Now I sorted this blog problem out (Sarah cannot post any more, but still seem to be able to, which is great) I can now give you some more of the fun we are having!!!

10 days ago, Katharine joined us from the UK- now we are three!!! Which makes work much faster and easier! Welcome Katharine (and she will have still much much more free space to blog, so will ask her to post some pictures :-))!!!

Last Tuesday we went “back to school! Primary school, that is (years 5-6, 10-11 years old) and had some great fun telling them all about the coral reefs. Everybody “became” a sea-creature, either a nudibranch, a parrotfish, a soft-coral,a hard-coral… and we created headbands for everybody, which was great fun! Then we went ahead to play a game about the food-chain- who eats whom! Everybody was very happy except for the zooplankton, as he was eaten by absolutely everybody (and could not eat anyone else)!!

Afterward we played something which, I think, Sarah called a Pub Quiz, however, without the pub and with kisses (only chocolate ones) for the right answers!

It was a real fun morning, and cannot wait to do some more in Turks and Caicos… Sadly no more time here to do more!

The afternoon was one of those rare afternoons off, so I introduced Sarah and Katharine to the joys of stand-up paddleboarding. We went out to a place called Little Bay, which is great for snorkelling and took masks as well. I gave Sarah and Katharine a “pull through the water, as they were holding on to the fin of the board with mask and snorkel on, I did  not realize what a strong workout that would be.

And then we finished the afternoon with a cocktail in the sunset (and I am not allowed to mention us drinking alcohol, but it was only one glass in the evening, and it makes the story so much more exciting and tropical ;))

Easter was Festival del Mar time in Island Harbour, their one big event of the year, and we were there!!! There was loads of fun, food and meeting old and new friends. We watched the traditional sailing boat races, saw the contestants of the fishing competition come back, and enjoyed a lot of life music! The beach was all built up with little stalls and there was fish and lobster on offer in large quantities, any style you could imagine! I tried the lionfish- first time ever for me- and I have to say it was really tasty! We should export it to the UK and use it for Fish’n’Chips, giving the good old cod and haddock a break!!!

On Sunday I had some conch soup, which was absolutely amazing and in the evening Sarah and I shared a lobster- it was huge- expertly prepared by the Jackmaster, self proclaimed “King of the Sea”. Very, very nice indeed, fresh from the BBQ.

I enjoyed watching the kids model boat races: They built the boats themselves, in the same fashion as traditional racing boats are built, then the boats are taken out to Scilly Cay (and island situated in the harbour), they fix the sails, and off those little boats race towards the shore, powered by wind and steered by the set sails! Really great! Then we watched the kids dancing competition- the girls dance like the adults- the beach volleyball tournament, the swimming competition (it was a relay and I did not know in advance, otherwise I would have tried to find a partner. I would have had a really good chance as well, judging from the teams that started-only 5- and that the first 4 got money prizes, medals and cups).

The cups were just ridiculous… every competition had huge prizes, cups and medals, the girls dancing competition had a prize money of a few hundred US Dollars, for the 6 year old!!!

We also watched some traditional Calypso music and in the evening went to see a great concert with an amazing international female reggae singer! Finally we got home- tired and happy- at 3 am!

What a fantastic weekend!

So last week we continued the interviews in Island Harbour meeting a variety of fabulous characters!  There is a definite reluctance to do interviews with us and I recently discovered there were marine biologists who came in a couple of years ago doing interviews and suggesting a 6 month closed season for fishing and all kinds of other regulations!  No wonder everyone is a bit nervous.

We held the first community meeting at the primary school.  The whole night was quite manic with just Pia and I to control the rabble but I think everyone enjoyed themselves and a lot of the important events that came up in the historical timeline validated what we heard at the National and Sandy Ground meetings.  We are booked in to do some fun marine stuff with the children at the school and also during the huge Festival Del Mar at the end of the month.  We might possibly be giving out free tasters of lion fish.

