Lifes A.........Beach

We've had the pleasure of having the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society with us on Bardsey for a few weeks now as they carry out surveys of the cetacean species in the waters around Bardsey. They had arranged to do a beach clean one day so we all set off bin bags in hand to try and clean up as much as we could.

When you start to look, the amount of rubbish that gets washed up on the shores (mainly plastics) is staggering, so we did our best to get as much of it as we could. The sad fact is the equivalent of what we cleared up would probably be washed up on shore again as fresh rubbish brought in by the sea, that said its nice to do your bit and every little helps.

*Cough* *Cough* *Nudge* *Nudge* you should visit to this website  http://www.wdcs.org.uk/

Errrrrrrrrr..........what the??.......Steve.......................

Tally Ho, Damson Picking Is A-foot

Damsons around the observatory were ready to be picked and made into jam so we form a motley crew and set out foraging, check out this roll call.......

Freddy Mercuary

Albert Einstein

Hulk Holgan

Poirot

Super Mario

Charlie Chaplin

A force to be reckoned with  

All in all we totaled six carrier bags of damsons, a good haul GO TEAM

Fueling Up

Probably something people don't think of when they think of living on an island, but even the most simple tasks are logistically more complicated than on the mainland, for instance the need for fuel and gas for heating, running the ovens and refrigerators etc etc. 

Being on an island obviously its not piped in from the mainland so it has to be delivered by the only way Bardsey knows, by boat.

The fuel is then lifted from the boat to either a quad bike and trailer or small buggy we have on the island, its then driven up to the observatory where the fuel is dropped off.

Then comes the back breaking job of shifting the containers by hand to where the fuel needs to be pumped in.

Once the fuel is in place there is then the job of getting it into the tanks. Luckily we have a small electric pump we can run off batteries at hand to speed up the process. 

Errrrrrr.........which one does it go on again???

I think thats right.........

Fuel pump goes in.....

Fuel comes out, huray!!!

Any excess fuel left in the canisters that the pump can't seem to get out is decanted into a bucket and then pumped out.

All that effort to get the fuel here payed off........ 

The Great Bardsey Bake Off

You might be wondering what we do on our days off.......... make flapjack obviously 

Chris and Steve battle it off in the kitchen to produce the best flapjack 

Rookie mistake from Chris forgetting to melt the butter and sugar before mixing in the oats, flour and honey

No turning back now, with time almost up he needs to get it in the oven

Chris manages to pull it out the bag and produce something that resembles flapjack

Days off are also a great day to catch up on some of the blog updates

And obviously being at a bird lovers and in such a fantastic place for birds we fit in a bit of birdwatching