Drunk and disorderly

I know what you will all be thinking when you read the title, ah, they are back to their old tricks again, alcohol every night and in excessive quantities. Well for first time ever, no – we’re not, in fact I am completely off the pop at the moment – second week now, and Melv, well he is down to one bottle (of beer, not wine like the Godney days) a night. The climate and alcohol just don’t mix and it is easy enough to become dehydrated without the help of the old jungle juice.

In fact believe or not I’m talking about the wildlife!

Particularly fruit bats and blue pigeons who gorge themselves on fermented fruits and end up looking like many of us have looked after a heavy night out. They stumble about unable to fly and in the case of a fruit bat unable to do the bat thing of hanging upside down to sleep it off. Today Melv found such a bat in the garden under the fruit trees in a bit of a state. The problem of Aride is that if you stay motionless on the ground for long enough other wildlife like crabs, ants and skinks will assume you are dead and then arrive in the 100s. Even the crabs do this with our toes at night, if we stay stationery for too long they come over and take a nibble. Well this poor old fruit bat was becoming the centre of attention and so Melv brought him back to the house and the safety of a card board box, to sleep it’s hangover off for a while.

An hour or so later Melv and Tony persuaded it to hang upside down, well nearly, or at least to stay out of the way of the scavengers, by lying on a tree stump off the ground. Come the evening it had recovered and was nosily flying around with other fruit bats, chattering, boasting about his drunken antics.

Fruit bats are excellent creatures and it was a real treat to be able to see one close up, with over a metre wingspan, they are large mammals and have the body the size of a large rodent. They don’t actually breed on Aride, but fly over from Praslin to feed on the rich fruits here. They are really spoilt for choice here as there is plenty of food, there is even a tree called the fruit bat tree.
They are widespread and endemic across the Seychelles, even on the larger islands, Praslin and Mahe, and are taken legally in some places for human consumption; fruit bat curry is quite a delicacy and often talked about. But after seeing this one close up today I think I can definitely say that is one Seychellois recipe we are not eager to try.

Thanks for all the treats

It is amazing how living on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean alters your perspective on life, but also your priorities and how small things make a huge difference! Now don’t worry I’m not going to get all philosophical or talk about how this experienced has changed my life and I am a better person. I am merely talking about the excitement of going to the post office and receiving a parcel. This isn’t to promote people to send us more parcels, but just a mention to say how appreciative we are to those that have.

In the early days, parcels kept me sane, not because they had goodies for me inside – but tobacco for Melv. Cigarettes here are particularly poor and hard to come by and also very expensive in the Seychelles, so smuggled in tobacco from the UK disguised as sweets, swimwear or toiletries was a life saver!

At first we lost faith, mum and dad packed up a parcel as the requests for supplies were made; tobacco, calcium tablets and laxatives. Well perfectly wrapped and loving prepared, customs took great delight in seizing it – 3 months later it arrived. Fortunately this wasn’t the pattern of things to come, mainly because our suppliers were more cunning, using the art of disguise! This then worked marvellously well for the recipients – us – as sweets are an excellent form of disguise – obviously the man from customs is a smoker but doesn’t have a sweet tooth. Then it progressed, my clever sister in law – with health news travelling faster than any other – thought they like sweets, they need laxatives – liquorice allsorts – brilliant. Do you know liquorice allsorts straight out of the fridge in a hot climate are top; we never liked them at home.

Now there has to be a comparison made – sorry Matt – woolly hats and gloves from Melv’s mate, mini cream eggs, Angel Delight, herbs and spices, sauces and mixes, from Sal’s mate; Ali – cheers girlie. But I can’t deny Matt on the tobacco front – and now the seeds – makes Melv a very happy chappy.

Then Lisa and Carla nail brush, socks, of course tobacco, Anthisan and medication, brilliant. Socks to keep the mosies off Melv’s ankles, Anthisan to treat bites already received, nail brush for Sal and tobacco....and I thought he was giving up.

But there has to be a special mention to mum and dad, the star suppliers, who have coped with requests of all different kinds, sent on missions for strange items such as a head torch, fishing rod eyes, (I drew the line at lead weights!), seeds for the garden, tea strainer, ukulele music to name a few, oh and tobacco - all disguised with a good old bag of sweets – perfect – thanks you two.