Saturday was my birthday!  I have managed to survive until the grand old age of 32 😉  As a mini-break I went to Saba – the most beautiful volcanic island two short boat trips away from Anguilla.  I spent the day climbing the mountain, diving the gorgeous coral reefs, eating tuna steaks and watching the sun set over the windward islands.  The diving there really is spectacular – sea mounts and pinnacles surrounded by sharks, turtles and black coral… coral gardens full of invertebrates and colourful hard corals….I saw a lovely seahorse, some great nudibranchs lots of huge black Jacks.  I would definitely recommend it as a destination for coral reef fans.  It is such a shame Anguilla’s reefs aren’t in half as good condition.

Some photos to follow.

This week we are scoping West End and will be continuing with the interviews.

Hey,

We have been working in Island Harbour this week.  It’s got a different kind of vibe to it.. the place is on the far east end of the island, kind of separated and proudly, traditional fishing.  Interview appointments are flowing well at the moment but I think we might hit a high refusal wall soon…. it’s going to take a lot of charm to win over these boys!

Having said that the interviews we have conducted have been fascinating!  The fishermen mostly spear fish and fish with pots for crayfish and lobster.  They use smelly old cow hides as bait for the lobster.  One fisherman showed me where an octopus had sucked the body right out of his crayfish while it was caught in the trap leaving him an empty shell. The older guys talk about how they used to sail all over the Caribbean delivering goods and how virile and lush the inshore coral reefs used to be.  The younger guys get excited by the offshore fishing.

I was extremely lucky on our second day in Island Harbour to jump on one of the traditional racing boats while they were doing their practise run for a big race later that afternoon.  The boats are wide, open hull, with huge triangular sails –quite distinctive-looking, more like the dhows from the Persian sea.  I sat in the bottom of the baot basically acting as a sand bag (providing weight) whilst all the boys jumped from one side to the other trying to balance out the power of the wind tipping us over.  It was VERY exciting!  We watched then later from the safety of the beach during the race.

That night I also tried my first ‘pigs foot’.  It’s like a white, fatty, lump held together by a couple of bones, boiled forever in salt water until it turns into a gluey mess.  I just can’t understand why people love it so much…it’s more of a cankle than a foot and more like boiled tripe than pork ;/  In another unsatisfactory food first I also ate my first parrot fish.  After spending days learning all the species of parrot fish I now see them as my friends and (thanks to some training from Clare) I ate eat the eyeball first so it wouldn’t keep giving me the puppy dog eyes.

Sarah x

I really do not know, how we actually could get up on Thursday morning! But it was to be another long and intensive day. We had our second community meeting planned, again for Sandy Ground, and again in Roys’ bar. We spent the morning, from 7 AM, analysing all the data that we had collected over the last six weeks, writing reports for the people in Sandy Ground and North Hill, preparing the presentation, and there were just so many things to do. It just takes longer than you think. In the afternoon, I started doing my baking, and I must have totally overestimated what we were going to do! I had so much go for my cheesy biscuits (Kaesfuessle) I could fed an army was it! Half of the dough went into the freezer for the next meeting. Then I made brownies, and we still had a cake from the day before. Finally made it down to Roys Grill, fully prepared, with all our notes, sticky walls, presentations, and come 6 o’clock, nobody was there! So we waited, Sarah got herself a wine, and waited, and eventually Lindsay and Aristo turned up! That was it! Apparently, we had chosen the day when their worst just too many other things going on – the house of assembly was debating life on radio, it was absolutely exciting from the pieces that I was listening to, whether they would be able to pay their civil servants outstanding salaries, or not. It is unsure, how much longer the current government is going to be in charge, so everybody was listening to the radio. We had no chance against that. So, at around 7:30, we gave up and packed! For dinner, we deserved it after long, long day’s work and we were back for our community meeting another day. Bad thing, I nearly ate all the brownies, and felt rather sick. But there were just so tasty. And I will let Sarah tell you what happened next…

