DANCING ON THE CEILING

Strange title, wasn’t it a song, we’ve been trying to think who did it, I think it was blancmange, if anyone reads this old bollocks and knows, give us an email, it’s starting to annoy me. Anyway, we are now in the bird breeding season, literally millions of um, but I’d like to tell you about one, just one individual. The bird in question is a Brown Noddy, they’re about the size of a smallish gull and a fantastic looking creature. They are called Noddies because of their display. To attract a female Mr Noddy with his ridiculously short legs walks like a clockwork toy on amphetamines around Mrs Noddy, if she’s impressed with his pythonesque prowess, she also walks in a similar way, and when there’s been sufficient walking to make things descent, right and proper, they nod. We live in a bungalow with a tin roof, the upper side of the tin is the roof, the under side is our ceiling, and in this particular case, our bedroom ceiling.
At the moment we are starting work at 6am and finishing at around 8pm(this is our busiest time) so sleep is the most important thing on everyone’s agenda. Friday night, bed at 9.30 and out like a light, 12.30 a weird noise wakes me, I turn to Sal zzzzzzzzzz not to loud for her then. The noise had to be a bird because there isn’t anything other than birds on the island big enough to make such a din. It’s hard to describe a noise, but imagine an empty coke can, you dent the side with your thumb and it makes a sound, when you take the pressure off and the dent pops out it makes a slightly different sound, to me its kulink kulunk. Now imagine your in the coke can! that’s what it was like, I was lying there thinking do I wait this out, kulink kulunk kulink kulunk, no I had to do something. I get out of bed put on my head torch and get the steps. The eves of the roof are about 10ft high so I had to use the very top of the steps. There he was, the bastard, Mr Noddy, giving it the kulink kulunk, what he was doing was tapping one foot on the higher profile of the tin then quickly shifting his wait and tapping the lower profile with the other, he was dancing! and I tell you what, he had bloody good rhythm, Fred Astare or not, he had to go! I gave him full power from my torch - zap, I reckon he thought it was stage lights, all it did was rev him up kulink kulunk kulink kulunk with a slightly quicker tempo like he was auditioning for some poxi channel 3 program, “It’s Jeremy Poxi Beadle’s Celebrity Wild Animal Time”
As I said, I’m on the top of the steps with the roof about 3ft above that, I’m looking at Fred who’s not at all perturbed by the 1000 candle torch that shining right up this nose, so in the name of sleep and sanity , I have no alternative, I must climb on the roof and do battle! Show down, me and Fred.
I should add, that it’s so hot here we sleep with no clothes on, not a stitch, and, as I thought the torch would be enough to shoo off Fred, I didn’t see any need to put shorts on.
The roof pitch is not so steep; I’m thinking I should have no problem. I cock one leg onto the roof, then, gingerly manage to get the other one up, as soon as my whole weight is off the steps and on the roof, Fred flies, coward, now I need to get down.
A head torch does what it’s supposed to, it shines from your head in a forward direction, as I’m on the roof and the steps underneath me what I need is an ass torch. But besides the predicament I’m in at the moment here can’t be much of a call for such a thing, even if there was, I’m sure we wouldn’t have brought one with us. So, I’m on the roof butt naked and have to get down. The last leg up is now the first leg down, out it goes into the dark fishing around for the top of the steps, got it first time. I ease my weight onto the tread, unfortunately my aim was not perfect and my weight went to the far edge of the tread, as the steps are on sand they slowly move away from me. I’m now in big trouble, one leg on the moving steps, one tucked under my arm pit and my naggers caught in the guttering! I don’t have long here as the steps are slowly sinking and moving away from me. All that’s keeping me up there is the suction of my body sprawled on the tin and my naggers in the guttering. Do I call Sal for help, well, if she could sleep through Fred tripping the light fantastic she sure aint going to wake up with a quite “Saaaal helllp” from me, the danger of a louder cry is waking up someone else, what a sight that would be! I’m definately not showing my best side from the ground looking up. I am now desperately looking for some sort of purchase on the roof, all there is the little plastic cups that cover the nails that fix the tin, I wrap a finger around it and pull, I move, just a little but enough to relieve the guttering pressure, you wouldn’t think guttering is sharp until you dangle delicate bits of your anatomy in it and apply pressure. I get off the roof and go back to bed, exhausted. Alarm goes off far too early Sal leans across and says “morning, sleep well?“

They said it would be tough

And now we are entering into the breeding season I can confirm that they were right, but it is not the breeding season itself that makes it tough, but the Seychellois opportunists that exploit it. I am talking about poaching and the collection of sooty tern eggs for Seychellois consumption.

