Class 4 imagined that they were Sally or Melv and wrote entries for their diaries. Here are some extracts from the diaries:

Sally

This evening we went to Praslin to go shopping. There is no chocolate and no crisps. I am finding it hard to adjust, but I know the longer I stay here I will get used to it and I must because this is a once in a lifetime trip and I can’t forget a moment of this two year experience. India*

PS. Today it was a staggering 30 degrees and I couldn’t go anywhere without my giant, floppy sunhat. In my opinion, I think I don’t look stunning. Jade*

I quite miss having chocolate or a bag of crisps because the shops don’t have them either. I suppose it means I’m healthier but still, I’m a big fan of chocolate! Abigail*


We do like our home because all the animals live with us and we have company everywhere we go. Gemma*

I went to bed because I was tired but I couldn’t get to sleep because of the waves and also I think because there are tons of spiders. It’s not just me who’s sleeping in my room! Rebecca*

When we wake up in the morning, we can hear all of the different kinds of bird gently singing in the breeze but at night most of the time some of the creepy crawlies come in our room an scare me out of my pyjamas!! It’s really scary. Katie*

Melv
Today I went fishing. I caught a whopper. I can’t describe it. We fish with a cane. There are no fishing rods here. Connor*

It looks nothing like Somerset. It is very hot. You could fry an egg on the floor. Luke M*

I love it here despite the heat. I am going to take a walk in the forest son because there is plenty of shade and space. Anyway, I love this place and I’m trying to have as much fun as possible because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ve always wanted to come to an island like this and here I am now. Ben I*

Life here is a breeze. The sun heals my worries and refreshes my mind. Hayden*

Everyday I think I’m back in the rainy England but then I open the door and the sun’s rays beat against my face and then it hits me, I’m in the SUNNY SEYCHELLES.

Hi to Class 1 & 2 of Meare School from the Seychelles

The Seychelles are over 7,000 miles away and it is a country made up of 115 small islands. Melvyn and I came over to work here last December swapping our nature reserves in Somerset for a nature reserve called Aride Island. Aride is an island which is smaller than the village of Meare, with only eight people living on it, Melvyn and me, two volunteers and 4 local rangers.


Our job here is to look after the island and its wildlife, the wildlife is very special and is some of the rarest in the world. There are birds, turtles, lizards, crabs, fish, snakes and spiders, all living on and around Aride.


For us, living on Aride island can be quite hard work, there is no electricity or running water and of course no shops. We carry our water from a well and have a generator for electricity. We don’t have cars or bicycles as there are no roads and we go shopping once a week in a boat, as long as the sea is not too rough.

We live in a house, which we share with some of the wildlife like lizards and crabs, it is next to the beach and we can hear the waves when we go to sleep, there is a garden where we grow our food and we catch fish from the sea.

Hi Class 4,

Well we have finally arrived in the Seychelles and have now been living on Aride Island for the last 6 weeks, it is fantastic and there is so much to share with you, I almost don’t know where to start!

So what I will do first is show where we are living on the island and then hopefully you can start to visualise what things look like when I talk about our day to day living, our work and then of course the wildlife.

As you know the Seychelles are made up of a series of islands, there are two main ones – Mahe, which has a population of 90,000 and Praslin (in the picture on the left) which has 7,000 people.

Aride Island (picture right), is north of Praslin and has a human population of 8, but a bird population of up to 1.25 million. It is only 70ha in size (1,500m x 350m) and is right in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The island is made up of 3 main areas:

The beach, which is a mix of sand and rocks and is about 750m long, and runs along the southern edge.

The plateau, which is next to the beach, and is our only flat piece of ground approximately 750m by 70m, this is where we all live. The plateau is where all the houses are, there are a total of 7, 1 for the wardens, 1 for the volunteers, 4 for the local rangers and 1 for visiting researchers and scientists. Also on the plateau is the well for our water, the garden, where we grow our food, the boat house for the boats to be kept out of the heat and the sun, and the Conservation Centre which is where we have the office and a visitors centre and shop for the tourists.

The hill, which forms the main part of the island, it is a rocky outcrop north of the plateau and very rugged. This is where most of the birds live, although the plateau is used by a lot of wildlife, the hill apparently becomes alive later in the year as most of the birds use this area to breed. The hill is 134m high and is a very steep climb in the Seychelles climate which is very hot and humid.

So where do we live? Well we are very lucky and we live right next to the beach (see arrow) and the noise of the sea is constant. When we go to sleep we can hear the waves crashing onto the beach and sometimes they are so loud it sounds like a thunderstorm echoing through the windows and doors.

There are lots of things to tell you over the next few months about how different life is on an island in the Seychelles, but to start with the things that spring to mind are:

We go shopping in a speed boat to Praslin to small shops which very often have a poor selection of food – certainly no crisps or chocolate and most of the time no onions or potatoes. This is not just the case for food, Melv couldn’t find a mirror to have a shave for 6 weeks and the one he has now got is yellow with a big teddy bear on the back – but don’t tell anybody!

With no television or radio our entertainment in an evening is watching skinks, geckos and crabs.

Washing is great fun and all our water comes either from the well or off the roof and our shower is a bucket over our heads.

The weather is very, very hot and 30’C most days, and so we go now where without factor 50 sun cream and big floppy hats. The climate is also very humid and our clothes don’t ever really dry out.

