Happy New Year to you all

The packaging is often as good as the contents.

This is going to sound really sad, but it is true, a lot of the time the stuff that we receive things wrapped up in over here is often as good if not better than the contents. Typical examples are for instance, items that come in small re-sealable bags, these are excellent as they are extremely versatile great for stopping mobile phone, alarm clock and MP3 player from getting wet and covered in salt. Or the there are padded envelopes or A5 envelopes, both seem to be very rare in Seychelles, or the card board from cereal packets, the cereal is awful here, but the cardboard gets used for all types of things, especially to make resources for school work, oh and of course small boxes, some friends sent some chocolates out recently – Ferrero Rocher, the contents were amazing, but the plastic container is great for freezing specimens in, like dead turtle hatchlings or moths.

But this Christmas it was the best yet, a volunteer who had just left after a 3 month stay here, sent through a parcel and it contained small net bags of Christmas chocolates, well whilst the chocolates were very nice indeed, the small net bags well... they managed to catch tea for the whole island tonight.

How? Melv made them into two fishing lures and each time we put them in the water pulling them behind the boat, we managed to catch fish on each – result. Melv has become a bit of a magpie like that, he collects all things shiny as potential fishing lures, whilst I often make fun of him, I can’t knock it after today’s success!

Christmas on Aride

Several people have said ‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to have Christmas on a tropical island’, so whilst many of you were inside keeping warm, opening presents wrapped in glossy paper and eating turkey for lunch this is what we did...

The day got off to a slow relaxed start at the usual time of 5.30am, it was a beautiful morning, as soon as the sun came up we knew it was going to be a hot one, by 11am it was 34°C in the shade!

We had two presents to open which were wrapped in newspaper – Chloe had treated us to two of the things we miss most in the food here – ferried over from the UK, by her sister who is here on holiday.

The daily jobs still needed to be done, Chloe and her sister walked the beach to check for nesting turtles

and Angie recorded the weather.

But there was plenty of time to relax, Pete found time to do a bit of art work

and Phil came in to see how dinner was going.

Christmas dinner was going to be a joint of pork and all the trimmings, well all that we had anyway and everyone was going to prepare a bit and we all planned to eat together. There were 7 of us left on the island and we were all from the UK, with the local lads having gone to the main land to be with their family. Melv as the chef prepared the meat and roast potatoes and whisked up a pudding.

When it got too hot in the kitchen we both went in the sea to cool off, the water was like a mill pond, and it was incredibly calm and amazingly warm.

From 12 noon we were all relieved that technology behaved and we were all able to contact friends and family, so text messages, emails and phone calls flew backwards and forwards with the UK through out the afternoon and evening.

Once all the daily jobs were complete, the magpie robins had been fed and the beach checked for tracks for the final time, we all sat down for dinner at 5.30pm, which was amazing:

Main Course
Roast pork, in honey and soya sauce
Roast potatoes
Pumpkin and aubergine
Carrots
Papaya chutney
Pineapple sauce, (we didn’t have any apples), bread sauce, stuffing balls and gravy

Sweets
Trifle (with rum as we didn’t have sherry)
Pumpkin and coconut pie, with cream topping
Pineapple upside down cake

Followed by Christmas chocolates – (thanks Jean)

Accompanied by glasses of red wine and other alcoholic beverages!

Chloe and her sister used their artistic skills to create hats and decorations, and we opened parcels that past volunteers and visitors had sent us.

What about the wildlife well that was great as always, all day the fairy terns chuckled, the sunbirds rattled their song and warblers piped their melodious tune, even the bee eaters visited for a short while, the frigate birds chilled out on the thermals and the Audubon shearwaters serenaded us with their eerie call as we watched the sun go down.

The sunset was out of this world, turning the whole sky pink and producing a 3 dimensional light which makes the island looked surreal.

So what was Christmas like on a tropical island: hot, relaxed, quiet and rather special – Cheers!!

The Aride Fairy would like to say...

Yesterday a Hawksbill Turtle came for breakfast

She must’ve been desperate as it was rice pudding!!

As we took our breakfast to our table and bench on the beach crest there coming towards us was a hawksbill. We quickly sat down so not to disturb her and she went through the process of laying her eggs right in front of us!
She was desperate, but not for rice pudding, she had been up on the beach a couple of days before and not managed to lay and now today to get to this site she had had to climb a metre high sand bank. As a result she was desperate to lay and she did so in the middle of the beach.
However many times I see these creatures each time I am in awe, they are magnificent and truly amazing, and in disbelief I watched this one today complete her main purpose in life less than 3 metres from where I was eating my breakfast.
We knew there was no need to count the egg clutch size, as soon as she had finished and we had time, we would need to move the clutch off the beach and to a place high enough up away from the high tide line. Which in itself is yet another amazing turtle story...

