Welcome to Gaia! ::

((I'm not sure. I think it may have originated from cream cheese being used in some of the recipes. That would be interesting to research.))

Saberlin admired the sleek seals from a distance. Their soft, dark fur and shining brown eyes. The powerful tails made for a life in the water. He watched some of them flapping a flipper, yawning widely or lazily rolling over on the sun drenched rocks. He would have liked to get closer. Maybe even swim with them. Fern would probably love that!

However, they were wild animals; they deserved to be respected. Well, he could do something about the photographs at least. "Hm...I think I may have brought something you could use for that" He told Fern thoughtfully. "Wait here one moment my dear"Slipping off the rock back into the water, he dived under the clean waves and began to swim quickly back to shore to get the minature photographic device he'd left in the beach bag. It was a new piece of technology they'd been working on recently and Saberlin thought that a holiday would be the perfect opportunity to try it out.

Swimming back to the rock, he climbed up beside Fern again, dripping with sea water, and held up something that glinted silver in the sunlight. "Here we go. Our newest miniature camera. It possesses infrared and ghostlight technology as well as being waterproof and able to store millions of pictures, among other things" he explained, slipping the device into Fern's palm. It was about the length of a finger and looked like a sort of flattened ball point pen with a round looking-glass piece in the top. Saberlin was glad to let her try it out. He'd been dying to see what the picture quality was like but he wasn't very good at taking shots. "Go ahead, take as many photos and videos of them as you like. Just look through the viewfinder and press this button..."

Saberlin had been amusing himself by swimming all around the area gathering small bits and pieces of sea treasures to take back with them. He wanted to bring them to study but he also considered that perhaps Fern would be able to do something creative with them or use them in some way. The driftwood and shells made nice ornaments all on their own.

Starting to feel a little tired from swimming here and there, he decided to take another short rest on the rock. Saberlin swam over and clambered up beside Fern, balancing the seaweed strands over his shoulder and the rest (sculpted driftwood twigs and various shiny shells) in a crag on the stony side.

As he wrung out the dripping fur of his tail, he was just about to ask whether she had got any good pictures when a loud growling sound interrupted him. Saberlin blushed lightly. "Ah....I suppose it must be lunch time." he observed with a smile. "Maybe we should go back to shore. Are you hungry yet?"

Wondering what she was talking about, he followed her gaze to his 'collection'. "Oh, you mean those? I took them from the sea bed and the surface of the water. Some of them were just floating past within easy reach" he explained, looking rather pleased that she liked them. "I thought I would take them back to examine."

Crouching beside Fern, he picked up one of the shells lying in the crevice. It was shiny and elongated, with a lovely scroll design forming one end and a small hole in the other. It was covered in white triangular patterns, with thin lines of deep brown outlining them. "A cone shell." he remarked with interest. "Very beautiful! However, when the creature inside them is alive, never handle them. They may shoot a small barb very far and if it pierces your skin, you experience excruciating pain and in most cases, death."

Saberlin nodded agreement. "It is. Fortunately, such cases aren't very common and instead we get to keep this lovely remnant" He was just picking up another treasure to show her (which happened to be a scraped cuttlefish bone) when..."grrrl!"

Interrupted by the rather loud growling, he grinned and laughed softly as her stomach protested. "Come then. I think you are right, my flower. Let's get something to eat before our own stomachs devour us. Looking around the town sounds great too. This place has a great amount of character" Saberlin rose and began to climb easily down the rock's surface, taking Fern's hand to help her down also. The rock was sightly slimy and he didn't want her to slip and be hurt.

In no time he was back in the tingling salt water, swimming for the shore and the picnic things. Exploring the town together sounded excellent. Maybe they could find a few unique gifts for the twins.

Wading out of frothing waves which sucked playfully around their ankles, he strode up the beach and back to their picnic spot, grains of warm sand clinging to his wet skin and coating the end of his tail like biscuit crumbs.

Kneeling down on a beach towel, Saberlin opened one of the ice filled, insulated bags he had brought and began taking out cold honey soy chicken legs and small servings of cooked prawns.

He took out watermelon cubes and frozen grapes for dessert. Then, he also brought out sweet mud crabs, already cooked and ready to eat. Everything was still very cold. "The inn really was good. When I asked for a beach picnic they gave us the freshest sea food they had" he smiled, handing Fern a plate.

Saberlin's tail swished hungrily before he remembered that would cause sand to spray up and halted it. "Hm...okay then. How about - mud crabs?" he sugested, licking his lips. Saberlin loved mud crab. Taking the biggest one, he gave it to Fern, then added the other one to his plate and broke a leg open, revealing the sweet meat. "Ah, see that? They are cooked to perfection!" he showed her.

"Hm?" Saberlin leaned over towards her, trying to get a look at the pictures as well. "Did you get any good ones? Let me see" he asked, pressing a small clip thing that looked like the holder on a pen on the side of the camera and bringing up a tiny holographic screen. "Ha, almost forgot about that. Makes it easier to view them" he smirked, biting off another piece of crab. "Oh, that's a nice one" Saberlin grinned to himself. He had taken a few shots of Fern up on the rock as he had been taking the camera over to her. Her long hair was blowing in the sea breeze and she looked happy. It was a nice photo.