Beach day and a nagging concern

Our beach day started this morning with a walk on the Las Gaviotas beach by Harry and Maggie and me. Maggie did her usual game of playing in the waves while we talked to the guy who sells the shrimp. He and his son get up at 4:00 in the morning to go out on their boat to catch them. They’re sitting in buckets of ice, sorted by size. We bought about two pounds of medium sized ones for about $9, then took them home to put in the fridge so we could cook them for dinner.

Then Jan and I walked down to find out about taking a little trip across the bay to Deer Island. This island has a beach that’s sheltered from the waves and people go over there to explore, snorkel and swim. We took a lunch, some water, our hats, books and towels and made our way along the beach until we found Fito’s place, where we could get a boat ride over and back for $10 each. A lovely young woman took us across in a jet boat. It was quite an experience riding through the surf clinging onto her and then crossing the blue sea. It didn’t take long, maybe ten minutes before we landed on the sand. Nobody was there but us, and a couple of dogs. There is a house of sorts there where the dogs appear to live but not a sign of a person. We spent four hours there altogether—swimming, reading, finding shells, swimming again, and tanning—until Fito came around 3:00 as planned to take us back. This time we got to ride on his hobie cat through some fairly windy weather. It was lots of fun. Even when the waves splash over you it’s just lovely warmish water. So after our day of sand and sea, we’ll be cooking up the shrimp in garlic and butter. All in all a lovely day.

There’s only one thing that marred our day. One of the little dogs at the beach is a puppy with short curly hair, and she was just covered in nasty sharp burrs that I couldn’t get out with just my hands. I keep thinking of her in pain from these sharp things poking into her skin. Perhaps I’ll have to make another trip over there with a pair of scissors to cut them out of her fur and put her out of her misery.