So we are becoming famous in the BVI! We have been on T.V, the front of the Newspaper, and on the radio. Ma Julie and Lennox seem impressed anyway.

Phoebe and I spoke to the Rotary Club on Tuesday morning – it was all very formal, we got to sit at the head table and eat fancy breakfast before giving our presentation (perhaps prepared a little last minute but luckily went smoothly). A Jeep/any kind of vehicle is still non-existent but team spirits are up as we all troop round East End together. We have finally got in with the fishermen, all that time spent hanging out at the gas station has paid off! Beth was horrified at the sight of a baby nurse shark on top of a fisher’s catch with a spear mark through its head but played it cool to make sure we got that interview. We now have a new record of 12 interviews in one day – go team!

The other day Niall and I interviewed the yachter who had been robbed at gun point a couple of days before – he showed us the bullet hole in the roof. It had been big news here and we had no idea it was him until we got to the question ‘do you think people in the community are honest and can be trusted?’ and he just laughed (in quite a scary way) for ages.

We certainly had our share of fun. Last weekend it was Beth’s birthday, we had a night a Scrub Island where a steel band was playing and we may or may not have got tempted by the trampoline on the sea and the huge pool with water slide. On the day itself we got a free trip to Cooper Island from the wonderful Sail Caribbean Divers. They took us across on the boat (wettest ride of our lives) and then left us with snorkels, kayaks and paddle boards – so much fun! And let’s not forget Beth’s favourite thing of all, food! there was a very delicious restaurant on the beach where we had an amazing lunch and happy hour cocktails.

Only two weeks to go, 62 interviews left – the pressure is on!

We’re coming up to the end of our second week in the British Virgin Islands and have finished our entire primary scoping so now its time to begin interviews. Having spent many days walking up the steep hills and driving along the unpaved roads of our chosen communities we have completed bounding, counting and numbering houses. Chatting to people along the way, we have discovered the best bakery in the East End, where to paddleboard in Cane Garden Bay and how to get between the two in the shortest time possible.

We got to know the Islanders at the legendary full moon party at Trellis Bay, tested out the rum punch and (some of us in particular) enjoyed the Caribbean dancing style.

Today we had our second meeting with officials in the government, freezing our butts off from the extreme air-con. We have spent particular time with the Department of Conservation and Fisheries and appreciate how welcoming they have been to our work.

In the coming weeks we are going to start our household interviews, continue to find resource users and identify key stakeholders. Our first community meetings are coming up fast, Wednesday 22^nd in East End and Monday 27^th in Cane Garden Bay. It’s a very exciting time for our project in BVI and we’ll keep you up to date with everything going on.

We are back!  This time in the British Virgin Islands with a whole new team.  Please Welcome Alex Scott, Beth Taylor, Niall McLoughlin and Phoebe Mottram… photos to follow.  We are staying in a villa set for a Saudi Arabian King thanks to some very generous property owners who wanted to support the conservation work.  BVI is simply gorgeous, lush volcanic mountains and picture postcard turquoise seas and so far people have been extremely welcoming.

We are already in our third week and so far everything and anything seems to be going wrong – we’ve had a repeated dead battery on the jeep, the boat cutting out on us, clouds of mosquitos every where, a variety of injuries and illnesses as well as other logical nightmares and a cake full of maggots.  This morning I watched in horror as a hand sized scorpion scuttled out from under the data entry table… but that is field work for you!

We’ll have to catch up with the blog and I’ll get some pictures on here quickly!

Good to be back – Sarah

I went on a little adventure to Grand Turk last week to sort out the logistics for our move there in July and to draw some maps that the divers could use to select sites.  Grand Turk is just gorgeous!  Old school Caribbean, with colourful houses, flowers everywhere, huge salt ponds they call Salinas (which is going to get confusing when Selina arrives!).  Flamingos stop by to feed up, as do thousands of tourists from the huge cruise ship dock.  The island is almost bi-polar, asleep one day and bustling with activity as soon as a boat docks.  After browning my trousers on the tiny 8 seater, rust bucket of a plane over, I hired a car and drove around the island a couple of times taking photographs. The reef that runs along the west side of the island is all national park.  You can snorkel out from shore to the 7000 foot drop off, one of the largest marine trenches in the world.  I stayed at a lovely place called Bohio and set up my office every day at a table on the beach.  The crazy south african head chef there kept me fed and entertained… She has a gloriously filthy mouth and I found myself imitated her ‘bloody’ this and ‘bloody’ that 😉  The wild donkeys wake you up in the morning with their constant braying… and at five o’clock each day they came to the hotel to drink out of the water bucket and got into a street brawl with the wild dogs.  I sat next to the TCI chief vet that night as he patched up the broken dogs… never argue with a donkey. On the last day I hung out the the fishermen who were all wonderfully welcoming.  They taught me how to clean and prepare fresh conch… which is extremely difficult, not only because their little eyes are staring at you while you chop off their penises but they excrete a tremendous amount of slime which means you are in constant peril of chopping off a digit.  Fishermen are a dirty lot and I discovered some amazing facts about conch… did you know they have the longest penises in proportion to body length of any animal!  I can’t wait to go back there and start interviewing.

Over the next two weeks we have to finish the interviews here in Provo, conduct two community meetings to share our results and pack up.  It’s going to be full on.  I can’t wait! 😉

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!