This is so far away from what we are used to back in the UK, the scale and industrial nature of the poaching here has taken me aback. On Aride there are 350,000 pairs of sooty terns and they breed right across the island, on the rocks, in the woods, on the paths, in fact on any bit of spare ground they can. They are beautiful birds, with their distinctive and immaculate black and white plumage, they are quite a large tern and one built for long distant flight and life at sea. They return to the island to breed each year and each year they are persecuted here in the Seychelles for their eggs.

It is times like now that you really experience what living on a small remote island nature reserve is like; we are chiefly here for the protection and preservation of the island and all the wildlife that uses it. Now that protection and preservation may come in many forms, from increasing awareness in the local community and schools, to raising money to keep paying the rangers’ salaries, but of course it is also in our physical actions on the ground. Back in the UK the protection that a nature reserve of this calibre would receive would mean that people even sneezing in the wrong fashion could be prosecuted. But here on Aride, when even something as detrimental as poaching is occurring, we are on our own. In preparation for this time, we met with the local police last April, wined and dined them and talked about the way forward. Their reply was how many eggs do you think you can get us this year? So I don’t exaggerate when I say we are on our own.

Poachers arrive in groups and land on the island at all times of day and it is quite a lucrative business. Each egg may fetch 2 to 3 rupees, now a teacher may earn 3,400 rupees a month, so it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out collecting a couple of thousand eggs is a good nights work, with only the boat fuel to pay for. It can be a risky business due to rough seas and difficult landings on the rocks, but these men have been brought up on this work and know the island like the back of their hands.

The first sooty tern egg was laid 1st June, now at the 14th, there is evidence of the mass poaching that has gone on, large swathes of the island have been stripped. Then birds will re lay and so in two to three days of clearing a section the poachers will be back again and so it goes on until the birds can lay no more.

At the moment all we can try to do is to gain evidence to illustrate the scale of the problem, to do this we are undertaking poaching patrols dawn and dusk to record the boats and number of poachers we see. It is times like this that 70ha of island made up of 90% hill and rough terrain, feels like 570ha, there is no one vantage point from which you can see all approaches. Which also makes things easier for the poachers; not that they ever seem to really worry about been seen. In order for them to be prosecuted they would need to be caught with the evidence, but from what we have seen and heard this is a job for armed police – so as I said earlier we are on our own. There is no way any of us are going to stand between a poacher and a sooty tern egg.

Beach landing - American Style

Four Americans were booked in to visit the island last Wednesday, but little did we know how difficult a day it was going to be. We prepared the island as usual for a Wednesday and ensured that all paths were raked and tidy. It was a mammoth task with just 4 of us and it literally took us all 2 hours of raking each. Just time for breakfast before our visitors were to arrive we sat up on the beach crest for a rather large bowl of rice pudding and bananas. This has currently become our favourite breakfast, which had kinda developed on from porridge, but now oats are ‘all finished’. But we found it was a good way to start the day, cheap and reasonably healthy. This morning Melv was rather generous with the portions and looking back I'm glad he was. As we sat and ate, the self sail yacht was sailing its way towards us, taking advantage of the wind the mono hull was rolling in the choppy sea. Half way across it turned tail and dropped it's sail and for a moment we thought it had decided to alter it's course. Now looking back I kinda wished it had, but no, it proceeded to power towards us under engine.

We sat and watched it approach the mooring, towards to which it proceeded rather fast, however there were people up front with the hook and they managed to hook the leader rope, but the boat continued to move forwards. At this Melv shouted
‘He's going to drive over the mooring rope’,
‘Don't be alarmist he'll be ok.’ I replied – famous last words...

They seemed to moor up, however the boat lay at a peculiar angle and looked awkward in the water. But we just accepted this and continued with our usual routine, the visitors were brought ashore and I took them to the shop where we stood and chatted for a while, Regis then took them off on a tour and we all dispersed to do our thing.

Melv and I came back home to get changed out, I disappeared out the back to put dry clothes on and Melv put the kettle on. As I dried myself I heard a distant call from Melv, and thought hang on I'm not decent yet, he called again and seemed a little more anxious, I thought it must be some wildlife spectacle out to sea, I quickened at getting dressed. Melv often shouted to me 'quick, look' and my reply nowadays is usually 'I don't do quick'. But then from the top of his voice Melv hollered for me, this was urgent and I thought there had been an accident, as fast as I could I pulled my vest over my head and grab my phone, I ran out of the kitchen to see him running up the path out of breath, shouting:
‘The boat's off its mooring',
‘What! Never,’ I replied and ran to the beach crest. Sure enough the yacht had come loose and was now on the reef about 10ms off the shore, I felt sick, my god I thought, what the hell do we do.

