Brown Pelican diving for fish
Once again today we spent most of the day on Playa Conchal. First though this morning we walked around the town of Brasilito. It is not very big, but we went a total of 2km in the morning heat. We looked at a few of the restaurants in the town, and went into a couple of stores. We bought groceries at the largest of the “supermarkets” so that we could make our lunch — a small loaf of bread, some cheese, cookies and yogurt for Enid.
On the way back to our hotel we stopped in the souvenir shop which is just a few metres away. We bought a beach mat, which we really enjoyed as we sat under the trees for the rest of the day, occasionally going for a short swim to cool off.
I guess I must look honest, for the man and woman next to us asked me to watch their things (while Enid was in swimming). When they came back we had a long conversation. He was a lawyer in Argentina, and worked to try and convince that we should come vist the country. He even gave us his email address so that we would contact him if we do decide to go there.
The tide came in very high tonight, so that some of the people had to move their blankets back from the water’s edge. We were ok, as the highest level was still a couple of feet below us. The surf was breaking in a large wave right at shore. When you swam out just a few feet from shore you were beyond it, and could enjoy swimming in the swells.
As we walked back we watched the brown pelicans diving for fish. They would suddenly move in mass and then dive headfirst from 30 feet above the water. I guess they were successful as I saw some swallowing fish. There was a large school of herring swimming in terror towards shore, chased by much larger fish. I couldn’t tell what the large fish were, but you could clearly see them jumping out of the water in pursuit of the herring. There were a number of young men walking along the shore with fishing lines (which they wrap around a large can or bottle — a few have rods) and when they saw the herring they all rushed to start fishing. They didn’t catch anything that we saw, but this morning on our walk to the beach we saw a young man with a large fish, probably somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds.