First day at the Indian Ocean Hotel

We woke at 7.30am. Wow! What a place! It's Paradise. Totally stunning. Really. Our house is 25m from the beach, from where it's another 25m to the sea. The sand is golden and fine. The path between our house and the sea is lined with mango trees and appears to be a migration path for butterflies - there are thousands of them fluttering along its length. The houses are white and spotless. They're clean and have air conditioning. This place is going to be great.

We spent the morning pottering about. We had our welcome talk at mid-day. I only booked one excursion (the Mombasa City Tour) since we want to spend as much time as possible in this beautiful place

I'm writing this on the porch of our house. There's a warm wind blowing off the sea. Margaret is lying on a sunbed under a mango tree, reading her book. We're about 200m from the Reception area but there's a small restaurant (Balari Cove) about 50m from our house - and we're about to go there for some lunch.