that would help the whales in the ocean who are unfortunately becoming the victims of the shipping lanes for business purposes. She had no idea what she was going to encounter.
In the hopes to do something for the welfare of whales, Asha de Vos and her team started their expedition in February of 2017. The boat was packed and filled with types of equipment. However, the whole team was unaware that they would witness the biggest adventure of their lives.
The whole team had prepared their cameras in the hope that they would click scenes of the beautiful marine life. They had no idea how an ordinary day would turn out to be the most extraordinary day for them and their camera lens.
The marine biologist and her team started off their journey and reached seven kilometers away from the shore of Sri Lanka. It was an area that was frequently visited by fishermen and whale watchers yet, nobody ever noticed what hid inside that area.
Since the area was one of those places where human activities were frequent, the team had not even expected to find many blue whales, but to their surprise, they would find something much more than that.
Asha and her team felt that since they were too close to the shoreline, they wouldn't be able to see any blue whales. So they decided to venture further out to the sea. During the event of moving forward, they saw something never seen before!
The intention of the team had been to find some blue whales and research upon them. But they hadn't seen any blue whale no matter how farther in the sea they went. Maybe because something totally different and unique was in their destiny.
Asha de Vos had decided to carry a research on the whales so that she could present some data to the government about how the whales are unsafe due to the export trade that takes place in the sea. Little did she know what lay ahead.
Since the end of the Civil War, the citizens of Sri Lanka have been to the shores to see the marine life which they weren't allowed around during the war. The magnificent sea life has been of interest to everybody.
A lot of tourists have been attracted to the beautiful sea life and the creatures that live there. But this increase in tourism has scared marine life and driven all the creatures far away from the coastal waters.
Because of these effects, de Vos and her team had to go much farther in the sea and when they were moving eyes in the hope to find blue whales, the team saw something very unique and huge, larger than the size of a school bus.
All eyes were in one direction. A huge creature started to approach de Vos' boat. The creature started to move in circles around the vessel and everybody was in a state of a surprise because they hadn't seen anything like that before.
De Vos did not want to miss the golden opportunity of witnessing something so unique so she ran inside the vessel and brought her camera. She started taking pictures of the rare creature, clicking as fervently as possible.
Asha wanted to be sure that she had all the evidences of witnessing this strange sea creature and so she started taking notes of all the little details of the creature. She wanted to be sure to observe every minute characteristic.
Luckily, the creature was relaxed around humans and not shy. It had been very comfortable while making circular rotations around the boat. But Asha knew this was not a blue whale. What was it?
After noticing and capturing every detail about the unique creature the team of marine biologists went back on land and went straight to their field house where they could have more details and find out what they had just discovered!
Whenever the team comes back on land after a research trip, their general routine is to have a look at all the images they capture. This time also, they sat back to the images, but the outcome this time would be very different.
De Vos' company had a policy of keeping photo ID's of all the whales that are around the world, so she knew what to do next. She started comparing all the ID's to the images she had clicked to see what exactly was the creature that they had just discovered.
The creature was very different from all the creatures de Vos had ever seen or studied about. The coloring was very unusual and the creature had markings all over it, that were very different. What was it exactly?
There was one thing that was very different in this creature. Its skin was water-colored and it had chevron markings on its skin all over. The poor creature also had a mark on the upper left jaw, which meant it was tangled in fishing nets and fought its way out.
After looking at the images herself, Asha decided to send the pictures to her colleagues so that they could give her a better insight into what the creature exactly was and they would be able to come to a conclusion.
De Vos' colleagues, Dr. Robert Brownell and Dr. Salvatore Cerchio both saw the pictures and surprisingly after examining the pictures, both her colleagues and Asha had surprisingly suspected the creature to be of the same species.
Asha's colleagues confirmed that she and her team had made a very unique discovery. They told her that the creature they had found had been lost from the scope of scientists and was now finally seen in Sri Lanka.
Asha and her team had found the very rare Omura's whale and the one that the team had discovered was the very first of species that were documented in Sri Lanka. The fact that this species was so rare made the discovery even more special.
The Omura's whale had been in the sea since ancient times, but the species was classified as a separate one only recently, in Japan in 2003, when modern science and DNA testing had started to flourish.
Although Omura's species had been classified in 2003, the sighting of the species was still not common and that is why Asha de Vos and her team could not come to a certain conclusion after looking at the whale.
Omura's species is very difficult to ignore if ever had a look at. The species has very distinct features, unlike any other. The body of these rare whales is very narrow and they can measure up to 33 feet long.
Everything that had ever been noted and written down about the Omura's species was done by the scientists on the basis of dead specimens. All of this made Asha's discovery very unique and it had made history.
It is possible that fishermen must've seen the Omura's whale in Sri Lanka but an untrained eye would hardly know of the rarity and specialty of these species so it must have gone unnoticed by them.
Scientists believe that though Asha and her team have been able to find a lot about the Omura's whale, there is a lot that still remains to be known about. A lot of basic information is still absent about these enormous creatures.
From their habits of migration to the number of these rare whales that exist in the world, there are a lot of unanswered questions. But the discovery by Asha de Vos and her team at least gave it a ray of hope.