All these items are things we would just take for granted back home, just pop down to town; here even if we could regularly get to a shop, we couldn’t buy it anyway. When we are living in a country that runs out of milk, onions, garlic and ginger, we don’t stand a chance with a tea strainer and nail brush.

There is a little story behind the tea strainer, we went to buy one, as Seytea (local tea), is only produced as loose leaves. I must commend the little Indian man we went to, we asked for a tea strainer and came out with a teapot with a strainer in it – great - but it lasted all of one month!

Finally, cheers Leigh from the BBC, for the mixed herbs and writing paper and on the writing paper note – thanks Fran, Rich, Lucy and Sam, of course I’ll keep writing!

We will soon need the earplugs!

It is quite bizarre, living on an island with only 6 people and before too long it is very likely that I am going to need earplugs to sleep. No it isn’t because Melv has started to snore, but because we are starting to share this beautiful place with thousands upon thousands of birds!!

The last few weeks we have noticed the numbers of sooty terns, lesser and brown noddys increase dramatically. Well over the last few days they have started to come in off the sea in large numbers and are now appearing in all kinds of places, and that includes our tin roof!
When I first heard that there were 1.25 million birds on the 70ha of Aride I wondered where they all live, well now I am beginning to understand – everywhere!

When you are out at sea and look back at the island, especially early morning or at dusk, the seabirds are like a large swarm of bees gathering over the tops of the hill, they come together in clouds and circle in huge numbers. In fact another analogy comes to mind – it is like the Somerset starling roost, without the people.

This morning as I sat on my log seat for our 7am meeting in the village, I faced the long wide path lined with trees that leads to the rather splendid restored Plantation Lodge. As I looked, the avenue was full of lesser noddys all flying around in a somewhat coordinated but chaotic way. They looked beautiful, so delicate with their long slender wings, pale heads and slim bodies. At this time in the morning, the sun is still rather low and the path to the Lodge is shady, so many of the birds just appeared as moving shapes and silhouettes. Their all brown bodies were like moving shadows; gracefully dancing in mid air, with a flutter and a glide. They are such delicate birds their pale heads shining forward like a head torch coming through the sea spray as they fly towards you.

Every Sunday morning we rake the paths ready for guests to the island and this morning I knew it was going to be a treat and I wasn't disappointed. As I made my way along the crest path, all the noddys were busy collecting nesting material. They hover over the ground trying to select and then pick up leaves without touching down. It is almost like a game for them as they use their agility to gain the material they need to nest build. They often do this on the beach collecting seaweed, or even over the surface of the water itself. It is excellent to watch and the amount of birds doing this today had dramatically increased from yesterday. As I continued, I walked underneath an area where the lessers are starting to group together in a colony, my presence made them start to cackle and chuckle in a chorus as they looked down at me curious.

The larger brown noddys stand in groups on the path and they are less tolerant and far more aggressive, looking disgruntled as you move them on. They are quite bulky birds, with a call most un-tern like, but similar to that of a crow. They too are now starting to establish territories and are settling in a wide range of places, from the crowns of coconut palms to our tin roof. Their head markings are beautiful, with the finest detail, and immaculate definition around the eye. But they always seem to wear a frown and as you approach them they eye you up and down before flying off and often stand their ground following you with their eyes, like the Mona Lisa.

Along this stretch of path there now seems to be far more fairy terns around too, as they hover very close to your head making their electronic call. You can often feel the wind displaced by their wings as they un-aggressively fly around you. With their pure white plumage they look like little angels, dancing against the blue sky.

Walking this path is always a treat – when we first arrived here it felt like the island was alive, now it just feels like the whole place is moving with wildlife. It is everywhere, the sky is starting to fill with birds, as is the sea, the woodland, the plateau, the beach and our tin roof - it is wonderful - what a place to live!!

Sorry do you speak English?

Obviously one of the main concerns about working abroad is not being able to speak the language, well here on Aride it is exacerbated by the fact that the visitors we rely on to keep the money coming in, are a complete mix of nationalities, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, to name a few. For me the hardest part has got to be communicating with people from across the globe via the telephone. When face to face you can use gestures and expressions, but on the phone it can be extremely difficult, especially when I am often struggling with a poor reception too.

