From Houston to Sydney 2013

From Houston

to Sydney

2013

As befits the nature of Sunday as a day of rest, today was indeed a day of quiet rest and relaxation for us, our first in quite a long time.  And for the first time in almost as long as I can remember, I (deliberately) didn’t set the alarm to wake us this morning, although the lovely tropical sunshine streaming in through the window meant we still woke at about 6:30 am.

‘Day of rest’ for Di has meant spending much of the day relaxing in our room.  ‘Day of rest’ for me has meant undertaking several relaxing, photogenic walks along Langosta Beach, which is quite an interesting stretch of coastline. 

The hotel is situated at the southern end of Langosta Beach where a river enters the sea in a shallow estuary.  The estuarine environment is lined with mangroves, and the area where the river waters meet the ocean waters can be quite turbulent at times, as this is quite a high energy coastline.

My first walk this morning was timed, unfortunately, after some clouds had covered the blue skies of the early morning.  It was low tide, and the waters were just starting to rise as the tide had begun to rise.  This resulted in the unusual spectacle of successive step-like waves, each about 10 centimetres high, flowing into the estuary from the ocean for several minutes, with each wave resulting in a retreat of the shoreline by perhaps half a metre or so.

Later walks were in sunnier conditions with successively higher tides.  At the time of my walk at about 2:30 pm, the tide was so high that it was impossible to venture more than a few metres from the entry point on to the beach as high waves were crashing across the rock platforms and the waters were rushing up under the shoreline mangroves.

Another great sight on each of my walks were the packs of pelicans.  Whenever I have seen pelicans in the past, they have tended to fly in a leisurely manner, either solo or in small numbers.  Here at Langosta, the pelicans were very focused – they meant serious business.  They flew in packs in perfect formation just above the surface of the water, which often meant through the troughs between successive approaching high waves.  Flying parallel to the shoreline as though performing low level bombing runs, their performance was reminiscent of a high-speed aerobatics display at an air show – absolutely breathtaking to watch.

Di joined me for the final beach walk at about 4 pm.  By this time, the beach was basking in the golden glow of late afternoon sunshine, made all the more spectacular by the dark grey clouds that were building up to great heights for the afternoon thunderstorm.

By this time, the tide was receding, the beach was considerably wider once again and the rock platforms were displaying a plethora of marine life in the pools of water left behind by the tide.  The heat and humidity of the day had also passed, and it was a great end to a very relaxing day – even if we did have to walk briskly at the conclusion of the stroll as the first drops of rain began to fall.

Day 16 - Tamarindo

Sunday

21 July 2013