Beating off the waves – No room for an airport

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 level rise.  I’d been invited to join a consortium of consultants by Jeremy Hills, with whom I had walked the Mauritian coast a couple of years beforehand.

A flight to Dubai and then on to Male brought me there overnight.  The capital is both small and packed with buildings, so the main International Airport for the Maldives is on the nearby Hulhule Island, which itself is largely reclaimed to make the runway large enough for long haul aircraft.  And most bizarrely, as we landed in one direction on the tarmac runway, a small seaplane coming from one of the other islands was dropping into the sea next to the airport.

After the formalities in the airport I was collected by someone from the ministry I was working for.  But instead of heading to a car, we walked across a quiet road and on to a wooden jetty.  In a small protected harbour there were a series of small docks. Ferries were coming in and out at all angles and at frequent intervals.  We only had to wait a short time for our ferry to fill up, many passengers’ suitcases, including mine , piled up at the front end of the boat.

Our trip to Male was barely 15 minutes.  Once out in the open water we wove our way between a mixture of different vessels – more ferries like ours, yachts and cruisers, cargo boats, fishing boats, boats carrying oil supplies, even one naval ship complete with helicopter on the aft deck..

Male from the airport

We were heading south westwards to a dramatic skyline of tall office blocks, apartments and hotels that fronted Male’ northern coast.  As we drew closer, the detail of the front became clearer.  the buildings were set back and it appeared the whole coast was protected by a high concrete wall.  With a few breaks in these defences, boats were able to access the city itself.  Ferries were congregating to a gap at the eastern end.  Behind the wall was extensive sheltered water running the length of the coast.  We came ashore and I waited for my suitcase to be offloaded, then we clambered  into a small taxi on the main tree lined thoroughfare beside the sea wall.

Hunting for wasps and chickens – How to lose a bag on a 10 minute flight

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 volcano, and the flows down each side, including where the flow had caused a new bulge in the coastline on the eastern side, and the remains of the old airport runway.  We circled the northern side of the island and I could see the new runway, precariously perched on top of the hill, and the clusters of houses old and new that made up the main settlement.  We landed and my colleagues, Matt from Durrell and Geoff from RSPB, were in the small arrivals hall.  But my luggage was not.  Due to the large number of passengers they had been unable to get all the bags in the plane, but no worries, I was told, they were going to pick up the remaining passengers and it would be on that one.  They will be back in under an hour.

So in the mean time I was offered a beer down by the harbour at Little Bay, where the ferry now came in; it being the only point known by Geoff to have adequate wifi.  We drove down the hill and pulled up by this old beach hut.  We checked email and started to chat about my task.  Geoff had been around for a week or so teaching staff to tag birds, and was going to overlap with my visit for a couple of days.  Matt was staying for a longer period, over a month.  Although he was full time on the project, he was based out of Micoud in St Lucia, and so was in an out of Montserrat from time to time.

We headed back up to the airport to collect my bag and just as we arrived the planed swept in to land.  We waited patiently for a few passengers to come off and saw a pile of bags being manhandled off the plane onto a small hand trolley…. but I could not see my distinctive hard red case.  I was told it would be on the next plane, which was tomorrow morning.  So with the clothes I stood up in, a passport and a laptop, I got back in the car.  We stopped off at a small grocers in Brades so I could at least get a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a bar of soap.

Taking advantage of limited internet

Hunting for wasps and chickens – Pioneers in conservation

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 being of the expeditions, and of his philosophy of how to build a zoo (the Stationary Ark).  I had long wanted to visit Jersey Zoo as one of the places that specialised in the less well known animals.  In Africa I had tired very quickly of hunting for the big five for that photo that everyone else already had – and was more keen to see the wider spread of other animals.  When I started working in small islands, the rate of speciation from isolated populations had formed myriad biodiversities, fragile and unique on these plots, and it only endeared me to that pioneering attitude of the Durrells.  Montserrat was a perfect  example of that fragility, especially since the volcanic eruptions had begun.

