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