Our House

We have been at our new base in Soufriere for nearly three weeks now – how time flies! Soufriere is in the middle of the West coast of St. Lucia ; right in the heart of the Soufriere Marine Management Area (SMMA) around which my work is based. Soufriere is also right next to the most iconic structures in St. Lucia: the Piton mountains. They are really grand with steep sides and the stick right out of the sea and the (already quite mountainous) landscape. There are a few hotels in town and a couple of resorts nearby but mainly it is a quiet, local town. Tourists arrive to the dock on catamaran sailboats and get straight onto buses which take them to the various land based attractions in the area.

Our apartment is just on the outskirts of town in a nice ‘estate’ of big houses. It’s part of the downstairs of one of these big houses and is really nice. We have two bedrooms, a small bathroom (with hot water) and a large living room/kitchen. We have kept the luxuries of cable TV and there’s WiFi internet every so often! And the rent is pleasingly cheap. Our view is less dramatic than in Castries as we are inland. But instead we can see one of the many lush, green St. Lucian mountains rising up in the distance.

One of the attractions that we have visited so far is just down the road from us. The Diamond Botanical Gardens, waterfall & mineral baths is a 5 minute stroll along a road surrounded by trees. The gardens themselves are filled with lots of colourful flowers and interesting plants. It’s also really peaceful and a nice place to spend a Sunday afternoon. We spent all out time taking photos of the flowers and watching the birds fly around. The water in the falls contains chemicals from the volcano and rocks upstream and deposits give it an orange tinge. The waterfall is a movie star – it was featured in a Superman film. Although we didn’t partake there are two artificial pools where you can bathe in the mineral rich water. There were originally baths there since the time of Louis XIV but these were destroyed in the French Revolution.

Today we went to two of the other main attractions near to Soufriere. First was the sulphur springs or as it is known in the brochures: “the World’s only drive in volcano”. Although it is a an active volcano because there is hot magma inside it isn’t your traditional cone shape. Instead it’s a caldera which is a big basin many km across. At the spot we visited there were boiling pools of water and mud; fed by both fresh and sea water. It was raining too so there was lots of steam about. Nowadays there is a viewing platform but in the past guides took people out onto the rock. That was until a guide fell in to his waist in boiling mud (although he did survive this ordeal).

After the volcano we went to the springs and mud bath. Here was a big pool with hot sulphurus water that was coming from those in the volcano. There were many advantages to going on a rainy day. First we almost had the place to ourselves (being quite early before the busloads of tourists helped too), second the water was flowing and so didn’t get too hot. We also had some fun covering ourselves with the light grey mud which is meant to be great for your skin. We left it to dry and then washed it off in the pool. Getting out of the warm water and into the wind and rain was really difficult.

Our next stop was the Morne Coubaril Estate. This estate is owned by a family that live on Martinique. We were shown some traditional houses and how cocoa beans, sugar cane and coconuts are processed to make all manner of useful things.

Finally we went to a restaurant that had a buffet lunch with lots of yummy Caribbean food. I tried everything including breadfruit and plantain. The desserts were the best though. There were homemade cupcakes, cheesecake and bread and butter pudding. They also had tamarind sweets that were great and reminded me of the Philippines!

After our funday sunday it's back to work tomorrow.

Abi
xxx

# Getting to know you #

The past few days have been full of getting to know new places and meeting new people although there has been some time for some fun too. On Thursday we went into town, Castries, to have a look around. The town is nice. I didn’t find it as busy and smoky as the guide book suggests – it’s really quite small. We travelled in on the bus and walked through the market on the way to the main street. Lunch was had at a pirate themed restaurant by the water. In the middle of town is a big dock where the cruise ships come in. I am fascinated by the ships as they are so huge and the fact that the population of the island can increase by 9000 for only 8 hours when a few boats come in. We can watch them come in early in the morning and leave in the evening from our room.

In the afternoon we met Newton Eristhee and Thomas Nelson (the manager of the SMMA and a Fisheries Officer at the Department of Fisheries) at the Department of Fisheries – a bright turquoise building. It was great to get to meet the people we have been e-mailing for what seems like months.

On Friday, after handing in some other uni work online, we walked down the hill to the sandy beach. We had a really nice lunch from one of the huts on the beach – grilled fish, fries and salad with an amazing dressing. It was nice to eat somewhere that the locals do. I found it funny that the beach is also right next to the local airport so there we could watch the little planes come and go whilst we had a dip.

Today, Saturday, we got up early to get the bus into town and then south to Soufriere where we would be based in the long term. The bus ride was really windy and we had to go up and down all the mountains in our way. I was glad to get off but some of the views were stunning. We were visiting to go and see our new apartment – but more about that when we move in. At first the town seemed quite sleepy but we figure it’s the kind of place that reveals itself the longer you are there. On the way home we cheekily got a lift with one of the tourist catamarans that do trips from Castries (we did pay!). They stopped to go snorkelling and we were really sad that we didn’t have our stuff. But being on a boat was great and definitely better than the bus!