Alas I was still not to get to Jersey Zoo.  My first encounter with Durrell occurred in Bath on a frozen winter’s day; I met with one of the project coordinators who was resident at Bath University.  We discussed the project and agreed to establish a visit in the summer, between my two trips to Mauritius.  I actually prefaced my time in Montserrat with a couple of weeks touring the northern islands, visiting friends in Antigua, Culebra off Puerto Rico, and St John in the US Virgin Islands.  After a further night in Antigua, it was a leisurely drive to the airport on a Saturday afternoon, a simple check in  (mixing with the lobster red tourists gathering for the transatlantic services back to London) and then boarding a small prop plane for the barely twenty minute hop to Montserrat.  The service is an odd one as they only had a few seats =, and if there were more passengers they did a second shuttle.  Fortunately I was on the first out (I’ve never been keen to spend too much time in Antigua’s old departure lounge with the overcrowding and the interminable announcements calling out the destinations more like a bus route than a flight  – “calling at St Kitts, St Maarten and Beef Island, Tortola”….. “Calling at Melville Hall, Dominica, Vigie St Lucia, Barbados with onward connections to Grenada, Tobago and Georgetown Guyana”).

Day trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico

Blown Away – The last one to leave

The traffic was less than usual for Cayman’s capital, Georgetown, which was a relief.  Our route was only a few kilometres as the airport was just behind the main urban area.  I paid the taxi driver, hauled my case out of the trunk, and headed to the check in desks.  As I almost ran inside I noticed that a couple of workmen were boarding up the large panes of glass next to me.  There was no queue at check in, so I placed the suitcase on the scales and was checked in easily – no seat preference available; I was to have the last empty seat on the plane.  As I stuffed my passport and boarding pass into my shirt pocket, I noticed the check in staff close the check in, shut down the computers, turn off the lights and make their way ready to go home.

Passport Control and Security at Cayman was equally as quick and once through I noted again that the machines were being shut down behind me and the staff packing up.  The airport behind me was as quiet as anything, the small departure lounge in front of me jam packed with people.  I found a couple of conference delegates; all from the Deep South of USA which is why they were happy to head to Atlanta.  We chatted; I bought some rum, and we boarded the plane.  I was right at the back so not only was I the last person to check in at the airport, and the last through security, but almost the last to go up the steps and get into the plane.  Every other plane had been cleared from the apron, the small ones may have been stashed away in some hangar, but even Cayman Airways had parked their planes in Miami, not at home.  This was literally the last plane out before the hurricane struck.

I could just see out of my window across my fellow traveller, and saw more boards being put up on the glass of the departure lounge.  I saw some palm trees next to me bending about 45 degrees in the wind, the clouds above were a lot thicker than they had been.

Last passengers loading

The palm trees starting to sway

The now boarded up terminal

As the stewards prepared the cabin, the captain chatted to us in his southern drawl and easy going language, warning us that the initial ascent might be “just a little bit bumpy”.  We taxied to the end of the runway and I caught a last glimpse of the wind flapping at the trees.

Crazy Town, Crazy Island – Melting Pot or Basket Case?

My return trip was punctuated by the confiscation of a deodorant aerosol at Port au Prince Airport (for personal use I deduced) and meeting up with a guy I had not seen for ten years as we both were in transit at Guadeloupe Airport.

Haiti was a difficult place to work in, but beneath the tension and the exposure to desperate poverty and future planning, this was just another Caribbean island with a soupcon of Latin American spice and African verve that made it a melting pot of creativity.  I hope there is enough entrepreneurship , of the right sort, a will to make things better, and a way of bringing the whole community with you as opposed to making a quick buck and scrambling over everyone else, to make the country a better place.

Kinam at night

The natural disasters and the anarchical structure of the country will make development a difficult task – even if slow progress is made now, there is a strong probability another natural or manmade disaster will take place to knock everyone back.

