I arrived last night with our cameraman David to film the aerial shots that will be used in the programme. We’re staying in a bit of a dive of a hotel but at least the air-con is working, the heat and humidity is oppressive!...Continue reading
Wendy and Robert Cooper found themselves landed with five Macaws after a boat smuggling exotic animals dropped anchor at St Georges in Grenada island and was promptly raided by customs and the GSPCA. Over 800 animals were on board that ship, confined in tiny cages, and as numerous wildlife institutions stepped in to take the best specimens for a ‘rescue operation’ five scraggly Macaws were left. Wendy got a call asking if she would take them on because no one else would have such wretched looking birds and that was 12 years ago....Continue reading
Spent all day yesterday sorting out all the logistics for our shoot tomorrow morning and I can safely say that even on a tiny island nation such as this there is a muddle of bureaucracy to get through before the necessary permits can be cleared. I was sent on a jolly merry-go-round from the Airport Authority to the Board of Tourism, from there to the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, from there back to the airport and then onto the the Ministry of Carriacou, before going back to the Tourism Board and finally onto the Prime Minister’s Ministry. What a trek, but in the end we finally got our clearance to fly, hurrah! Now all we need is good weather tomorrow or I might be facing that all over again....Continue reading
We’ve been on Carriacou now for three days and there is a very relaxed atmosphere around the island. This has meant that although there have been some good stories it’s been hard to enthuse the locals into what we are doing. However we’ve managed to get some bits that I think will make an amazing programme and we still have a day to catch up on items in Grenada and hopefully find some more interesting cases....Continue reading
Dipping into the seas of the Carribean to swim with turtles was an incredible experience and we were very lucky to spend some quality time with JP and Clare from Lumbadive. ...Continue reading
… beats me. I have been living in the UK for ten years now, but I still am in the dark about this English tradition....Continue reading
6am start, we met with our pilot, Ron and went over the flight plan. The weather was just perfect, good start; crisp blue skies and no wind. David and Ron did some last-minute rigging on the chopper at the runway and then we were off. We filmed various beauty shots of the island before picking up the GSPCA’s van on their way to an outreach programme. We followed them for a while and when we were happy we’d got that we headed back to the airport to refuel and then straight off for a half hour flight over sea to the neighbouring island, Carriacou; We stopped again to refuel at the tiniest airport I’ve ever been to (one shack and a runway). Here we were subjected to the slightly farcical procedure of going in and then out of customs (the hut) before being allowed to take off again. Quite sweet really....Continue reading
It was an early start – 3am we had a call from Dario who was on night patrol to protect the turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs from poachers. To that end he has employed a team of locals to help guard the nesting beaches from 8pm to 5am every night between March and August each year. The man is simply a dynamo of energy and together with Marina, his wife, they have reached hero status in my eyes....Continue reading
I’m sitting at Miami airport drinking my coffee and dunkin’ my donut waiting for my flight home. It’s been a good trip with some highs and some lows, but overall I think we’ve pulled off another great programme....Continue reading