Yet another turtle treat

You are all probably fed up of hearing about turtles, well tough because I have got to tell you about this turtle treat – a green turtle nest hatching:

We made our usual 5.30 am start to check the beach for turtles and tracks, it was another great morning and as we sat and drank our coffee, the bee eaters were waking up above our heads as the sun came up and a calm sea lapped against the sandy beach - beautiful. Then suddenly we heard a whistle, it could only be Tony, the head ranger, and it was, he was furiously beckoning us over. I gulped my coffee down and grabbed the turtle bag, expecting to see an adult turtle track or turtle on the beach. But no, Tony was clutching something and I would've never have guessed what - it was a green turtle hatchling.

There were a few coming from the first nest site, they can hatch between 50 and 70 days, it was 50 days to yesterday and so they hatched exactly on the first day, and they were on their way as fast as they could to the safety of the sea. But as we looked we started to realise that many of the ghost crabs that were skulking around were actually clutching young hatchlings. Instinctively to try and give some of the rarest creatures we would ever see a chance, we both started to chase the crabs away. I tried stamping my feet to make them drop them - it worked and I collected up the small hatchling just the size of a 50p piece and took it nearer the sea. They felt so strong, the large front flippers characteristic of a green turtle, were trying to pull through my fingers, not even the size of my little finger, the flippers had so much power and were to be crucial in the survival of this small turtle.

There was little evidence of a mass hatching and there were very few tracks in the sand to be seen, whether on the beach itself or around the nest site, however there were a lot of crab tracks. Until now I hadn't realised how much of a threat crabs were to these little fellas, even though I was amazed at how fast they could travel down the beach - they were no competition for a crab, they didn't stand a chance.

From memory they looked slightly bigger than a hawksbill hatchling, but they looked very different with their flippers and soft parts all lined in white. So cute, they made their way down the beach like little clock work toys, one flipper after another giving them a rather comical gait.

After seeing so few we knew there must be more and so as the evening got closer we staked the nest site out, in an attempt to try and reduce the amount of crab predation, what a way to spend a Saturday evening.

By 7.15 we started to see yet more movement from the nest and once again hatchlings started to emerge. This time dealing with the crabs was more of a challenge because it was dark.

It was a catch 22, as we would shine the torch to get the crabs we would then attract the hatchlings as at this age they respond to light and changes in temperature.

Melv had the answer he grabbed a big stick and went further down the beach and began to clear the way for us to guide the hatchlings down, he effectively started to play golf with the crabs, it was quick and efficient – although at times not too good for the crabs– it worked a treat with the way clear for the rest of us to guide the small defenceless hatchlings down to the sea.

It was once more a truly amazing sight a real turtle treat, and one I really never expected to see, seeing hatchlings making their way down the beach was exciting enough, but those from a green turtle - well unbelievable, some of the rarest turtles in the world and we were privileged enough to be able to give them a helping hand - how lucky was that

Special Visitors

In just a weeks time we will have been working on Aride for a year and we will soon start to see things going full circle. Like the change of the monsoons, one bringing visitors the other breeding birds, or the turtle season - full of highs and lows, much like the time of flowering Pisonia and its deadly sticky seeds.





Well November is still a new month for us and it has been the time for migrants bringing plenty of new visitors of the feathered variety to the island. Although Aride has many thousands of pairs of birds on its 73ha, it does fall short on variety, so the arrival of some new species has been quite a highlight. For me they have been what I would call quality birds too, like the Crab Plover.

A really bizarre looking species with a bill like a tomahawk and legs, well it had a stride almost the length of one of my feet, its legs are extremely long! Very Avocet like in movement, but purpose built to catch crabs, a long stride and a bill like a chisel. I would watch them stab a ghost crab and then like a young boy would do with a spider, pull its legs off one by one, then run around with the body in its beak. They seldom flew anywhere, but made full use of their long legs and ran to where they needed to go.

Then there were the sanderlings, although common in the UK, here they have absolutely no fear of humans at all and we have been able to walk within a couple of foot away. They scurry around our feet as we haul the boat up the beach and run up to us as we sit and wait for turtles to do their thing. Just the other evening we were waiting for a turtle and a volunteer was eating his tea on the beach, he spilt some veggie curry on the sand, then to our amazement it was eaten by a sanderling as it scurried past.

There have been the little brown jobs as well, like the lesser and greater sand plovers, which in summer plumage look stunning, but by the time they get to Aride they are both a rather dull brown colour. Still not to be knocked they are a welcome addition to the group of turnstones that frequent the beach daily.