Fortunately the guests were back and running down the beach with Regis, I ran to them and we stood and looked in complete horror, unable to believe what was happening. Then there was this awful sound as the waves pushed the boat further onto the reef, a grating noise and a banging, followed by the clacking of the ropes on the mast. There was a bit of headless chicken running going on from most of us - me included. Then Melv shouted call the boat hire company, the skipper said it is Moorings Mahe, I dashed to the office and found the number, completely out of breath I got through and explained the situation. We have been trying to develop our relayionshop with this company and as I spoke I thought thid really isn’t going to help, telling them that one of their £150K yachts was currently being washed up onto Aride’s beach right across the reef. Still they had to know and hopefully come out and recover it. I returned to the beach and the conclusion of the call was that they would send a representative out from Praslin to assist in the recovery and to deal with the situation, were his words.

So that was step one, but knowing how quickly the Seychellois don't respond the boat could be in ruins by then. Still currently very much in one piece, Regis, 1 of our rangers, proposed we used our anchors to hold it off the beach. It was high tide at 4.50pm and if we could hold it where it is we should gain enough water to free it. At first I resisted the idea and thought of insurance claims and negligence, but he convinced me that this was the right thing to do. I spoke to the skipper and explained our plans and he hold heartedly supported them. So we took to the water and managed to secure the two anchors in place, it was easier said than done, this large vessel crashing around in the water, with no guarantee which way it was to lie next and the footing was terrible, the rocks where it was washed up were extremely uneven and then of course the Aride waves were crashing in one after the other. But Regis and Melv persevered and did an excellent job.

Fortunately Regis persuaded 3 of the visitors to carry on with the tour and the skipper stayed with us and we gave him tea and chatted. Sitting up on the beach crest we could still see any progress and yet sat out what was now the burning sun. By midday there was still no sign of help on the horizon and the skipper phoned Moorings again. The voice on the other end of the phone reassured him a vessel was on its way and it was large enough to pull the yacht out, but of course this meant it was a little slower. By this time the yacht had started to swing round a little on the anchor ropes as it gained more water every so often. Before too long it was moving with the waves, facing into them, but swaying from side to side, indicating the tide was coming in, but was putting huge pressure on the keel of the boat. As it moved onto its right hand side the damaged side was there to be seen and much to my surprise there were no visible holes or gashes, apart from a few scratches it visually looked unscathed. With the keel stuck in the sand there was huge amount of pressure on it, but all we could do was wait and hope that the anchor ropes held. The securing the anchors was a very good move as they were now starting to take the tension and if it wasn't for them the boat would have been pretty much up on the beach by now and fully grounded, creating a lot more damage and a logistical nightmare to try and remove. Not to mention the high probability of fuel leakage and contamination.

Finally by 2pm, on the horizon we could see a large mono hull boat heading our way, once we could see it, it soon arrived and was on our mooring in no time, we launched the tornado and collected the rep, who was a very large Seychellois bloke with a neck like the size of my thigh and a handshake that was painful, he wasn't to be argued with. He took charge and there was soon an attempt to pull the yacht out was being executed. However for the first two attempts the rope broke and the yacht wasn't going anywhere. They the tried to pull the mast down to release the keel, but this was using our small rib and we had visions of the rib being catapulted into the air as the yacht swung upright again and of course there was risk of damaging our boat. The next plan was to attached a shorter rope and pull from a slightly different angle to take the yacht over the sandy channel that we daily bring our boat through. Also in our favour by then the tide was coming in and providing the yacht with more water. This time the large Seychellois man was in the driving seat and it was slowly does it. Taking the tension on the rope the large passenger boat tried to ease the yacht with it, then the rope released suddenly putting all the weight back on the anchor, then to our horror one of the anchor ropes snapped. It was going to be now or never for this to get moved or it really was going to end up on Aride's beach and possibility stay there for some time. Tension went back on the toe rope once more and slowly does it the passenger boat crept forward we all apprehensively watched the yacht trying to judge just the slightest movement. Then it did, it made it forward a few feet, the next big wave was going to be key, giving the boat more water. Thank goodness the driver got it right and she moved forward again, then again and then she was out on the open sea and floating. Gosh that was a nice sight - amazing, she looked good and it was difficult to see the evidence of her ordeal.

The relief was tremendous and we all cheered as it left the bottom, thank goodness, it was a float. There was a bit of tidying up to do, but before long the visitors were back on the board the passenger boat and them were all heading towards Praslin towing the damaged yacht. Once up the beach and in the shade we gathered round the boatshed and heaved a huge sigh of relief. We were all exhausted, both mentally and physically and scorched from the hot sun. The skipper and I had exchanged addresses, much like you do after a car accident, so now I expect it will be the battle of the insurance companies. We recovered the mooring rope and were all of the opinion it had been cut, but was it his propeller, we will never know for sure, but thank goodness we had had 3 divers to check the moorings just 2 weeks previous.