I sprawled in the back and looked around me.  I now got to see the interface between water and land from another angle.  As we gently pulled out and turned to head north, I could see the modern off…

Dominica exposed me to new Caribbean experiences.  Whereas other islands were heavily touristed, and offered beaches, yachting and other water activities to tourists, Dominica had little to offer i…

The last stop of the day was at Soufrière.  The name is common in the eastern Caribbean as it is French for Volcano.  Many of the islands I visited had been influenced by French at certain times an…

Next morning we had to be up early to travel to Thulusdhoo, a populated island to the north east of Male.  We crammed into a small taxi with our field kit and inched our way through the morning tra…

The sun was starting to set – glistening on the golden dome of a large mosque on the other side of the square.  So we ambled back to the hotel and observed the first of many rush hours in Mal…

Jullan took me out on another trip one weekend.  Ostensibly to check the sediment in the rivers, it was really just an excuse for him to drive the van and me to see the country.  We went up and dow…

We saw where the road had been completely wiped away by the slip, and carefully stepped over several wide crevasses where the tarmac had been shredded by the force of the mass movement.  We veered …

It was so good to see Jeremy – the last time was four years beforehand when I had to hurriedly leave Rodrigues.  While he introduced me to Dave,  a large cheerful Glaswegian, we quickly caugh…

It too was pokey – enough room to walk around the bed but only just – the wardrobe and chest of drawers filled most of the rest of the space.  A stand up shower integrated with the toil…

Andrew took me out again the next day, his last night in the country.  I was humbled by his generosity, as I was sure he should be with his family, packing or at least getting some rest.  But he to…

Unlike any other Caribbean capital I have been to, Roseau looked more local than touristy.  It had some remarkable architecture, hundreds of neat cobblestone and wooden houses with ornate balconies…

Immediately the car dived into the interior of the island.  The traffic was busy – not just cars but hundreds of mopeds and small lorries and vans.  We inched down narrow streets for about fi…

It was here that I spent a week helping the Maldivian government look at one of the most critical issues for their nation, how to engineer the islands to resist the relentless onslaught of sea leve…

Andrew Magloire did the same in Dominica. Although during my long visit there the following year, he was hardly around.  He was planning to go and study in Halifax, Novia Scotia for a year, and had…

We had lunch at a little beach bar in Spring Bay and then headed over to a lovely bar in Princess Margaret Beach in Admiralty Bay. The Mule, which had struggled along all day ( we had had to have a…

When I lived on Tortola for two years, there was much to love.  But one aspect that drove me crazy was that if I had no big plans for the weekend, I would climb in my jeep, drive round the island s…

At the back of the hall, temporary stalls had been set up by the Ministry of Agriculture to display farm animals.  Various schools had brought their boys and girls in smart uniforms to take a look …

We piled into Kurt’s car.  I say car, and I know I have ribbed him about it many times, but his Kawasaki Mule was more of a golf cart.  It was the perfect size for Bequia’s little winding concrete …

I did not land on Bequia itself till later on that year on a return visit.  I only had a week on St Vincent and one Saturday to spend on my own.  A very good friend of mine, Kurt Cordice, lived in …

The next day an agricultural fair had been organised in the spanking new market building in Montserrat’s replacement capital, Little Bay in Brades.  Matt was interested in attending and I sai…

There were some dark clouds hanging over Soufriere but the day was hot and sunny and we decided we would take a chance.  We stepped out into this alien world; even the feel of this grey dust under …

When we passed the extreme of the island and headed along the southern coast, we saw some thick dense seagrass and against the artificial breakwaters of the extended airstrip, little coral heads we…

We had to do some field work in Bequia one day.  Unfortunately, the swell increased dramatically in the early part of the week, and by the time we were ready to set off, there were heavy rollers ou…

Although the exclusion zone was not to be on our itinerary, we did want to have a closer look at the intermediate zone – that area where people were allowed to enter routinely but not to live…

The sirens could be used if the level of gases got too concentrated or if ash clouds were imminent.  They were controlled from the Montserrat Volcano Observatory just inside the danger zone.  We co…

