Flying in over Mer and Dawar

The big white building with the point is the Anglican church. Our house is the tiny bit of white showing to the left of it, slightly up the hill.

The tide is out and the reef is exposed. The air strip is on the top of the hill, the opposite edge of the volcano's ridge, which is not visible on the left of this picture.

The airstrip was, of course, grass, and (although the photo above is obviously the 'dry' season) if it had been raining a lot and the grass was too long the plane would return to TI and wait for the men to get out there with scythes and cut it short enough. The 'strip was about 500metres long, formed by flattening out a section of the hill, and there was a sharp drop-off at both ends.

The trip from the airstrip down the steep hill to the village was by tractor trailer.

And what is it like inside those little planes?

Beach Family

The whole crew: Ruth, Beatrice, James, Jo, Ali, and Peter.

Playing School

Our new verandah proved a great place to be. Our kids loved to play there, and sometimes the local kids joined them.

Our kids loved to play school. Some might say that's weird - but my sister, brothers and I always played school too .. and my parents were both teachers.

The island children were not generally allowed to play "role-play" type games, their parents would yell, beat them, or throw a fish-spear at them if they were caught ... obviously they didn't like to see the kids copying their behaviour!