Breathtaking Footage Of A Blue Whale In Sri Lanka

Imagine paddling out to see the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean. Beneath you, a massive grey tail can be seen slowly swimming along. It’s bigger than a semi — in fact, it belongs to the largest living creature on Earth: the elusive blue whale.

That breathtaking moment is captured in the photos and footage by photographer Patrick Dykstra in the video below. Dykstra seeks out rare oceanic life worldwide for documentation and conservation efforts through his company Picture Adventure, which recently brought us gorgeous imagery of a pod of rare sperm whales. Dykstra captured the following footage of a blue whale just off the coast of Sri Lanka after nearly a decade of seeking them out.

“It was a dream of mine to encounter a blue whale underwater from the time I was 16 and I saw a life-sized replica of a blue whale in the Smithsonian museum,” Dykstra told MailOnline. “I spent over a decade traveling the world in search of blue whales in clear water, from Antarctica to the Azores, and came to Sri Lanka in 2009 and found the clearest water and a large whale population. Nothing on earth compares to the experience of being side by side with the largest animal to ever inhabit the planet and to dive into its environment.”