Back to work

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 reminded about how lovely the grounds are there, huge trees and grass everywhere. The building is also situated about 20 metres from the beach. Everyone attending arrived on time and I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that they had done extensive preparation for the workshop. They had copies of annual reports available and statistics already dug out from databases. After my frustrations with their island time last year this was amazing. We also did not hang about and got straight down to work. What a fantastic response - maybe they will make my list of favourites after all!

We worked solidly until lunch and wandered off to the local restaurant. The route passes out of a gate from the centre onto the beach and then on a path over a bridge through some mangroves. It is so refreshing to be out in the open seeing such beautiful surroundings. Lunch was really good - Chinese fried noodles with chicken for me washed done with sparkling pear juice. On our return to the centre though we found we had been locked out. The gate is only open from 12 to 12:30 and the responsible person was punctual in locking it. Fortunately we spotted someone in the grounds and shouted to get his attention. He ambled off to find the gatekeeper. While we were standing there, my co-workers were telling me how the beach gets completely washed away during big cyclones so maybe it isn't so good having your office only 20m away from the beach!

The afternoon session went as well as the morning session and we finished reviewing just over half of the fisheries in the database. I hear you thinking that will mean we will finish tomorrow and I will have another 2 free days! No that is not the case. Last year when we entered all the fisheries profiles we only had enough time to do the minimum of work so Thursday we will beef up the information by adding references to each of the fisheries and Friday we will work through all the French text to try and make it as correct as possible.

It was a really good work day and I was hoping to get back to the hotel and attack the gym straight away but I have had to put together some information from WIOFish to be presented at a workshop in Nairobi on Thursday. The requester of the information is the head honcho of the project that funds WIOFish so I can't exactly say no. Anyway it is done so now I can go to the gym. Pity there is no swimming pool here!

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