Toronto Photographer Paul Krol – Baptism & Family Photography

I spent a week taking pictures and drinking cold beers at Surfing Turtle Lodge in Nicaragua.  It is located about a 2hr drive from Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.  And then you have to take a ~5min. boat ride to the Lodge as it is located on an island.  I visited this beach hostel 6 years ago and its exciting seeing it grow and expand to become bigger as more and more visitors flock to it.  It really is a great place to chill and meet fellow travellers.  Every day hit 34°C and most people enjoyed a nice lunch with beer in the shade followed by some hammock time.  They have wifi so I often saw people going online and reconnecting to the world wide web.  But not for long.  There are many activities that the lodge offers.  Daily morning Yoga. Surfing lessons at anytime during the day.  They have horseback riding and a slack line to help remind you of how out of shape and balance some people (me) might be.  Daily volleyball tournaments at 4:30pm were a lot of fun and the winning team gets a round of free drinks. The ocean was always a great idea for a quick dip or a little swim.  The currents are pretty strong so one does have to be careful.

And lets get to the turtles.  The 5th picture below shows the Turtle hatchery.  While I was there the Lodge released turtles 3 or 4 times.  Once at night and the other times during the day.  The guests would walk to the ocean and you could see how exciting and unique this experience was.  The staff would release the turtles on the wet sand and allow the turtles to make their journey towards the ocean.  Guests could put on gloves and help out.

During the evening more drinking would occur and there was also evening games.  After that people would often play another drinking game called Flip Cup.  There was always a bonfire at the beach that people could enjoy while gazing up at the infinite stars.  I also visited the Cathedral in León and took a couple of photos from the rooftop.

The majority of these photos were taken with my film cameras.  I used my Contax G2 35mm camera and my Pentax 645n medium format camera with Portra 160, 400 and 800 film.  I also shot a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 film.  I used my Canon 5D Mark II camera for the evening games, etc.  Canadian Film Lab did a wonderful job scanning/processing the film.

If anyone would like a print – drop me a line and I can give you the size/pricing info.