Weekly life at the lodge

Mine & Lil's decorations
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Each week followed the same kind of pattern, with Mondays to Fridays being focussed on surveying & data collection, Saturdays being recreational diving days & Sundays being the day of rest. Every week we ate the same meals, cooked by the same teams. It was Wahoo's job to cook fish every Wednesday night - the least pleasant of all cooking tasks (though perhaps on a par with one of the other chore teams having to sort out hundreds of beans for Thursday night's meal). It wasn't so bad when we were able to get the fish chopped into steaks by the fisherman we bought it from, but was hideous when we had to chop, gut & fillet the fish ourselves - bleurgh! On the upside the other meal we got to make was pizza, which was great fun :o)

Katie & Andrea
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Since it's not wise to go scuba diving after a heavy night, party nights were reserved for Saturdays - which we made full use of :o)  With our digs right at the water's edge, we were lucky enough to have a bar out at sea. Not only did we use this for partying on Saturday nights, but also for having lunch & dinner as & when the Caribbean weather permitted. Even better was when we had a working generator, as we were then able to play some tunes & turn on the fairy lights above the bar :o)

Pirate paraphenalia
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To make Saturday nights feel a bit special, each one was given a different theme. During my time on the island we had 'Cowboys & Indians', 'Under the Sea', 'Countries' & 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I went as an Indian, a Queen Trigger Fish, a Hawaiian & a pirate, respectively. Claire, Lil & I also perfected the art of concocting Pina Coladas out of cheap rum, pineapple juice & coconut cream, which we drank from freshly prepared coconuts through fluorescent drinking straws!

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I was also on Helena over the Christmas & New Year period when we had a variety of different parties, including a BBQ with our neighbours. We also went to the local disco one night, which was quite an experience! The club is basically one large room, in the middle of which is a pit in the ground which acts as the dancefloor. The night we went we'd just come back from a night dive, so we took along our cylaume sticks to rave with. We didn't stand out at all!!! On occasion we also went over to our local bar for a few bars - nice to have a change of scenery (even if the bar was in our backgarden!).

Other daily/weekly activities involved:

• Nominating stars &/or muppets of the day
• 'Things of the Day' when we described a marine species for others to guess. We had special responses to shout out depending upon what the thinker was thinking of e.g. "I'm thinking of a fish" was met with the response "Wahoo!", "I'm thinking of an invert" was followed by "Spineless bastard", & "I'm thinking of a coral" was met with "Brainy!".
• Friday trips into town. We took turns to go into town, giving us the opportunity to check our emails, buy any essentials, have a break from the lodge, but also help out with the weekly grocery shop. Those who didn't get into town on a specific week were allowed to order 5 items from someone going into town - most exciting!
• Special breakfasts on Sunday mornings - as we were each allowed one egg. Woohoo!

We also planned some other extra-curricular activities:

• A sports day where we competed in the following events: a coconut & ladel race, a hopping relay, dress a mummy (using the world's most fragile toilet paper), a 3-legged race, a first-to-get-kitted-up race, who can stand the longest upon a raft made from lifejackets & who can jump the furthest
• Sunday visits to the North Side (aka The Other Side) - to chill out on the only nice beach on Helena
• Making Christmas crackers & decorations, & preparing a Secret Santa game during the festive season
• Re-painting the communal areas & bar tables (the latter unfortunately with washable paint - so every time it rained our clothes got covered in blue paint - ha ha!)
• Trying to get the local kids interested in the reefs by taking them snorkelling & pointing out various fish & corals to them, as well as drawing pictures for them to colour in
• A day cruising around Helena in one of our boats with one of our boat drivers - giving us the chance to see the beautiful mangrove creek & chill out with beers on the beach
• A cookery lesson with one of the local ladies who showed us how to make refried beans, tortillas & a meat marinade