So what to do, after a successful hard and long day? Best idea: relax on the beach. So off the team went, down to the beach for a sundowner. We really deserved this. Selina and Sarah decided to go for a swim, while I went for a little hike to enjoy the scenery from the cliffs. Luckily, we were in time for happy hour at Roys’ , so that meant some wine for Selina and Sarah, and I decided on something special. So I wanted a “Dark and Stormy”, I always like them, but I only found out on that day, that the dark and stormy is with ginger beer rather than ginger ale. Never knew there was a difference between ginger beer and ginger ale. So I opted for the captain’s rum with ginger ale rather than a dark and stormy. I think I prefer the ginger ale. Anyways, there was not much ginger ale, generally they fill the glass here with 2/3 of rum, and one third of ginger ale.

So Selina wanted to have some decent seafood, we decided to go to Tasty’s restaurant, even though it was only 5:30.

We were the first! And we thought, it was still closed – but, far from that, there was a film crew making a film about Anguilla and the places to go. As we were so early and the first victims, they said we would be fantastic to be in the film. So we sat at the bar, I had the microphone, and we had to order our cocktails. Imagine me, just having had this strong rum and ginger ale, which is not a dark and stormy, and now a cocktail… This little camera was on rails and wheels behind us, and they had this funny light umbrella on the left and we even had to talk. But what is easier than ordering a cocktail? So I chose a Cosmopolitan Martini, Sarah went for a simple Buck Fizz (orange juice and champagne and something red- grenadine?), Which they call here at Mimosa, and Selina had the a deadly Long Island Iced Tea. And then we were watching Hilly, the bartender, to mix our cocktails. On film. I was a bit disappointed, because he did not throw the cocktail shaker and did a little dance. I have seen that on TV. But the cocktail was fantastic. And the rest of the night was a little bit of a blur for me. I guess Selina as well. But after all, again, we are on TV! Next time will charge and anybody wants an autograph, just tell us! We shall soon have a fanclub and please apply to Sarah if you want to be our manager 😉

Finally we get to order food and we thought we had escaped the TV crew, it is hard to be such a celebrity, but still they came back, and filmed us on our table.

The food was excellent, had an amazing seafood pasta, Selina had a huge lobster, all for herself (I always think lobsters are so hard work to eat) and I don’t remember what Sarah had. I was just too far away was my Cosmopolitan Martini. Somehow I got back to my bed and slept.  What an exciting day!

A busy week lies behind us, and we are having our deserved rest. Since Selina came last Sunday, there were just hundreds of things to do, in particular, we had to National meeting on Wednesday. We spent Tuesday calling again on all our invitees and doing last preparations and practising. And then it was a big day. We went early to the library, where the meeting was to be held, and set up the auditorium, to food, tables and chairs. We were hoping that some people would turn up, but then, even before 10 AM, they started piling in. We had a total of 38 guests, from different government organisations, representatives of the National trust, individual Fisher men, a number of knowledgeable, concerned citizens, and representatives of environmental youth organisations. It was a fantastic spread of backgrounds and ages.

After Karim, the director of the environment Department, gave a welcome speech. We started with a presentation of our project, and then went into the exercises. In the morning, we did a historic timeline. People were divided into three groups, one looking on major changes in the fisheries since 1960s, one looking into major changes in tourism and international and regional development, and the final group looking into changes in the general environment and community. This was very interactive, and a lot of fun. Many people were surprised and excited about the final timeline.

After an hour’s lunch break, with lovely sandwiches and cakes, we came back to do a second exercise, called the policy cycle. So this was slightly more difficult, it turned out to be a great success. People started to think and after the discussion of the policy cycle everybody was eagerly awaiting the final discussion.

I believe this was a very successful day, and even though it was hard work, everybody seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, and taken something back.

Let’s hope the next national meetings in Turks and Caicos and the Caymans will be as successful.