However the stars of the show so far have to be the blue-cheeked bee eaters, they arrived last week and are still here. They are magical and seem very fitting for a tropical island, with their bright colours and wonderful call. We have had up to 18 along the beach crest, and currently there is at least a group of 8, a mix of adults and juveniles. Some of the adults have still got their blue-cheeks, together with a yellow chin patch and rusty throat.

The beach crest is their favoured haunt, where they seem very successful at hawking insects; they are particularly active at dawn and dusk and tend to go quiet in the heat of the day – like most of us!

Unfortunately none of these birds are immune to Pisonia and both the sanderlings and bee eaters have been a victim of it, the sanderling managed to deal with it, but the bee eater needed a helping hand – for which we obliged.

That’s one thing about life on a remote island you never quite know what will turn up next and that can happen with both birds and people!!

One of the advantages of having composting loos.

Well before last night other than the environmental reasons, I didn’t think there were that many other advantages to having composting toilets, but now...

For composting loos to work effectively it is best not to wee in them, and it was only because of this that we were both going for a wee on the beach late last night. Melv lead the way, but then came rushing back;
‘There’s something big in the bushes on the beach crest, thrashing round’ he said excitedly.
He grabbed the torch and took a quick –oh my word it was a green turtle – right next to our house, she was digging a nest chamber to lay her eggs right next to where we sit on the beach crest.

Hawksbill turtles frequently use Aride’s beach to lay their eggs at this time of year, with over 60 emergences last year. But green turtles are extremely rare and Aride didn’t have any emergences last year and only 3 the year before. Greens are much bigger than hawksbills, with an average track size of 110cm compared to a hawksbills’ at 75cm. So you can imagine the excitement having one right on the doorstep, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would see a green turtle, especially as they only come out at night, compared to hawksbills which will emerge to nest at any time of day.

We walked round to reach the beach so we could get behind her and not cause any disturbance that is the golden rule, until a turtle has laid stay out of her sight, or they may desert. She was now covering up, busy camouflaging her nest site by moving large amounts of sand and vegetation, hawksbills also do this to disguise where their eggs are, but greens disturb so much ground it looks like a building site.

We sat in the darkness and listened, the noise of the surf made it quite difficult to pick up the noise at times. I strained my eyes to try and see what she was going, we could see sand being flicked up every so often but it was almost impossible to see the turtle herself. I so wanted to put the torch on just to get a glimpse, but I had to wait. It was just amazing to think that there was green turtle, the size of a dinner table, less than 5m away from where I was sitting and yet I couldn’t see her, I had to wait.

Then there was an almighty crash followed by breaking branches and she emerged out of the large sandcastle that she had built, it was now safe to shine the torch just to the side of her for a minute to catch a glimpse of what she was doing – yep she was on her way down to the sea, the nest complete.

The first snatch of what she looked like was amazing, more rounded in shape like a tortoise than the flat appearance of a hawksbill and massive; her front flippers were the power, as she dug them into the sand to drag her body behind.

As her name suggests her shell had a green tinge, Melv kept the light behind her as she made her way down the beach slowly, I put my hand on her shell, quite taken a back at the size of this animal trudging along in front of me. The tide was out and so the beach was long and there was time to take a few photographs, but I was conscious of the bright flash in her eyes.

She was leaving an uneven track behind, with a large indent made for every ‘step’ taken, a look at her rear flippers revealed that one was damaged, with no soft flipper left, just a stump, this explained the unevenness of a track we had seen early in the week – so we knew that this turtle had been up the beach at least before, this was quite common these turtles can lay 3 to 4 nests on the same beach.

Her head protruding out of the large shell and in between the two large front power house flippers, looked small, she lacked the ‘bill’ of the hawksbill, with a rounder face and a deep dark eye. What a privilege to able to stand this close to such an animal. Our time with her was soon to end as she edged closer to the water. She stopped at the water’s edge for a short while to take a rest and let the water lap up against her head and flippers, washing the sand off. You could almost sense the relief and achievement in her as she had successfully managed the huge upheaval of laying her eggs, in a place where her movement was so awkward.

As she entered the surf he movement was transformed and she became graceful once again as the large front flippers took her effortlessly out into the deeper water, soon the round dark lump of her back disappeared. I stood in the dark staring at the surf for a while is disbelief and then glanced at the beautiful clear skies, full of stars twinkling at me - what a magical moment that had been.

Back into the Swing of things

Well it will soon be 3 weeks since we have been back on Aride and I am still yet to unpack all the goodies we brought back with us. Mind you in most cases, (apart from the chocolate), things are far better left inside the hard-backed suitcases – safely away from all the wildlife that we share the house with.

We were both looking forward to getting back to the island and when we stepped on to the beach after our month away I realised that I had forgotten how beautiful it was. The light was the first thing that struck me; it was so clear and bright, as if everything was lit up with an electric light, it looked amazing, followed then once more by the abundance of wildlife.

