Monday 16 March – local beach lunch

We went snorkelling as soon we had finished breakfast to catch the sunlight. We went quite far in the dinghy, sadly there was a lot of rubbish in the current at the first couple of spots we tried. We saw some dive boats at some little islands further afield and landed up having a reasonable snorkel, some fish and bits of reasonable coral. We stopped at an island with some local stalls selling refreshments, it was a big set up, there was nobody there but must cater for peak season crowds. We sat down and each had a delicious coconut to drink, while we were relaxing on their bean bags in the shade the smell of cooking spices and coconut caught us, it didn’t take long for us to decide to stay for lunch. We had delicious vegetable curries all served with rice, tempe, tofu and spring rolls. It was a very good meal which we all enjoyed.

We had a snorkel on the way home at a different spot that had another abandoned resort on it. The coral was pretty good, the visibility was better, but only small fish and not many. The beach had lovely shells. There are a lot of pearl farms about, not obvious where they operate out of, but the sea is covered in their buoys. Even though we were feeling a little full after a big lunch we headed out for supper, we are pretty low on fresh vegetables. The Nautilus resort restaurant came highly recommended, even though it is mainly Italian food we had to try it, it turned out to be a very good meal, Rowan and I shared a delicious pizza and a greek salad! All very tasty.