Beachfront Play

Elise surprisingly preferred to stay indoors and read her Teen Titans comics while Nacho and I briskly walked out to the beachfront for our usual late afternoon frolic. He brought along with him about ten paper boats for a race in one of the little pools in the sand. 

Only two survived, as they easily tipped over and sank.  He cried over the poor ones who did not make it and was very upset that the last two survivors ended up submerged in the end as well. We talked about why it happened, and he planned to make bigger ones out of newspapers next time. 

A few hundred meters away was a fisherman's boat that turned in for the day. Nacho desperately wanted to "drive it and go far, far away to the sea!"  He is a little man of animated gestures, and he repeated his wish over and over with outstretched arms.  We had another talk about how we needed a boatman to take us to the sea, and that we need to leave very early in the morning, and make sure that it is safe to go into the deep sea.  He said he was telling Daddy to wake us all up very early next time and tell the boatman to come along so we can see some fish.

I let him daydream for a while.  I spotted some fishermen who were fixing their nets for tomorrow's early morning fishing and went over to say hello.

There was a new lifeguard's station on a sandbar in the middle of the shallow sea.  It was so tall, that even during high tide, the water would only reach on the lower one third of the station. In a few days later, they will paint it white and bright red.

Several new bright flag markers were floating on bamboo squares to warn the swimmers (and waders) during high tide to go no further, for their own safety. Nacho was drawn to them.  He first inspected the one nearest him.

But he couldn't resist going to the one partially submerged in water to see if he could float on it. The marker was tied with a long nylon string to a large dead coral on the sea bed. It was immovable. He spent almost an hour trying to make it float around in circles by wriggling with it. 

Later on, he discovered that it was easier to make it move if he floated on his belly holding on in front of him, while he kicked around to make it go.

A little later, we turned around and saw Rene coming towards us. Nacho's face lighted up, and they talked about the critters again.

And a bit later, ran and kicked a ball around.

 

Then we heard a squeal and a laugh.  "Elise is here!".  We were having too much fun and she wanted in. 

So the three ran and kicked some more.  They would occasionally kick the ball my way, but they knew I was too busy documenting every minute of our memories.

It went on till sunset, as usual.  

And I resolved that the next time there is some running, chasing or kicking, I will take less pictures and play more.