I will finish by saying you were all right about the wildlife a night, we share our house with lots of creatures...

Some thoughts from Class 4 - How will life on the tropical island of Aride be different for Sally & Melvyn?

It will be a lot healthier:

• No junk food
• No chocolate or sweets
• Healthy diet, with a lot of fish and fruit to eat
• To be at one with nature and see lots of wildlife
• Live next to the sea and be able to go swimming

It will be more sustainable, but life will be harder:

• No electric – so no television
• No running water and no showers
• Living in a wooden hut with no proper house
• Nature coming into the hut
• Not having normal luxuries, like an English cup of tea
• Have to make camp fires to cook food
• No shops on the island
  

What might the problems be?

• Keeping in touch with family and friends could be difficult
• Big spiders and biting insects
• Poisonous plants
• Hard work
• Have to make your own entertainment, so might get bored
• Catching enough fish and growing enough vegetables to eat
• Getting sun burnt
• Not having fresh, running water
• No normal morning and afternoon routines
• Smelly toilets
  

Would the children swop places – how might they feel?

• Would be sad to leave family, friends and pets, may feel homesick
• Lonely as not many people on the island
• Excited, happy, nervous and worried
• Would enjoy the warm weather
• Would miss chocolate, junk food and television
• Would feel out of touch, without television & news papers

So where is Aride and why is it so special?

The Seychelles’ islands of which there are 115, were created many millennia ago, when India broke away from Africa somewhere close to Madagascar, and drifted across the Indian Ocean, leaving the granite fragments of the Seychelles in its wake.

Aride is the northernmost island of the granitic Seychelles, roughly 68hectares in area, approximately 1.6km long by 0.6km wide. However despite its small size, it is home to one of the most important seabirds populations in the Indian Ocean. It is the finest nature reserve of the granitic Seychelles and a conservationists’ paradise. Eighteen species of native birds (including five only found in Seychelles) breed on Aride, this is far more than on any other granitic island.

The island is leased and managed as a nature reserve by the Island conservation Society (ICS) of Seychelles, but owned by the Royal Society of wildlife Trusts, a UK based charity since 1973. The whole island is been protected by Seychelles law as a nature reserve. Nature is the top priority, and the only human inhabitants are the reserve’s staff, currently four Seychellois rangers and two island wardens.


The Wildlife
Over 1.25 million seabirds regularly breed on Aride, including the world’s largest colony of lesser noddies, the worlds only hilltop colony of sooty terns and the Indian Oceans largest colony of roseate terns. The island hosts the world’s largest colony of Audubon’s shearwaters and what is thought to be the world’s largest colony of white-tailed tropic birds. There are also very large breeding numbers of brown noddies, fairy terns, wedge-tailed shearwaters and a few pairs of red-tailed tropic birds.

There has been several successful translocations of endangered or restricted-range endemic bird species onto Aride, these include the Seychelles warbler, Seychelles fody and the Seychelles magpie robin. The Seychelles blue pigeon and the Seychelles sunbird have re-colonised Aride naturally.

Aride has the world’s highest density of lizards, with other reptiles such as skinks, geckos and harmless snakes. Two species of marine turtles regularly nest on the beaches, the green and hawksbill turtles.

The reserve boundary includes 200m of surrounding seas, including a beautiful coral reef, with over 450 species of fish, from whale sharks to flying fish!!

From Somerset to the Seychelles

Two Somerset conservationists have hatched a plan to ‘twin’ a county school with one in the Seychelles.

After looking after the RSPB’s Ham Wall nature reserve, near Glastonbury, Site Manager Sally Mills and Melvyn Yeandle, who has been the Assistant Site Manager at Natural England's Shapwick Heath reserve, have decided to swap the wetlands of the Avalon Marshes for life in the Indian Ocean and want to share their experiences with schoolchildren in both locations.

Although they are moving thousands of miles, Melvyn & Sally’s new job is also managing a nature reserve but a rather different one from Ham Wall or Shapwick Heath of the Somerset Levels.

Their new home and place of work will be the island nature reserve of Aride, a 70-hectare site and one of the most important islands in the area for wildlife. Only the nature reserve staff live there, a maximum of eight people, but neighbouring Praslin – 30 minutes away by boat – is inhabited and has a population of around 6,500.

Sally said: “We are going to be experiencing a huge change in our lifestyle by moving to the Seychelles and even though we have the tropical weather to look forward to we’ll be facing challenging conditions like having no running water and little electricity.

“As well as managing the nature reserve and dealing with issues such as poaching of birds and their eggs, we’ll be working with local communities to raise awareness of conservation issues and overseeing improvements to facilities on the island.

“We thought it would be both interesting for children in both locations to learn about each others lives and also to find out about nature conservation in different settings and for very different wildlife.”

Sally has worked with Meare Village Primary School on many occasions during her time at Ham Wall and plans to keep in touch with them – and put them in touch with schoolchildren from Praslin – using the internet.

“I’ve already been to talk to the kids about my new job a couple of times to tell them about what We’ll be doing on the Seychelles and topics like needing to grow or catch our own food.

“We’ve also talked about also how they might feel if they were in my shoes, but we didn’t share the same concerns about no television or chocolate! They did identify very closely with our own feelings on the journey ahead though – very excited, a little scared, but about to undertake an opportunity of a lifetime.”