Without Sarah, Provo has been crazy… We met so many amazing and interesting people and are fully into the swing of things once again! This is a huge change from lovely relaxed Anguilla, and I have been doing interviews with loads of watersport operators and sport-fishers, learned a lot about Marlin and bonefish (I had never even heard of them before), and met a whole lot of people who are out there diving.

This week we also did a community meeting in each of the two communities we are studying here in Provo, which were both great, but very very different from each other.

Friday I managed to get a trip on one of the snorkel boats to their snorkel site!!! Buff, the mate on the boat, wanted to show us the TCI version of “Fish and Chips”: Throw a pack of dorito chips (crisp) into the water, and the triggerfish get mental!!! I wonder why people have to use other bait 😉 (Not so sure how healthy that is for the fish though).

The reef around there was pretty, but sadly not that many fish…Next stop was on the great flat to find the conch… all passengers were dispatched into the water to find their own conch in about 60 cm of water! Once we had enough conch of the right size we went to a little island and Captain Pop made an amazing conch ceviche… yummy yummy, while I explored the island and visited the iguanas. Just before we were about to leave we had a young lemon shark coming straight to the beach, and as well an eagle ray and a manta ray- that must have been the absolute highlight of my day. And guess what, in the evening Sarah called me to report all the species I had seen- I had recognized them all (go Pia!!!)

So far so good, should try to upload some pictures that I took with Georgies underwater-camera 🙂

Myself and Clare have been visiting the Cayman Islands for the last week and I thought I would share some photos… especially of the sea turtle farm which is the only one in the world I believe… enjoy!

FOR: TCI group shot

So much has happened over the last month it is difficult to know where to begin!  We have two new team members…. Georgie who introduced herself wonderfully below, and Katharine Hart who joined us for the stamina-test that was the end of Anguilla… interviews, reports, community meetings, last minute KI’s – the last wonderful weeks were a complete blur!  It was incredibly sad to leave – we’ve made some amazing friends in Anguilla and I hope we can get back to see them soon.

Now we are decamped to Turks and Caicos, another beautiful tropical island chain.  After discussion with the Environment Department we are working in two places… The Bight and Turtle Cove which appears to be a rather rich tourism district (plenty of divers to interview) and Five Cays as our fishing community.  We have fish processing factories, conch farms, miles of shallow sandy coastline to explore.  The sand here is so fine it sticks to you like glue.  People wade out into the shallow with a rod and real to catch bone fish (almost like fly fishing).  The country seems a mix of extremely expensive Floridian style buildings glued together with small traditional houses and half built illegal concrete structures.  The people a heady combination of ex-pats, locals, immigrant Haitians and a hundred other nationalities.  I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this society!  Tonight is our first community meeting in the Bight so I am sure one of the ladies will post more soon…

In other news I managed to crack my forehead open on the bottom of the swimming pool while night swimming… and then had to walk around with a shameful bruise and slight concussion for a week.  I took one of the rescue dogs out for a walk… they are called ‘potcakes’…. but the tiny puppy tired out quickly and I ended up having to carry him around in my bag.  No diving yet but we did see a barracuda the same size as Pia while out snorkelling!

Hello! My Name’s Georgie, I joined the FOR team in TCI last week. I’m an MSc student from Newcastle out here for two months to help with the social survey team and do research for my thesis project.

I don’t think I’ve seen a tropical island quite like Provo before, the first thing you notice when you fly in is the incredible bright turquoise sea and long white beaches, a proper postcard image. It’s a very interesting place, driving from the airport I could have been in America; wide roads, big air conditioned super markets and lots of luxurious resorts. We’re staying in Grace Bay, which has every convenience who’d need for a holiday without even leaving the resort village, but the communities outside the resorts are great. Although there are lots of people living in small, quite rundown houses and there is a lot of litter around, people are very welcoming and seem to have quite a strong sense of community.

We’ve spent the past few days mapping out the communities we would like to work with here, which meant a lot of cycling and driving around asking people to help us work out community boundaries, trying to count the number of houses in each and sweating a lot. Not an easy task, but everyone has been so helpful, going out their way to ask what we’re doing and if we need any help. I think we’ve got more smiles and waves in a week here than I have in the last year in the UK…no offense England but we’re generally less inclined to wave at random people nosing around our houses!

More news from Provo coming soon…

After the last few stressful weeks, packed with excitement and loads of work, three community meetings, writing reports and trying to finish off as many interviews as possible, we left Anguilla via Saint Martain and Miami – to arrive in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos!

And I decided to take a couchsurfing holiday for 3 days!!! I took the ferry to a little island called North Caicos, rented a bike at the ferry station, fastened all my luggage somehow on my bike and went off to the little village of Kew, where I was going to stay with Brian/Naqqi. I finally managed to find him, as he had told me his name as Naqqi, while everybody else on the Island knew him only as Brian 🙂

He is the proud owner of the last donkey on North Caicos, a very temperamental one called “Lady Liza”. And in his house he had a cage with tiny quail chicks, which were just too cute- when they are tired they lie down on the floor and stretch the feet away, it looks hilarious seeing a bird lie down, just like a little person 🙂

I went for excursions on my bike to the beach, to find some snorkelling spots and to generally have a relaxing time… and I found  a beach restaurant where they made the most amazing home made ice-cream!! I did a tour on one of the old cotton plantations, visited a big government farm and explored the mangrove areas.

Sadly those few days of relaxation went by far too quick, and now it is time to get back to work on Provo… for the second part of the project with extra help!!

Will report soon!