It is often the case, as the day gets underway, the phone will ring, to place a booking for a 10am collection off the mooring buoy and 9 times out of 10 the person on the other end will not be British. Boats calling before hand is not essential, but as we get towards the south east monsoon, when the sea gets rough at Aride, it is good practice, as there will be days when we can’t land guests because of the conditions.

Well today it was a little touch and go whether it was too rough as the wind continued to come from the south east, causing the sea to whip up. To launch the Aride boat in such weather it needs many hands to hold it still whilst the engine is started. To start, the engine needs to be in deep enough water and the difficulty is hanging onto the boat whilst being pushed off by strong waves and struggling to keep your feet in the swirling water. With this in mind we were a little concerned when Silhouette cruises (0ne of our regulars) called with 18 guests, but we accepted. It was too early to be turning guests away, we need the money and we need to boost the figures for April. Seychelles is a small place and at this time of year as soon as we start to turn guests away, the word would get round that visiting Aride is now too difficult.

So sticking by our decision we went through the usual preparation to meet and greet the visitors. Before too long the phone rang again, and looking back now I can laugh, but at the time it was a classic situation where if I had spoken Italian, it would’ve helped!

'We like to visit Aride today, we group of 6.' The voice on the end of the phone said in broken English.
'That would be excellent, we would love to see you', I replied in the back of my mind thinking well we can combine them with the 18 from Silhouette and make a full tour and we will have to cope with the rough sea; it would only mean 4 trips of 6 people.
'Is somewhere to moor?' the Italian lady asked
'Yes' I replied 'There are moorings outside the island, you can take one of those and we will come and collect you'
'Is enough room?' she asked
'Of course' I said, 'There are 3 buoys and you will only need one, there will be no problem'.
'But we are group of 6' she repeated.
I tried to be assertive, without sounding impatient, together with trying not to shout – why do we do that when people are struggling to understand.
‘Yes’ I said, ‘we don't have anyone else booked in needing a mooring...' Then it dawned on me - a group of 6, surely she wasn't meaning a group of 6 boats? I asked her
‘Yes 6 boats’ she replied.
I swallowed and took a deep breath, my mind working hard, trying to stop the ££ signs from flashing up too much, preventing me from making an informed decision.
'Ok' I said, 'how many people are you?' As I asked my head was thinking that could be a lot of people, these self sail catamarans aren't small.
'48 persons' she replied
Not wanting show any hesitation, I said quickly, 'that will be fine, 3 boats can moor up on the buoys and the others will need to anchor, no problem, there is plenty of room'
'What about the waves?' she asked
'It is a little rough' I replied crossing my fingers,' but ok, so we will see you at 10am'
'Yes she said 10am.'
I pressed the phone to end the call, and looked at it in disbelief, that booking was the size of La Ponnant cruise ship, blimey, together with Silhouette Cruises it was going to be one hell of a busy day!! Normally that wouldn't phase us, but with the sea as rough as it was it was going to take all of us to make it work and all of us to work together.

We could time the start perfectly as all the self sail left Praslin at the same time and looked like a regatta coming across the stretch of water in between, every one gathered on the beach all a little apprehensive, but excited at the busy day ahead. It was super to see, all boats heading our way, so often have we seen them not venture out to us. A private hire sped through the middle of them and pulled up at the mooring before them and Silhouette cruises snook round the back and took his time in finding a secure anchoring.

Well it was a brilliant day, it went like clock work, smooth, professional, excellent team work, resulting in happy customers and a happy team. The total number of guests reached 70 Adults and 5 children, but worked well, all tours went off as soon as there were enough guests for one, which staggered them beautifully so that people did not follow each other round and did not all end up on the hill together. The end result was a heap of money on entrance fees and an amount not to be sniffed at in the shop. It was all hands on deck at all times as the last group left the first group was soon to return, from 9.30 to 3.30 it was constant, lunch didn't feature and not even a cuppa. The total number of boats was 7 self sails, 1 private hire and 1 Silhouette Cruise boat, it looked like a marina outside.

Once the island returned to the peace & quiet, we sat up on the beach crest with a cuppa and enjoyed the moment, we could still see a number of the yachts in the distance, it always gave the island a buzz when we had a successful day with clients, and today had been exceptional. I will remember it as the day the Italian group of 6 came to Aride.