Crazy Town, Crazy Island – Mess at the Airport

A few hours later and our plane had flown over the sugar cane and mangrove swamps of Cuba and was descending fast as we approached Hispaniola.  The dramatic relief was so evident along with the scarred landscape of overexploitation – only the occasional woodland in amongst miles and miles of exposed hilltops.  We passed out over the sea before swinging eastwards and I got my first sight of the sprawling urban mass hemmed in by two steep mountain ranges.  The plane eased down between all this, heading first inland up the north side of the valley then circling into the centre to land at the airport slap bang in the middle of the valley amongst the urban sprawl – and then we slowly taxied from the far end of the runway back to the terminal.

Landing  in Port Au Prince

Airports still have an ability to tense me up; but this one more than most.  I always feel the ease to which you reach your final destination from the point of deplaning sets the tone for the whole trip.  In Haiti I was determined to get it right, but the instructions were, as usual, open to misinterpretation by several parties.  I was to meet a Haitian driver and he was to drive me up to either our hotel or to wherever my colleagues (who had both arrived a couple of  days beforehand) were currently having meetings.  Sounds simple.  But because of security issues at Port au Prince Airport, there is no arrivals area where you can be met and gret, or is it meeted and greeted.  Instead you have to head out on to the street and if you want a driver or taxi man to meet you, you must head down a covered walkway.  Although I had left the UK summer behind me (albeit a wet and coolish one) the heat of Haiti was heavy.  Several taxi drivers tried to persuade me to go with them; I could not see the guy I wanted.  I tried to turn on my mobile phone – with roaming charges it would be an expensive phone call but worth it.  I scrabbled to enter the number I had for the driver – it did not work.  I tried my team leader, Jean Pierre; a deep gravelly voice started talking at me in French.  I said my name and I was passed on to our colleague to be, Christophe, who talked in English.  Had I seen my driver?  Where is he?  You need to come to the EU’s office.  We shall ring your driver.  Moments later I got a phone call from this driver – he was coming.  I realised he was the guy in a loose white shirt talking on his mobile – less than ten spaces away.  No sign with my name, the name of the taxi firm, the name of the project on; I was just supposed to guess he was the guy I needed.

He hurried me towards his vehicle but despite the best of my intentions I had picked up a porter who was wheeling my bag along.  I had to drop him a few dollars.  It was then I remembered another problem.  A few days before I had been getting money from a travel agent; they had no small notes so I was left with 100 dollar bills and apart from a couple of quarters and nickels no other change.  The quick turn around in New York had left me with no change whatsoever.  So I had nothing small enough to hand over to my porter.  I asked him if he had change – he had none, of course.  He told me to give him the 100 dollar bill and he would walk over to the manager of the taxi rank – a few paces away and get the change.  Well, I am dumb, was already fatigued by two days of travel, and I often make mistakes on my trips, but no way was I handing over a crisp 100 dollar bill to this guy in the middle of the car park.  Reluctantly he went over to the big cheese and you could see the long explanation.  He came back …. with about 70 dollars.  30 dollars seemed a lot to carry a bag a couple of hundred metres, but I could see he now had overheads to deal with (loaning money is not cheap in Haiti I realise).

It’s a common rule of thumb these days that I shall spend more on taxis and tips on the first day of a trip than for the rest of the trip combined.

The Ankle Deep Sea – Finally arrived

The ferry to Rodrigues takes 36 hours from Port Louis to the capital, Port Mathurin and goes a couple of times a week.  The plane takes ninety minutes and with only 50 seats each time there are only three, maybe four flights a day.  Considering these are the links between the two major islands, there is not a huge capacity for movement.  In fact the Rodriguans had long complained about this; there are no other flights from Rodrigues to other destinations.  And the Air Mauritius flight was incredibly expensive for a quick hop.

Arrival in Rodrigues

I landed in blistering heat of mid afternoon at Sir Gaetan Duval Airport at the western tip of the island.  The sun was blinding , the vegetation around me parched, and the peace and quiet audible.  It was the total opposite of the cold, dark, noisy environment of the UK that I had left behind only some eighteen hours before.

Jeremy and Mike were there.  They allowed me a cursory summary of my week in the north and the problems at Plaisance Airport, before spieling out their assessment of the island, the characters they had met and what our job was for the next five days.

