Hot day, I kicked off with a quick cat castrate at the clinic and the crew did some GVs (general views) in town. We then got the stuff together and met up with Charlene who is one of the islands agricultural workers. Essentially she is one of the islands unofficial vets (there are two agricultural workers – Charlene and Princess who work under the direction of Mr Moses). They travel around the island treating sick animals as best they can. Under resourced but government funded, they treat what they can and make the best of the situations they’re presented with. Sadly, their lack of drugs leads to some welfare issues. A dog that was euthanased for attacking a sheep was killed with some Epsom salts I/V – a bad death, I’ve promised to leave Charlene with some lethobarb so at least they can make a clean job of things. it’s tricky because they aren’t a charity or non-profit organisation, they are a government funded programme that is poorly equipped and under staffed. I can’t change that and although not technically the right thing to do, I am going to give them some drugs because I simply can’t bear them euthanizing the animals like that. I’m working on trying to get them to stop operating and leave that to volunteer teams because none of them are vets and they are doing the job on virtually conscious animals with no pain relief. There are no laws to prohibit them doing this so it needs to be positive cooperative action and I think they‘ll actually be fairly relieved when the volunteer teams come to give them a hand with the huge workload they have on. I liked Charlene, although not having the drugs or the training, she clearly did care about the animals which is why she brought the issue up withy me. She was light hearted and also very keen to show us around and visit cases that her team and the GSPCA are struggling with.

The GSPCA isn’t geared up to help livestock – all the vets tend to be small animal, so it was a good opportunity for us to get stuck in. We visited a sheep that had been mauled by a dog, built a wallow for a pig with sunburn, saw a goat with a huge inguinal hernia, and I tried to sort out a kid (baby goat) with bilateral contracted tendons. Desperately sadly, I couldn’t fix it with a simple operation as there was some bony fusion and other genetic abnormalities that meant despite anaesthetising it and trying to cut the tendons, I had to put it to sleep. I was so disappointed about it and it was heartbreaking to see the Mother goat calling for her baby which I had just taken away and ended up euthanizing but if left, that little baby goat would have grown deformed, twisted and ended up with huge pressure sores on the sides of its legs. It was a kill or cure operation and just desperately disappointing that I couldn’t have had a better result.

We also met back up with Dario who had rescued another hawksbill turtle – he is a great guy, really enthusing about his protection of these critically endangered animals and a very likeable man. It’s a controversial thing to effectively buy the turtles off the fishermen but the bottom line is that although he will come under criticism for the way he is trying to protect these animals, at least he is actually doing something and making a stand.

There aren’t any other options available and I admire him for his courage and passion. Combining this work with the school education puppet shows that he runs around the island performing, I think Dario and Marina are together solely responsible for bringing awareness to the locals of the problem.

Adam got some great shots and Marc had a whirl with the underwater camera so fingers crossed it makes the cut.

Really hot day and we were all exhausted by the end of it, went for a quick swim to cool down and debrief on the events – we’re all on tender hooks for a night call to go and look at nesting turtles so fingers crossed it happens!

Very exciting news at home – spoke to Cords and Noah has started walking! Can’t wait to see him in action!

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.

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.

Whilst we’ve been on Carriacou we’ve looked at the plight of critically endangered sea turtles: seeing how they are rescued and released back into the sea, filming them underwater and last night (at 3am) we filmed a leatherback turtle leaving her eggs on the beach. I don’t want to complain too much because it was a privilege to see such a sight, but on my way back to the apartment it dawned on me that sometimes with TV you don’t really experience these wonderful moments to the full. The crew is so caught up in getting it filmed correctly that we’re all stressed and not truly appreciating what is in front of us. And I think that’s a shame.

Leg amputated from a dog. Leopard darted, examined and fondled. Python man-handled and prodded. Massive thunderstorm. We got lost again… (It was definitely Adam’s fault and not Marc’s, Luke’s or my own for giving the wrong directions). Long day.

And up early tomorrow despite us all being absolutely shattered.

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.

Who would have imagined I would get time on a WVS trip to go diving! It was lovely to see the turtles in their natural environment – swimming gracefully in the ocean depths rather than having been caught up in a net, dumped on the beach, flipped up on their backs and left to cook in the sun. A very sad ending for a 45 year old turtle.

As much as the islanders are nice, relaxed people, I will never agree with the base line level of cruelty with which they treat these beautiful animals. The hawksbill and leatherback turtles are critically endangered and registered as CITES 1 and despite it being part of the culture here, to hunt and kill these creatures, it is something that seems so ruthless and unnecessary.

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the Carribean, no one on the island seems to be short of food. Having said that, it’s not solely because of the islanders that these turtles are endangered – it is because the big fishing ships and the drift nets that round up more turtles in a day than the islanders take in a season, but every step counts on a long hard journey and it’s thanks to people like Dario and Wendy who are making a stand to try to turn things around, that the awareness is getting out there.

Adam and Nathan had never been diving before and JP took them into the sea to try it out – they both seemed to really enjoy it – fairly hardcore having your first dive in 20metres of water in the Caribbean sea! Adam, Clive and I also managed to get ourselves quite sunburnt on our backs from being perched on the edge of the boat for about an hour. The sun is phenomenally strong here and we are all sitting a bit tenderly this evening – with the exception of Marc who had already applied five layers of sunscreen on himself at 4.30am this morning just before he put his towel on the boat. German efficiency wins again. Back slapping has been forbidden – although I’m wary of Bruce Lee sneaking up on me at any time. He’s a slippery one for sure.

… beats me. I have been living in the UK for ten years now, but I still am in the dark about this English tradition.

