One of our car outings was to Echo beach for a look and a bit of lunch as I had never been there before, all was fine, nice eye-candy waxing surf boards and only a few sellers. After eating we walked onto the rugged rocky outcrop and Jordy was well pleased as it seemed like all the crabs in Bali had decided to sun themselves on the rocks for the afternoon so this kept him amused seeing who could find the biggest, fastest or brightest coloured crab. We then decided to walk along the beach a little and what should I spot but a Duck, yes alive and looking not too well, after carefull examination with neither of us being 'Duck Experts' we decided that it must have been caught in strong winds and bashed against the rocks as a few feathers were missing and it was about stuffed and he kept stretching out his neck which looked like something might be caught in his throat half way down. We found a woven basket type lid, lifted the duck onto it and returned to the cafe where we had eaten. Many strange looks were had from the locals but the cafe owner was sweet and said maybe the duck was sick - he gave us a little bowl of water and some rice and after washing the hot black sand off the duck and getting it to drink it seemed to perk up a little. Much conversation was had as to if we should leave the duck with the cafe owner to nurse back to health and this was our plan until someone mentioned duck being on the menu the following day. Now we had named our duck Daffy and decided not to risk his future by leaving him where he could end up as someones main course. Needless to say I nursed this duck all the way back to Legian praying the whole time it wouldn't peg out while I had hold of it as I'm not too good with dead things. Back at the Villa one of the staff gets us a laundry basket to keep Daffy in and we buy him some rice and keep up his fluids. All these little thoughts of nursing him to good health, letting him swim in our pool then releasing him back to the wild were being discussed and how good are we! Now Daffy still wasn't looking too good by the time the staff shift change later that arvo and then terror struck. I was then told that there had been a large ceremony at Echo Beach the previous day and after getting a translater to help explain it to me Daffys true fate was revealed. He had been a sacrifice to the God of the sea, now maybe the strange looks were justified when I asked but my point was valid I think, why the hell did this god need Duck?? he could have fish, prawns, crab all the seafood he wanted so why would they give him a duck?? This wasn't the worst of it.... they had walked around holding him for a while pulling out the odd handfull of feathers to throu in the air then they had wrung his neck and thrown him in the sea. Needless to say Daffy's time with us was short but we like to think he enjoyed his last drinks and rice meals and being on a nice towel in a laundry basket rather than on the hot sand in full sun. By the way anyone talking to Shauna's 4 year old the duck is now back with his family looking after the baby ducks.