Warriorbern on the Move

After work I nipped down to the beach for a swim and then returned for the guest house to shower and get ready to go out for cocktails and dinner with Aubs and a friend, Mellissa. I had met Mellissa on a previous trip to the Seychelles at a beach braai. I was waiting on my balcony when I heard a car arrive and ran down to see if it was Aubs but it was a taxi with a French couple who had booked into the guest house. Needless to say, there were no staff to meet them. So there the two of them were, standing with there suitcases, in the dark, not know what to do. The security guard ask me if I had a cellphone to call the manageress as she had no air time on her phone but there was no chance I was going to allow her to use my SA phone for that. I told her that if they wait a few minutes Aubs will be there and he will help them. Sure enough Aubs arrived and handed over his phone. They got hold of someone to come let them into a room and he arrived as we were leaving. It really is quite ...

Yesterday, we started working on the database online and filling in the blanks and new information for the fisheries. I got home with only enough time to got for the obligatory swim before sundown and dismissed the walk. The water was lovely and once again so relaxing. After the swim and a shower I finished the last of the books I had brought along to keep me occupied so now have to listen to audio books that I downloaded a while back. The manageress of the guest house promised to bring me the receipt for payment of my accommodation at 7pm but she did not arrive. I paid on Monday morning and have asked her every morning for the receipt which she kept on telling me she would give me either later in the day or the next morning at breakfast but that never happened. I cornered her again on getting home yesterday and she said that the printer had run out of ink so she would print it at home and bring it when she came to switch on the lights in the evening. As stated, she never pit...

Yesterday when I got back to the guest house I discovered that my accommodation has a kitchen! Now I can hear you asking how I could have missed that fact for 2 nights! Well, when I got to my room on Saturday night I saw a door leading somewhere but it had no handle on it and the fridge was in front of it so I paid no attention to it. I'm not overly curious about hotel rooms anyway as they are mostly pretty boring. When I came home after work I discovered the fridge had been moved, the door was open and there was the kitchen. When I looked more closely at the door I saw that the lock area was exposed and I actually could have opened the door myself. Anyway despite now having a stove, sink and kettle, it really doesn't make too much difference. It is nice to have the extra space and using the kettle is far more convenient than using my immersion heater to boil water but it won't change my eating plans much. I'm really not sure why the fridge is in the bedroom though as t...

The flight to the Seychelles was okay after a seemingly endless wait at the hotel to actually get going. There was a bumpy bit about an hour out of Seychelles which was more concerning because the steward was next to my seat row with his trolley of hot tea and coffee rather than because of the bumpiness. I was sitting there wishing he would just move away as I really did not want hot anything landing on me! The landing itself (my worse part) was extremely hard and there were numerous exclamations (polite and not so polite) after which nervous laughter was heard as everyone realised that yes we had made very sound contact with the runway but everything was fine. Passage through immigration went smoothly and then I had to wait for ages for my suitcase to arrive on the carousel. I was getting a little concerned that my suitcase had made an alternate journey but then saw someone who had checked in at the same time as me also still waiting for her luggage and thought it would be okay. Even...

Yesterday, we spent about two hours continuing the search for any research publications for Mauritius and eventually had to admit defeat – there just aren’t any. The only task left was to go through the French translations of all the tables for the database. I had thought that this would be a fairly quick task but it actually took us the rest of the day. I do still have some small queries and will try to get these answered in the Seychelles or alternately ask one of the French scientists that I have had some dealings with. After work I went with Satish to his home to spend the evening with his family. I met his three children and immediately hit it off with his youngest son, seven year old Navdeep. While Satish and his wife prepared the dinner, Navdeep and I played computer games and watched animated videos on YouTube. Satish’s parents joined us for dinner and we started off with chilli bites minus the chilli because the kids won’t eat them if they have chilli included and then dinner...

Last night, after my session in the gym, I slept so well but struggled to wake up this morning. I think I am still on SA time and so 6am feels exactly like 4am! There is no other option though than to just haul myself out of bed and get going. Satish picked me up and thankfully there were no more horror road stories. We took a different route to Albion this morning but honestly it makes no difference to me as I have no clue where we are most of the time due to the rabbit warren nature of the roads. The area between Satish's office and the beach A close up view of the fence outside Satish's office - you can see how close the water is! We had another productive day and had completed all but three fisheries before lunch. For lunch we returned to the same little restaurant but this time arranged for the gatekeeper to wait for us to return. Below are a few photos I took on the way back from lunch. The wetland that runs behind the research centre. The bridge over the wetland that...

Firstly my apologies because there are no photos today - we actually worked all day LOL! The day started off with Satish collecting me from the hotel and we made our slow way through all the narrow little streets to Albion and the fisheries centre. Things seemed to be getting off on the wrong foot as he told me that he would have to attend something else tomorrow. I stayed calm (amazingly) and just said okay. A little later he said that maybe what he had to attend was actually on Thursday which made me feel better because at least then we would have two days to get the other two up to speed. Satish always makes me a little nervous when he is driving because he keeps on telling me about the accidents he has had, his fines for speeding and being pulled over by the police for overtaking on solid lines! He is, however, no where near as bad as the taxi drivers here so for the most part it is okay. It would be better if he didn't mention all those things! We arrived at Albion and I was ...

After a chaotic one week at home, sorting out finances from the last trip, making arrangements for this trip, catching up on three weeks of missed French lessons and celebrating my parents' 45th wedding anniversary, I am back on the road again (so to speak). Yesterday I had my first international departure from Durban's King Shaka International Airport. I am always excited to do something new, no matter how small, and this was no exception! I wanted to see what was behind the security gates and it was a little disappointing but interesting anyway. There are two coffee shops, one sweet shop and one duty free shop (where a bag of jelly sweets will set you back R50!). Then endless miles of corridors leading to the boarding gates. The strangest thing about the place was the silence. There was only one international departure in the morning (mine to Mauritius) and most people came through to the gate at the last minute so I was at the gate in the quiet with 6 other people for quite...