Went out with JP and Clare from Lumbadive to track down some hawksbill turtles. I went down with an underwater camera, because Adam hasn’t been diving before. Bit of pressure there as we desperately need a shot of Luke diving with a turtle. Went down twice in two different locations, but no luck. We had one more chance late in the afternoon at a dive side with strong currents. Luckily we found two turtles and I hope I got the shot with Luke in it!

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 went through the slightly farcical procedure of going in and then out of customs (the hut) before being allowed to take off again. Quite sweet really.

Ron had a bit of fun swooping down low along the stunning white sandy beaches, to the bemusement of the local fishermen before we picked up Luke’s 4×4 driving along. We did various angles on this and then, running low on fuel, we headed back, this time flying over the interior of Grenada which is quite mountainous. Here we started to get blown around as we hit air pockets and turbulence. And, yes, ok, I barfed. I’m not proud of it but it happens to the best of us. I’d had my head buried in the playback monitor which is playing the feed from the gyro-stabilized camera. So my eyes are seeing a nice stable image of the horizon while my body is being thrown around left, right and sideways as Ron tries to fight the turbulence while attempting various acrobatics to get our crazy shots. BAAARF. Ugh. In case you were wondering, I had a sick bag (which I accidentally left in Ron’s gear when we left, ooops).

Job done. Time for a cold drink by the pool, aaaah, this is the life.

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.

The nesting leatherback was breathtakingly beautiful. One of the most ancient species on earth (around when T Rex was cruising the shoreline looking for snacks), I felt sorry for her as we all crowded round but Dario assured us we weren’t disturbing her and since we were using infra red and red lights on our cameras and torches, our interference was kept to a minimum. Leatherbacks can dive deepest of all the turtles, over 4000ft into the depths, and they are also the largest and most endangered of the ancient species. Every 2-3 years, they lay clutches of eggs, up to 90 at a time in nests three feet beneath the sand. They do this up to ten times at ten day intervals, mainly a night, to ensure maximum chances of thei offspring surviving. Secreting salt from glands by their eyes, it looked a bit as if she was crying, but Dario explained this was a mechanism to keep the eyes moist whilst she went about her business. In sharp contrast to the elegance with which they can swim underwater, the walk onto the beach was clearly an effort for this huge 700lb turtle, but the power in her fins made short work of burying her nest and getting her back out to the open water after only about an hour on shore.

The drive to get to the turtle was of course, far from straight forward. We were running on fumes with an empty petrol tank, stress was high octane in the car and the crew were frantic with pressure for us to get there and capture the footage. If I’m honest, I think the fact there was so much stress did take away a touch of the magic of the whole event , but it was still an absolute privilege to witness this magnificent creature doing her part in the quest for survival of the species.

The rest of the day involved nipping back to check on a dog that we treated a couple of days ago and I’m glad to say has recovered well. Clive nailed a surgery at the clinic and we visited a fitting pig and a sheep that had been ‘bumped’ by a car. Thankfully, not ‘mashed’ (killed in Caribbean slang) and although a broken tibia, both Clive and I are very hopeful she will mend with our basic splint. Charlene is going to come and check on her tomorrow and keep us posted. There were a few background ptc (pieces to camera) that I had to nail and that was fun.
Evening dinner was the best fish of the entire trip – I recommend a red snapper at Lambi bar if you’re ever visiting – and now it is time to get some kip because even if we don’t get a call from Dario, we’ll still have to be up at 4.30am in order to get the ferry back to the mainland.

The seas were rough this morning so up at 4.30am and then a 2 hour boat ride back to St Georges. None of us were firing on all cylinders when we arrived at the clinic. It was a busy morning, Peggy dropped us off and Clive and I worked with Emma, Marcha and Ron to clear the in patients, catch up with the backlog of surgeries (spaying the TVT, removing a lump, cat neuter) and sorted out the walk in clients that came thick and fast first thing. Marc, Adam and Nathan hit the town to get their last shots of the island and get the programme wrapped up.

Late afternoon has been spent organising, final pieces to camera and packing ready for the trip home tomorrow! We leave here at 5.30am so great trip and now I’m all set to get back and see the family. Off for some final rum and cokes and to say goodbye to everyone!!

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.

The long trip home hasn’t got off to a particularly great start as we were up at 5am and the “airline” who flew us from Greneda to Miami decided that offering us a complimentary breakfast was too generous a step in these “credit crunch” times. I decided to purchase a sandwich as I was famished, whereas the rest of the crew starved. I wish I had not bothered as for my $6 I received a stale roll with ten slices of processed ham and one slice of rubbery cheese. Yum! I can’t wait to return home and have a nice cup of tea.

On a final note for this trip, and in context of our conservation work with the turtles, I would like to highlight the plight of something that is very dear to me: my name. Luke has continued to call me “Bruce” on this trip and has even gone on to the next step of introducing me to people as “Bruce from Armenia”. This has resulted in most of the people we meet also calling me Bruce. Now Bruce is a lovely name and I don’t want to offend any Bruce’s out there: for example Bruce Forsyth seems like a wonderful person, but it’s not my name. And I’m only part Armenian, not actually from Armenia. Anyway… If you feel that you can help preserve the name Nathan and have some spare time to volunteer your services in this very worthy cause then please contact me and we can start to get a plan of action together.

Save the Nathan NOW!

Nathan’s (Bruce’s) Top Bruce’s
Bruce Lee
Bruce Wayne
Bruce Forsyth
Bruce Springsteen
Fiona Bruce
Bruce Parry
Bruce Almighty
Bruce Dickinson
Bruce Banner (The Hulk)
Bruce Willis
Bruce Campbell
Bruce Grobellar
Robert the Bruce
Bruce The Duck??? (Luke’s suggestion…)
Bruce the Aussie