Now we have lots of work to do to get ready to have an official meeting at the Fisheries Department and have to give a presentation and answer questions. Lucky some of my work will involve snorkelling :D

Love
Abi
xxx

St. Lucia

I’m sat by the sea in a tropical country again. This time it’s for the research part of my Master’s degree in Tropical Coastal Management. After much deliberation (with at one point me seriously considering throwing a dart at a map of the Caribbean) it was decided that St. Lucia was the place to be.

I arrived yesterday after an 8:35hr flight (and a night at Gatwick Travelodge). Currently I’m staying at a quaint little hotel named ‘Casa del Vega’. We (my partner in marine biology crime Josie and I) were picked up by the owner from the airport. During the hour long drive from one end of the other she answered all the questions we could think of about St. Lucian life. We also had a guided tour of all the damage caused by last year’s hurricane Thomas and other local sites such as the prison and mental hospital. We also found out that there was no running water that day on the whole island due to repair work on the damn – just like CCC!!

Our evening was spent sat on the balcony watching the cruise ships go by and the sun go down. The hotel is on a hillside going down to the sea. There’s a rocky cove at the bottom that I can’t wait to snorkel in. The room that we had was great. It was big and had a huge walk in wardrobe. However, we had the opportunity to move to one with a small kitchen so it was out with the space and in with the home cooked meals. The owner even took us to the supermarket this morning to get supplies.

At the moment we are in the capital city, Castries, as we have to sort out research permits and official things like that. In the next few days we’ll be moving to Soufriere; where there is a marine protected area and more tourists that aren’t cruise ship passengers.

More info on what I’m actually doing soon!

Love
Abi
xxx

PS Here's great video of where I am and the owner, Mrs Compton :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOi9Yzq3Kws

Hard to get to Dumagete, Harder to Leave

Next on our itinerary was Dumagete on the southern coast of Negros. However, we had a problem in the that the ferry from Bohol to there wasn't running that week. So after some discussion we decided that we had to backtrack to Cebu and get a ferry from there. We stayed the night in Moalboal a village almost completely dedicated to diving. Nick had stayed the week before and a friend of his was doing his dive master there. We had a good night playing pool in their favorite bar before heading to Dumagete the next day.

I really enjoyed my stay in Dumagete - so much so I left a lot later than I had expected. The town had a large university and s o the atmosphere was really cool. In amongst a lot of chilling out I did some cool stuff as well as having some good nights out.

I visited Centrop (The Center for Tropical Conservation Studies) where they are researching and breeding some of the Visaya's endangered animals including the warty pig, spotted deer and bleeding heart pigeon. We even got a personal tour by the zookeeper! We also visited the Marine Labs of the university which had some interesting displays and some live specimens. It'd be a nice place to work :)

I also got to some diving whilst I was there. We went to dive an island called Apo which is a great example of how MPAs and ecotourism can work. I also did a 'muck dive' in Dauin which there is dark sand beach.

Finally I went to visit the twin lakes and some water falls on a day trip.

As well as the sights I think the thing I will remember Dumagete for is the cake! There were loads of great (and cheap) cafes and bakeries which you could get amazing gateaux and muffins.

Dumagete was where Nick (and also Helen who had joined us on a holiday from the Thresher shark Project) and I said our goodbyes and I headed off to the next stop on my journey.

Abi
xxx

Beautiful Bohol

So I have put up the photos from Bohol but not explained what I've been up to - so here goes!

We (Nick and I) got the ferry from Cebu to Bohol at lunch time. The terminal was pretty well organised and it was a bit like going to the airport with checking in and whatnot. The ferry was also pretty comfortable but we were disappointed we couldn't go outside. When we arrive we went straight to or accommodation Nuts Huts which were in the interior of the island. Once we were dropped off it was a bit of a trek on a dirt track to get there and then lots and lots of steps but it was well worth it. We stayed in a traditional wooden hut which looked out onto the Lomboc river. The river was the gorgeous shade of Wedgwood green.

The only thing which spoilt the tranquility a few times a day were the cruise boats the went by on the river. They were set up for tourists to have dinner whilst listening to some dodgy live music - that we were also subjected to. We went for a swim in the river up to the falls and we even saw one boat with a wedding reception on it!

Whilst on Bohol we got up to all of the typical toursisty things including going to the Chocolate Hills - which looked exactly like the photos. We also went to see the Tarsiers at the Tarsier Sanctuary. It was a really good day and we got to see the little primates really close up. There was also a film telling you about them and Nick and IU went on a massive trek inside the protected forest area.

After Nuts Huts we moved on for a night at the Bohol Bee Farm. This was an organic farm that was set up by a local woman. Originally she also kept bees there but most of the hives have been moved to another part of the island. The room was really nice as was it's surroundings. We had a tour of the farm where we saw where the herbs, fruit and veg were grown. I got to hold a frame from the bee hive and didn't get stung and we had a go on the loom that the ladies were using to make cloth for the crafts. The food at the Bee Farm was amazing. the best thing were the salads as they all came with lots of edible flowers in them :)

After that we tried to make our way to the next island our trip.

Abi
xxx