Given it was Saturday, the island was almost deserted; we saw a few bodies under the shade of the few trees in back yards, the periodic vehicle heading along the road.  We took a circuitous route to our hotel, along the northern coast road, and the two of them pointed out various features.  We passed through the centre of Port Mathurin, almost deserted, and then drove over a big hill to the eastern flank of the island.  Livestock grazing is a massive part of Rodrigues life so, unlike the dense plantation fields of Mauritius, much of the island was taken up with huge open grasslands. Due to an ongoing drought the land was devoid of anything but the most hardy shrubs.  We descended towards the coast to a remarkable bay, the white sand fringed by palm trees and perfect size waves rolling in from the east.  Along a small sandy track we passed through an open gate in a high stone wall and we were at Cotton Bay Hotel. I was settled in to a first floor room overlooking a beach covered in filao and palm trees.

The Ankle Deep Sea – Trouble at Immigration

I drove back to Kent the next morning and took the next evening’s flight to Mauritius.  In theory I had about four hours before my Rodrigues flight, plenty of time to get through the queues at immigration.  As ever the jumbo jet from London was very full, mainly with holidaymakers, and the immigration room was packed.  I was near the back of one queue and as I got to the desk smiled as usual, and let the officer read my official letters of introduction as a government contractor and stamp my passport.  He did the first, but not the second.

He asked me to stand aside a moment and got his supervisor.  While the first officer continued to process the remaining queue behind me, I was asked to wait on some chairs at the back of the room.  I sat there for over half an hour watching the room empty.  I had no real idea of the delay until the supervisor returned and very pleasantly and very firmly told me that I was not allowed to stay in Mauritius.  I showed him the letter once more, and that I had been given right to be a consultant for the government here for longer than the usual tourist visa.

Unfortunately, this was no good.  The supervisor explained that I was allowed on this visa only to stay in Mauritius for 90 days maximum in one year, and with the two months I had been here in the spring, and the two months in the autumn, I had now more than exceeded that limit.   I explained that I was working for government and was due on a flight to Rodrigues  in under two hours time.  They tried to ring the Ministry of Environment but of course it was a Saturday.  It turned out that my clients should have filled in some paperwork when I arrived to allow me to visit the Immigration Department in Port Louis so I could get a proper visa, that would have allowed me to have an unlimited visa period.  With a lot of careful negotiation and patience, I eventually was given dispensation to travel to Rodrigues, with the promise that when I returned in five days time I went to the Immigration Department.  In the meantime, they would inform the Ministry of Environment to get them to start processing the paperwork.

With barely an hour to go I finally headed down to the baggage hall; fortunately my bag had been set to one side and I was able to retrieve it easily and dash round to the Internal departures check in.  It was barely ten minutes before I was aboard the ATR prop plane and heading east.

Plaisance Airport behind Mahebourg

The Highest Country in the World – The Nightmare begins

It was always hard to say goodbye to Becky and Lesotho.  Chris and I had driven from Jo’burg to Maseru and back; the other two times I flew.  Maseru Airport was one of the cutest, quietest little international portals I have ever seen on any continent.  Just a few flights a day, just a handle of passengers each time.  You had to set out early as you could never predict the traffic across the city.  Perched on a plateau just off the Main South Road, its wide grassy airfield could just have been plucked from anywhere in the country, the same grasslands that must have carpeted big swathes of the country.

My first flight back to Jo’burg turned out to be a horrific nightmare.  It had been a hot sunny day in Maseru while I finished up my meetings, tidied up the handover with Becky and gathered my bits together.  There were a few clouds in the sky as we drove over to the airport and some were thickening up in the heat , but the terminal remained bathed in golden sunlight.

There were about 20 people aboard the small prop plane from South African Airways to take us the hour up to Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo Airport.  As we set out the captain did his usual introduction but warned us that the ride might get a bit bumpy once we approached Gauteng.  We passed over the border not far from Butha Buthe and it became increasingly difficult to discern features below.  The haze had become so thick the sunlight was bouncing off it instead of the ground.  I turned to a book I had and began to read, glancing once or twice out the window to see if I could see progress.  The fourth or fifth time I did this all I could see ahead of the plane was the darkest, thickest wall of thunder cloud I had ever seen.  There was no way round it.  The seatbelts lights came on and the stewardess told us to buckle up.  The captain came on to reinforce that we were going to have some serious turbulence.  With that we plunged into the cloud.

