A busy start to the year has meant very little blogging so far, but we did manage to take a break yesterday and went to the cayes for a casual day’s fishing and generally messing around on the water with our neighbours Dennis and Wilma, who come down twice a year at the moment and who will eventually retire here.

Chris was top man of the day with a couple of nice Nassau grouper, one of which managed to get itself in a hole in the coral and had to be retrieved by Eloy, our guide for the day, who dived down and gaffed it. A very delicious supper, cooked in the oven with home grown papaya and green pepper, onion, garlic, ginger and lime.

Wilma enjoyed herself snorkeling around a nameless sandy caye used as a fish camp, out near Ranguana, while Chris found a school of bar jacks who really liked a fire tiger Top Prop. Dennis and I scrounged around the incredibly scruffy island and found lovely fan coral which the fishermen had thrown on their rubbish pile, as well as some lovely coloured conch shells, which I brought back for cleaning and eventual use on the school nature tables.

While we were there the fishermen arrived back with their catch of conch and lobster, and we purchased some conch which will be made into seviche and fritters.

Last week we had the pleasure of the company of brothers in law Charlie and Todd who had a wonderful week of fishing with Ian, scoring many “firsts” for themselves and bringing back fish for the kitchen every night. Charlie hooked and lost what we believe was a very large nurse shark from our dock, he was fishing for snappers and his very light bottom sabiki gave way after a good fight. The big fish took a one inch anchovy which Charlie took from the stomach of a small snapper he had caught earlier, hoping to catch another snapper for dinner.

At the moment we have guests brother and sister Terry and Sally, and Sally’s husband Ned, their second visit (Terry’s third). Sally will be conducting eye examinations for the children (and any adults who want) of the village, which is most kind and useful, as we don’t have a school health service. Terry as usual is full of exciting ideas, he is the person who first inspired the idea for the Monkey River Village Festival and provided us with Monkey Butt powder and great caps as prizes for the Festival last year, as well as sponsorship – as did Sally and Ned. We are fortunate to have so many guests who take an interest in the village.

They have had two days fishing with George and are having a fabulous time, coming home with barracuda, grouper, snapper, kingfish and the like which goes both to their kitchen and to the village.

Away from fishing, Chris has been very busy with the project to reverse the erosion which has taken so much land from Monkey River Village over the past twenty years. The idea is to restore the flow of the river which has been greatly reduced by extraction for farming further up on the Bladen and particularly the Swasey branches. As the flow reduced, so did the sand which the river brought down and deposited at the river mouth, counteracting the erosion of the sea. Nature was thrown out of balance, and the intention is to restore the flow by dredging, as well as to negotiate with farming interests to ensure that on necessary water is extracted.

He has also been working with the newly re-formed Monkey River Tour Guides Association to develop some new tours and improve their marketing; I have been lending a hand too.

My voluntary work as Local Manager for St Stephen’s Anglican Primary School in Monkey River is keeping me extremely busy, there is so much to do to bring the school up to the level we would like, and it has been sadly neglected over recent years. My brother David, who works as a headmaster in Yorkshire, England, has just sent us a marvelous donation of very good second hand and new books and educational toys – two boat loads to be precise, and I am working my way through sorting these out. They will be distributed to our school of course, and neighbouring tiny St Cuthbert’s at Punta Negra with twelve pupils, as well as to the school in Independence and a preschool in Punta Gorda.

We’ll post more fishing pictures when we get them, and try to keep up the blog more regularly, but as you can see, we keep pretty busy!

Another year has sped by, and we greeted 2008 in our normal fashion – asleep in bed – not being great bringers in of the new year. In fact, I always find something a little melancholy about the turn of the year, although here in the tropics with lovely blue skies and warm breezes, it doesn’t even feel like winter.

In 2007 we made lots of new friends, and we are surely looking forward to welcoming some of them back in the very near future, especially Terry, Sal and Ned, Shelia and Keith and Bryan and Kathy. Not to mention our dear friends and part time neighbours, Dennis and Wilma.

We were very pleased to welcome a fun group from the Uk a few weeks ago, which included journalist Dave Lewis (watch out for his article in Sea Angler coming soon) and Chris Tarrant, who caught his first permit, though it just about drove him mad in the process!

We have our own fishing adventures planned for this year, in particular the continued pursuit of a really big grouper, the continued tarpon and jack campaign on the Secret Lagoon and surrounding creeks, and a growing desire to do some shark fishing. Of course, even sitting right next to the Caribbean as we do, there is never enough time for fishing. Always guests to look after, chores, repairs and decorating to do – things deteriorate fast in this hot salty air – and of recent times, lots of voluntary work with various village organizations.

I have been appointed volunteer Local Manager of our village school, and believe be that could be a 24/7 job on its own. The school has really suffered in recent years from appalling teaching and no leadership. My predecessor, the wonderful Miss Eleanor Sandlin, struggled hard, but with her many other duties she was not able to achieve what she wanted. I am luckier in that I have a much better qualified staff this year, but there is still a lot to do.

Chris has been working all out with the newly reformed Tour Guides Association, and we hope that will bear fruit in the form of some exciting new trips and a better distribution of work around the body of guides.

Finally of course, yes, the Festival is looming. I have been saying, I’ll start that after Christmas, well, now it’s after Christmas, so off I go. We already have our first donation, from Dennis and Wilma who are supporting all the prizes for children’s games. This year it will be a two day affair, after which I think I will probably have to have a long holiday myself.

Chris and I would like to wish everybody a very happy New Year, and we hope to be seeing many of you in 2008.