Today we headed off to Cozy Nook at Palolem, our favourite shack, at the far north end of the beach.  There were 6 of us: Bob and I; Penny and Dave and Joe and Chris.

First things first: Breakfast.  The favoured Cozy Nook option is rosti potatoes with poached eggs on top or with poached eggs and spinach on top.  You get a monster portion which everyone enjoyed.  I had the tomato and cheese omelette which was also delicious.  After breakfast we called our favourite boatman and he came along soon, beaming from ear to ear…. so pleased to see us.

It was high tide at about 1030 am so at that time we walked around the corner of the beach into the estuary to get on his little unmotorized boat.  Its amazingly quiet and peaceful round there, the beach noises fade away and you are just afloat in a world of green.  You never really know what you’re going to see.  Today our first sighting was a green bee-eater, and then a family of mongoose living on the riverside.  There were black cormorants and various other waders.  All along the densely mangroved banks there are massive, ancient looking black rocks.  At one point we saw a big troop of monkeys playfighting on top of one.

The highlight of the boat trip is when the boatman feeds the red kites and sea eagles with a bucket of chicken.  There are so many of them and they come swooping down and around the boats, so fast.  Their speed and dexterity is amazing.  Occasionally he throws out a very large piece of meat that only the sea eagles can get.  Their wingspan is huge.  It’s very exciting and I never tire of it.  Chris, Penny and Dave had never seen it before and I think they were very impressed.  The hour passes very quickly.  On the way back we saw a beautiful blue and green kingfisher but I missed getting a photograph.

The whole trip only costs about £2 each.  Its a really good bargain.

We spent the rest of the day around Cozy Nook.  We had a few swims – the sea there is idyllic, and then everyone but me played cribbage in the shack and had lunch.  Left the beach about 3.  Penny, Dave, Bob and I taxid back to Eve’s.  Joe and Chris set off to walk back.  Probably about an hour’s walk so I salute them!

Tonight there was live music at Eve’s: Kevin Brown and two other musicians.  We had a lovely dinner all together before it started.  The food is just so good there.  The music was a bit of a disappointment tonight in some ways.  They had technical difficulties with the mixer which delayed the start by over an hour.  Then, we didn’t like the mix of musicians tonight as much as when Kevin Brown played a couple of weeks ago.  It was all a bit samey.  Although, he is great on the steel guitar and I like his blues songs, so I very much enjoyed that.  The main problem for me tonight was that our table was too near the noisy bar and we were surrounded by people who yabbered loudly throughout the entire music set.  So very, very rude and disrespectful to the musicians.