Officilaldom (see Thursday’s Blog) having left us aboard their Royal Barge – the Boatload of Bureaucracy

we were left to contemplate our surroundings…….

A cynic (and there are few of those on board) would say, from the chic manner in which the sea front has been titivated, that some development aid agency or other has ‘helped’ the town attract tourism.  

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To the extent they used local labour to lay the miles of block work then the economy benefited at least – but attract tourists, it will not. Why can’t Aid Agencies invest wisely…….?                                      

Sea Lions are absolutely everywhere! All they seem to want to do is to sleep – but on our boats!! Crews have taken various precautions to prevent it but with limited success. Best story so far is the large male Sea Lion that decided to sleep on Ruby’s bimini. Quite how it got up there is not known, but his passage is evidenced by a big dent in the bimini and a valedictory pile of pooh.

Friday was the Island tour – a four hour journey in a taxi to a lake in the caldera (look it up!) of an old volcano, a Tortoise sanctuary….

and then an idyllic remote beach.  One or two blog watchers have said they would like more human interest, or put another way, people in the photos. So here is one of Peter doing his Moses impression.  

Having expected to spend 4 hours in a taxi  on my backside, I was taken surprise by the need to walk so far – say 500 ft up the volcano up to then round the crater, around the sanctuary and then to the beach. Having the “wrong” shoes I was quite tired by the end of the day. 

Yesterday, the boys went for a couple of scuba dives (accompanied by a girl (!),  Karson,  from Wind Dancer).  We had a gentle first dive but to 24 metres and then a second shallower dive – 14 metres onto a ship wreck.  The visibility wasn’t very good, but that  was OK because there wasn’t much to see. Probably for that reason, our “Instructor” occupied our time by  taking photos and videos of the dive as a memento.  

Peter and Karson did have the privilege of a short visit and display by a passing sea lion, though – chiz, chiz.

There was a Carnival in Town last night. Serendipity sent our Dancing Team to enter the Salsa contest; Bob and Linda returned just before midnight.  This morning,  Bob was up early searching for something he lost last night along with revellers from several other boats -  his dignity! …………………………  of which, hopefully, more later!