CARIBBEAN: APRIL TO JUNE 2005

Fort Rodney, Pigeon Island, St Lucia - looking down the west coast. Hi Mum, it's me!

View from the Dasheen restaurant, St Lucia, looking towards one of the Pitons. Simply beautiful.

07.10am, leaving St Lucia, heading to St Vincent, with the Pitons in the background. Sailing at this time of day is wonderful because it is still cool and the pale light softens the scenery.

Part of the Pirates of the Caribbean set, at the southern end of Wallilabou bay, St Vincent.

07.10am, leaving St Lucia, heading to St Vincent, with the Pitons in the background. Sailing at this time of day is wonderful because it is still cool and the pale light softens the scenery.

The northern part of the set, taken from the boat.

Mike under the small waterfall about one mile up the road from Wallilabou. The water comes straight off the mountains and is very refreshing. Further down the stream the ladies from the local village were washing clothes on what looked like an industrial scale.

This one is for Graeme and Christine. Place: Tobago Cays, The Grenadines, looking south to Petit St Vincent. Wind: 20 knots steady from the east. Air temperature: 30 degrees C. Water temperature: 27 degrees C.

Jane at the bows in Tobago Cays.

Behind the fringing reef just to the east of Union Island is Happy Island, in the far background is Palm Island. Happy Island was built out of Conch shells and cement by a local guy, Janti. He operates it as a yottie bar and we can testify that his cocktails are seriously strong - not good when you have to wade from the island to your dinghy, having watched a spectacular sunset over Union.

This is one of the hurricane damaged churches in St George's, the capital of Grenada. As usual with this type of picture there is always some idiot blocking the view.

Rain forest in the centre of Grenada stripped of leaves and small branches by hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Given the rate of growth of rain forest it is remarkable that the damage is still visible.

Grenada's disused airfield has three wrecked planes with bullet holes in them caused by American troops who invded Grenada to remove the communist primeminister. This one is an AN24 cargo plane.

I'm holding the Leatherback hatchling we 'resuscitated' by stroking it's tummy. Once it had recovered it was quite a handful to keep under control, the front flippers being quite powerful.

This female Leatherback is in a trance laying her eggs. The park ranger is on the right and the lady leaning over her is injecting a microchip, used for tracking (they also put identification tags on one of the back flippers). Although the turtle is quite a monster at five feet long she was described as medium sized, apparently Leatherbacks can weigh up to 1,500 pounds. The small white things on the ground are turtle eggs from another nest that she has inadvertantly dug up.