It hasn’t taken us long to get back into the swing of things, and the weeks once again are starting to fly by. We are entering into the busy time of year now, as the seas calm and the North West monsoon begins. The visitor numbers are increasing each week, as our regular clients return and we already have cruise ships booked in for the Christmas period.

In addition to the daily tasks, Melv has been busy building a new composting loo, gaining the materials needed by recycling one of the verandas off an empty rangers’ house. It took sometime to source a new toilet seat though, with only one shop selling such an item on the whole of Praslin. But it was worth the wait and is now pure luxury.

I have been catching up on going into schools, we have finished the Aride corner at Grand Anse and I have been working on a mural at Baie Ste Anne. One of our volunteers came in with me to talk about adaptation and we used his musical talent to good end, as a song on the ukulele will make birds and adaptation a subject the children won’t forget for some time.

The wildlife is still out of this world, whilst a lot of the breeding birds have flown, we still have lesser noddy chicks just about ready to fledge and the residents, such as the white tailed tropics seem to be rearing young successfully. Visitors to the island have included a crab plover, which was a new bird for me – with such an amazing beak and legs like a stilt. Things have gone full circle and the turtles start to come up the beach once more. We have been lucky to have at least 2 of the very rare green turtles in the last few weeks, followed by the start of the hawksbills. Even though we are desperately short of water, the Wrights gardinier has been flowering, it is hard to believe that Aride is the only place in the world where this tree grows naturally, the smell from the flowers is exquisite.

Of course we have been fishing, and fresh fish has been on the menu most nights of the week, on several occasions we have tried to pull sharks into the shallows with the remains, which has provided evening entertainment for the whole island.

I still have to pinch myself most days just to check that I really am living in this amazing place, where the blue sea is so blue it hurts your eyes and the sand is so hot it burns your feet. There is always something new to see, from humpback whales to the thousands of roosting frigate birds, but it is not without its challenges, and who knows what the next 12 months will bring...

Hols in the UK

I should apologise for the lack of entries over the last month, but we have been away enjoying our annual leave, but now back in residence on Aride we have got chance to catch up. As part of our contract we get two months annual leave, one of the months comes together with a return flight to the UK, so all excited on the 12th September we found ourselves on Air Seychelles actually flying back to the UK for a holiday, at this point I realised I had never actually gone to the UK from another country for my holidays before.

A month sounds a long break and it was going to be the first time that Melv and I had actually ever taken a holiday for such a length of time and not been building a house or the like. But having said that, looking back now I can’t believe how quickly the time actually went.

We had a wonderful break; a large percent of it was spent staying with mum and dad on the North Wales coast, slightly different temperatures to the Indian Ocean that we were used to, but a fantastic coastline, with sandy bays and rugged cliffs and excellent walks. I managed to meet up with family, and Melv who was experiencing withdrawal symptoms from no fishing managed to buy the cheapest rod in the local shop and with the first cast bring out a 4 ½ Ib bass that was the talk of Rhos on Sea seafront.


We did manage to get to Spain to see friends Steve and Kate, for which our livers will never forgive us. Now living near Grenada, they have started a project restoring an old mill house in Bazza Natural Park and it was excellent to be able to explore a part of Spain that we have never been to before. A very quiet and beautiful part of the world, and on walking up the valley beside the house over a weekend we saw more golden eagles than people all day. Melv particularly enjoyed sampling the tapas, and I managed to take two dips in the Med – blinkin freezing after the Indian Ocean.

Towards the end of the month, our travels took us to Somerset for a very short stay, limited by this time by finances, but we managed to meet up with family and friends and of course went out to the local curry house. Melv put his liver through yet some more abuse, from which his mate took two days to sober up, whilst I managed to get a ukulele lesson over a bottle of wine or two.

There were loads of things we had hoped to do but never managed to, sorry Bob I never got to the AGM, but it was excellent to see the photos and sorry Von and Sarah; I never got to give you a call our time in Somerset was very brief.

Some of the other highlights of the month were to walk into a supermarket and just look at the fruit and vegetables then being able to fill our basket with whatever we wanted, especially bread, cheese and chocolate. To have a cup of builder’s tea with semi skimmed milk every morning, probably one of the simple things I’ve missed most! To go to the pub, where I had been dreaming of eating steak and ale pie and chips – and do so – hard to believe I used to be vegetarian. To watch footie on the TV, especially Liverpool beating Man Utd, sorry Melv, and drink beer.

We got back to Seychelles just a couple of days ago and it is good to be back, even though on our first shopping trip we were to be told that milk, milk powder, vege oil and cheese were ‘All finished’!