The wall of cloud – obliterating the last of the sunshine

We were only about fifteen minutes out from Johannesburg at this point and even without the turbulence we would have had to put on the seatbelts as we descended.  At first there were the little bangs and bumps which are a regular part of flying.  We kept a steady course and you could hear from the engines that we were slowing and despite being jerked up once or twice in the updrafts we were dropping in altitude.

We proceeded like this for another ten minutes, then the captain came on to say we would not be able to land immediately as there was congestion coming into the runway.  This unsettled the passengers.  We had steeled ourselves to be up here while we were travelling towards the final destination, but the thought of going round and round in circles tossed about in the storm was not good news.  Our unsettledness was punctuated as when the pilot turned the aircraft the turbulence increased and we could feel ourselves being flung sideways.  Hands went out to grab the seat in front.  A few gasps went up from the most nervous passengers, but the rest of us were just one notch below them on the frightened scale now.

Capturing the Diversity – Farewell to Ascension

What the future holds for Ascension is not certain; the airport on St Helena is changing the dynamics already.  But through the hard sweaty work of many dedicated people over the years, the future of the special plants, animals and environments on Ascension Island have improved, and it is hoped it will continue that way for many years to come.

Leaving Ascension is an emotional wrench.  And you get a sense of just how fragile its connection with the outside world is. I’ve either been taken down by the Conservation staff or bussed down by the Obsidian’s driver, Mervin.  You queue out in the open for the initial check in, then through all the usual checks and out stamps in the passport, but after all that you usually have a couple of hours wait for the plane from the Falklands.  You read, you watch the BFBS or you chat to people you know.  So many conversations start with “I didn’t know you were leaving”.  It is one big happy family until the time draws near for the plane to arrive.

The waiting room is relatively small, but there is a square patch outside set out with picnic tables which is lovingly called the cage.  It certainly does have the feel of a prison exercise ground.  If it is warm, it is worth getting your patch early on.  The cups of pallid coffee and tea or soft drinks from the NAAFI counter keep coming (no alcohol allowed).  And then you start getting twitchy.  The activity out on the apron is increasing.  The fuel truck is repositioning itself.  A bus is set up nearby for the fresh air crew to board.  A fire engine, lights flashings, heads down the runway to check there is no debris.  Often I have positioned myself in the far corner of the cage next to the apron.  From this position you can see past the terminal building towards the sea.  You look and look and look and nothing happens.  And then, and this surprised me several times, a light comes in not directly towards the runway but at an angle, then turns and faces you full on.  No sound, just this light.  The very first time I went home, after the two days delay on the way out, the two and a half weeks on Ascension, the three weeks on St Helena, the time on the boat, and a further delay waiting for a plane…. this was the first aeroplane I had seen for over six weeks.  And I choked a little to see that light.

The light grows brighter, and others in the cage have sensed the atmosphere changing around them and come up to the cage to nose through the chains. Still no noise, but you can see the other lights on the plane now, and it is dropping, tilting slightly in the wind, then sweeping through the runway , bouncing on the tarmac, a sudden shockwave as the engine noise reaches you, and the roar as the flaps go up and the plane is braking, then it all goes quiet as the aircraft disappears behind Command Hill almost to the other end of the runway.  This great long runway that could take space shuttles.  It takes maybe five minutes more for the plane to come into view and finally come to a halt a hundred metres from the cage.

Then a hoard of overdressed Falkland Islanders descend the steps, fill up the cage, draw desperately on their fags and make a queue for the beverages and snacks.  And all at once the Ascension Islanders are not alone in the ocean any more.  The outside world has come to collect them, and soon you are aboard the flight and this little rock, with its quirky livelihoods and extra special geography, fauna and flora, is left far behind.