While this fact was a minor obstacle to Eric's aquatic ambitions we decided to take him out to the turtle pool and see if he could use his new googles and snorkel with support from Mum and Dad.
Eric was so excited. He was wiggling, pointing, jumping up and down, exclaiming and carrying out lengthy monologues with his snorkel in his mouth! Who said you can't talk underwater?
Eric was in seventh heaven looking at turtles, fish, seahorses and starfish, but he eventually got cold and started to turn blue so despite his protests we headed back to the boat for warm showers.
Nick took Eric with Emily and Ryan out the next day to a shallow section of the lagoon and took the next step. With a lot of words of encouragement and support, a pair of blue fins and an extra wetsuit for added warmth and flotation Eric was away.
The look in his big wide eyes as he realised that he could swim and even snorkel is one that Nick will never forget - apprehension, doubt, confusion, amazement and then finally pure joy. There was a lot of cheering as Eric waddled along through the water half dog paddle, half moonwalk.
Eric swam by himself for over forty minutes that day at Lady Musgrave. He was so proud to be able to share his own special treasures with Emily and Ryan just as they had with him on our earlier adventures. He would swim this way and that, stop and point to share his excitment and when required tug on someones wetsuit to get them to see what he had found!
Emily and Ryan shared in Eric's joy. But on the way back Emily told us all that it was not fair that Eric had learnt to swim at Lady Musgrave given she had to learn in a "normal pool''. We all laughed while shivering on the dinghy ride back to Lucey Blue.
Eric then explained his swimming adventure to Mum and asked why his hands had gone wrinkled or as he said "all donkerly". Our youngest duck is growing up fast...
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