A Day on the Negombo Lagoon

     Today I began the day by taking a short walk.   I was looking for a shop to be open where I could buy a floppy hat to shade me from the sun.  Most stores were still closed at 8:00 a.m. but down the road aways there was one where the proprietor and his grandson were out cleaning the sidewalk.  Believe me, the sidewalks needed it;  there was a lot of trash strewn about during the festivities of the night before.  Anyway, this old man greeted me and I asked if he had a lightweight hat…and guess what?   Of course he did! 

     At 9:00 Naushad picked us up to take us to our boat ride.   As we were driving through town, Naushad stopped and made us get out for a most interesting photo opportunity:   a man with a cow cart!

     Further on, we stopped to see where the canal empties into the lagoon.   The 100 km canal is a great historical fixture because the Danish built it years and years ago.   

      Then we were off to the Barramundi resort where we drank the milk of a king coconut before boarding our little watercraft. 

We cruised around the islands of the lagoon for about 1-1/2 hours.  I got a few nice shots of herons, some birds that I thought were a type of cormorant, and of course the neverending ravens.  Everywhere were a lot of little silver fishes jumping in the water.  We viewed mangrove trees on almost every island; these are an interesting species living in so much water. 

There were a lot of shallow reefs where people were fishing and looked like they were walking on water.  One little island had a nice clearing and there were men out there playing cricket!  Several marinas were full of boats....Naushad said that the fishermen were taking a holiday for Christmas, so the boats stayed in the marinas!

It was so pleasant on the water and was a great ending to our vacation.  

We also ventured into the fish market to see what there was to see.   And what was that?   Fish, fish, and more fish!!   Okay, there were some crabs and shrimp, too.

Another tourist attraction that we stopped at was the ruins of the Danish Fort that was built in 1672.  All that’s left is the tower, in which a clock was placed, so now they call it the Clock Tower.  This tower is all that’s left of the original fort, and not it’s an entrance for a prison.  There were many people there, obviously visiting their incarcerated loved ones.