Beach and beach fishing
The sound of the surf all day and all night was incredible. At night it sounded like a wind storm. It was disappointing not to be able to swim in the sea without imminent death, but we did resting and reading books and snoozing. The food was good, often imaginative, the staff were friendly. We felt isolated from the real world. We didn’t even trouble to go into Tangalla.
Instead we had an idyllic time, pretty much alone in the hotel. The families of the weekend had gone. It looked as though we had a honeymoon couple or two with us, but there were so few guests that we had a menu based Sunday meal instead of a buffet that is traditional there on Sundays. It looks as if it could be a great party venue with more guests. Well, if you can raise the energy, that is!
The shade was so good that we hardly realised how close we were to the equator, but the sun was far stronger than we’d experienced before, not that the lizard minded! It wandered near our cabin, totally unconcerned that we were chasing it in slow motion with a camera!
Did I mention that the place was brimful of butterflies? Well, at night it was even fuller of fireflies, right inside the cabin. Lying in bed looking at the dancing points of light was (insert enthusiastic adjective here!).
The surf also brings the locals out, fishing. Not boats, just simple fishing rods with the line tied to the tip. I very much doubt they caught anything, but they looked as though they had a lot of fun. 
Anyway, fishing’s an excuse to stay somewhere beautiful for far longer than one would stay there normally.
Beachcombing goes on, too. An elderly woman was on a coconut hunt, and a family were carrying back old, fallen palm fronds. Fuel, building material? No idea. One asked me to take a picture of what must have been her grandkids. I’ve no idea why.
The night after the man was to show us the turtle we went and sat on the beach before sunset and waited until well after dark.
No turtle came, and we wondered if he was sitting in the dark watching us and laughing at the three English fools who’d gone to try and see a turtle.
He said he was a security guard for the tsunami trashed property just inland from the beach and also a turtle warden. And there is, elsewhere, a turtle hatchery that tries very hard to release an enormous number of turtles back into the wild. They do need protecting. The eggs fetch quite a lot of cash in the market.
It was with mixed feelings that we left Palm Paradise Cabanas after the third night and took a tuk tuk to the bus station. We hadn’t bothered to find out bus times. We reckoned that loads of buses head for Colombo. We were right.