As is always inevitable, we had to turn for home.  We could not see St Lucia across the channel – the haze was still too much, but it did clear as we headed back down the Windward Highway.  We stop…

One weekend, we travelled further. Arden Nelson who ran one of the Central Planning Sections, organised a trip for Margaret, Andrew and me up the Windward Highway.  It was another of those wonderf…

Scriber asked if I wanted to go on and see if we could see more. I was aware of the time (it was past midnight now) and how these guys had gone out of their way to drive me to the other side of the…

Then, ahead of us, the other guide darted forward and shone his light on a large amphibian nestled in amongst some leaf litter on the forest floor.  It had a white underbelly and green and brown mo…

I walked out into the suburbs a few times on my visits there.  Overlooking the town to the west was Fort Charlotte.  Although rather dilapidated, it had fabulous views over to Bequia, the next isla…

One afternoon after our session, Andrew and I were looking out over the harbour from the Central Administration complex.  When people started going home from their office and shop work in town, the…

One other noise occasionally broke the tree frogs’ chorus; a loud caterwauling, indeed like a cat having an argument with a neighbour.  Scriber pointed a finger skyward “the mountain ch…

To this end the Conservation Department had a monitoring programme which I was there to support.  I talked extensively to the guys who did the work.  They could point to the areas they surveyed aro…

My quick trip over to St Vincent that week was uneventful, but on return visits I discovered more.  On my second trip I was staying in central Kingstown, in the fabulous Cobblestone Inn.  Although …

The alternative view is to try to build up capital, import the goods you cannot get locally, buy into the global economy and sell it back what it wants, sunshine and sea.  Thus the hotels are getti…

The other animal of interest was the mountain chicken.  And this was not a chicken – what was it about giving Montserrat animals the wrong name?  The mountain chicken is in fact an amphibian.…

My week on Montserrat was busy – I had to meet the various teams of environment department workers who were responsible for the different biodiversity programmes.  I was to meet an old friend…

Despite this, the feeding of US TV through  the cables and satellite receivers is affecting the culture – the kids see more of the TV than they do of their parents, it is their nannies and tell the…

We were told to concentrate on natural resources, and I think our paymasters were expecting a report that covered just the conflict between fisheries and tourism.  As I gathered more information an…

Matt had procured a fantastic villa for the project.  Although not far as the crow flies from Brades, it was round a circuitous road that hugged the contours.  Just beyond the sprawling village of …

The island was visible almost as soon as we took off and crossed the old canefields of Antigua.  We approached Montserrat from the east and I was able to see out the window the great massive of the…

Now at last I was able to visit, but I was to work for another incredible conservation organisation, the Durrell Foundation.  As a teenager I had read all the Gerald Durrell books; my favourites be…

For the rest of the year, the trade wind doth blow.  Mainly from the north east, these pummel the east or windward sides of the islands.  The Caribbean side lays in the lee and most of the towns an…

The chain of islands that make up the eastern Caribbean are very new in geological time.  They were formed when the small Caribbean Plate started to rub up against the Atlantic Plate.  The Caribbea…

Alongside the stress on the people, the volcano obviously did untold damage to the environment.  As well as being an intensively farmed area on its lower slopes, its upper reaches and several valle…

Life of the island was turned upside down, even geographically.   The southern third was left as an uninhabitable exclusion zone, a further third declared an intermediate zone where no-one can live…

By the Wednesday, we were getting tired.  We saw little hope of moving the St Vincent project on, and Keith persuaded me that I should go and meet with my counterparts in Kingstown, the capital, so…

He took me to his workplace the next morning, possibly the finest place I have ever worked in my whole life.  The Natural Resources Management Unit (NRMU) of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean S…

One of the biggest environmental problems of the world is that of erosion.  The seas bite at our coastlines, the wind blows away our soil, floods scour away our houses.  Land is talked of being los…

I ended up taking lunch at the one place I had seen open earlier.  The Calumet Inn was a handsome building, made up of a light quartzite (from the town of Jasper which I had passed through earlier)…