World-first pictures show a top British diver captured alongside the planet's biggest ever animal - a blue whale.  The startling new images taken last month are the first ever to show a human and a whole blue whale in the same shot together.  Many have battled hard to achieve the feat - but due to the size of the whales have only produced shots showing divers and parts of the animals.  And the images give a sneak look inside an almost untouched part of the world that is only being explored for the first time. Team members of Scubazoo - a pioneering British dive company based in Malaysia - spent a gruelling 200 hours diving eight-hours-per-day for 25 days trawling the ocean around Sri Lanka in order to witness the incredible moment.   The country has just recovered from decades of civil war - but it's coastlines are now drawing scientists and marine experts from around the world. The new-found peace there has finally made marine exploration safe.  British cameraman Roger Munns, 35, from Cornwall, was photographed by colleague Jason Isley, 40, from Essex, making contact with the giant of the seas at around 10 metres depth.  Roger said: "It was amazing. It was murky so we didn't see the whale until the last minute, and it travelled very fast.  "The encounter only lasted about 45 seconds and then it was gone. But all those hours waiting were worth it."  With the epic conflict between Sinhalese and Tamil fighters finally fizzling out in 2009, it opened the doors to a haven of marine life. The war had stunted the boom of tourism - leaving the coastlines relatively untouched with marine life flourishing. Now with easy access divers are discovering a treasure of marine biology under the waves - along with other species like blue whales.  "Nobody really knows what kind of numbers are down there, but some have guessed at around 2,000.  "And there is a lot of mystery about whether the population of blue whales are resident or part of a group that move between Sri Lanka and North Africa. "The studies have only recently begun and it will be some time before there is a true picture. "That is the biggest problem if you want to see blue whales in Sri Lanka - no one is really sure when they will be there, what they are doing there or why they visit at all.  "Thankfully with the dawn of peace in the country, it is opening up to the scientific community and the tourist industry so more can be learnt and more people can see the biggest animal to have ever lived on our planet.   "I wasn't scared but the adrenaline was certainly pumping." "I felt immensely privileged to be able to swim next to the true giant of the oceans.  "When we spotted a whale from the boat, we slipped into the water ahead of it to capture it as it passed. "Amazingly, although you could see it a few metres away on the surface, this enormous animal was so well camouflaged underwater was not visible until it was right next to you."  The Scubazoo team, an underwater production company based in Borneo, have just returned from a month long trip to document these creatures that have so rarely been caught on film before.  Specialist free-diving cameraman Roger Munns and photographer Jason Isley have been getting close to the shy giants of the sea  - an experience few people have had. The Blue Whale is classed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. They grow to over 30 metres and weight over 180 metric tons. Little is known about their mating behaviour, breeding grounds, population levels or even their migratory routes.