A Pelican’s Life

Early night last night to catch up on sleep so we’re awake about 7:00. Go for a walk on the beach, the sun is already up, there are people surfing and a pair of pelicans are having a paddle.

The pelicans are both recovering from serious injuries and are looked after by the hotel. They have their morning paddle, surf for a bit then retire to a sun shade for the day. One jumped under the poolside shower in the afternoon to cool off, in the evening they go to the kitchen for some fish before retiring for the night.

The hotel also has a project to release turtles to the wild. A lot of the eggs are collected by local fishermen and sold to restaurants for food. The hotel buys a number of them, puts them in the sand on the beach to hatch. They then move them from the beach to the ocean, one of the most hazardous parts of their life. It’s believed that only 1 egg in a 100 develops to an adult turtle, some say far fewer than that. This project aims to improve these odds, they are reseaching and sharing information with other similar projects round the world.

After watching this morning’s batch of turtles being dug up we have a slow breakfast, write diaries for an hour then have a juice. It’s already 10:30 so time for a swim. The water is warm and the waves fun to play in. Strange to think that 1000s of miles across that Ocean are Tahiti and New Zealand where we’ll be in a month or so.

The tough day continues with a coffee and reading in a hammock until it’s time for lunch.

Florence has had enough of doing nothing and goes to a free yoga class. I manage to pass the afternoon lazily until it’s massage time; we were so impressed with yesterday we booked an hour each today.

All too soon it’s sunset and the day is almost over; we’re back to reality with a bump tomorrow – 5am start for a long, long drive to Nicaragua.