Pelicans look quite good when they're flying,

sort of majestic and in control of their lives. Not perhaps as aristocratic as an Albatross, nor as elegant as a Frigate bird, but with that sort of grandeur you get with 1930's flying boats.

Sadly this all comes to pieces when they try to dive for fish. I couldn't get a picture of a "dive" but if you imagine an ordinary plane landing in water then you get the general picture, it's more of a crash, and mixes elements of panic, pancake and is as graceful as a dropped bag of coathangers. This experience has encouraged a number of pelicans to go for plan "B" whereby they mooch around boats and hope for the best.

While we were looking at a harbourside fishmongers we noticed a small gang of adolescents hanging about in a suspicious manner. Sure enough, one of them, (the photograph above was taken just before the crime), lifted a fish from the counter and made off with it. It would have made a clean getaway but other gang members wanted their slice of the action before it disappeared down the thief's gullet.

The Swallowtailed Gull proved to be an unreliable witness (previous convictions and conflicting stories) and the Sealion was too busy helping himself to the fish-box to have seen anything. Unsurprisingly the rare Galapagos Stool-Pigeon was unable to finger the culprit

Pelican

This one is mooching on top of the sun-shade bit of the middle deck of the Lobo. Notice the webbed feet, great for your dignified semi-pelagic life-style, rubbish for sitting in trees. Strangely, however, they can do that, presumably having picked up the idea from the boobies who can actually nest in trees.

And here's one standing on rocks, so they can do that too, although it worries the crabs, as you can see from their  body language.