April 4, Sunday
Today we got up at around 6.30am because at 8.30am we were supposed to catch a reinforced inflatable boat (RIB), but it was 45 minutes late. At least I got to have a quick swim before the boat came!

The boat was the bounciest boat I've ever been on, you had to hold on to the ropes. Since I was the lightest I bounced the highest, so they had to put me on an oil can in the middle of the floor. We said goodbye to my grandad and zoomed off.

It took 25-30 minutes to get to Aride. From my first sight of Aride everything looked very green, so I guessed there must be a lot of wildlife and nature on it. Sunday is a tourist day so my dad had to get straight to work unloading the tourist boats. My dad and I were doing a tour along with another guide when we got to the garden, where they grow all their vegetables. My dad took me over to a tree and picked a fruit from it. He told me it was a type of lemon, bilenbi, and that I could eat it. It tasted really sour!

The next cool thing that we saw was this massive tree, called a banyan tree, with really thick strong branches. If you climbed on to a low branch and then got hold of a swinging branch you could swing about 15 metres.

April 5, Monday
We went snorkelling. After a while I got more comfortable and started to dive down. You could see the fish really well. My dad even saw a small reef shark in the distance. Unluckily for me I couldn't hear my dad shouting to look at where there was a shark. I couldn't hear him underwater so I didn't get to see the shark.

The fish were amazing. Their bright colours and displays were fascinating to watch. They chased each other around the coral and it looked like they were playing it (a game similar to tag played on the playground at school). There were some jellyfish in the water that stung. It felt like someone was sticking a needle into you, but it was all worth it to see the fish.

Fun facts:
- There are 115 islands in Seychelles.
- Over 1.25 million seabirds regularly breed on Aride.
- Over 400 species of fish, from whale sharks to flying fish, have been recorded on the reefs surrounding Aride.
- Two species of turtles, green and hawksbill, regularly nest on Aride beaches.
- Aride has three species of harmless snakes.

All supplies from larger boats are off-loaded on to the RIBs in case rats are on the boats. If rats came on to Aride, lots of the birds and animals which are protected and which nest on the ground would be killed. We had an incident with a barn owl while I was there, and although it seems cruel they had to kill it before it could kill any of the protected wildlife such as magpie robins.

April 14, Wednesday
I made a friend called Georgia and we went on the banyan (swinging tree) together. There are so many ants down by that tree! While I was waving goodbye to Georgia a massive wave came and knocked me over. When I got out of the sea my tummy hurt from where I hit against the sand. Luckily I was OK after a while. My dad and I had dinner on the beach and a bird pooed on my dad's plate! Not all of the creatures were so friendly. The mosquitoes ate me alive.

The ants ate our food if we didn't seal the lids properly. The trick was to put Vaseline around the lid to seal it off properly, and although it seems gross you would be able to see how many ants would have got into your food. For example, we left some chapatis in newspaper tightly wrapped for just over half an hour and when we came to eat them they were full of ants.

The skinks were just as bad as the ants. If you left a bowl half full of food for just a few seconds, they would be in it in a flash. The sink and bin were always full of them. In the water trough you had to fish a couple out every day because they went in for a bath and got stuck and couldn't get out. I shall miss living with the skinks, geckos, birds, crabs and other creatures.

April 15, Thursday
Today we had to feed the magpie robins. Not very many were hungry because no birds came down to the feed at tables one, three, six and seven.

What I learned from going on the tours in Aride:
- There are only 200 magpie robins in Seychelles, and 20 of them live and nest on Aride.
- Sooty terns, shearwaters, warblers and tropicbirds only nest on the ground.
- If any seawater goes on to turtle eggs it kills them.
- Depending on the temperature of the nest, the turtle eggs could be male or female.

Magpie robins were critically endangered back in the 1960s with only 23 birds remaining, but thankfully they were introduced again on to Aride in 2002. The population has been growing ever since and now we are lucky to have 20 birds on Aride.

Overall on Denis, Aride, Cousin, Cousine and Frégate there are over 200 birds. These are the only magpie robins in the world. They are a very rare and special species even though they look somewhat like the common English magpie. All of the birds have been caught and ringed. Each bird has four rings.

While I was there I began to recognise some of the birds through the colourful tags on their feet. The tag colours for Aride are metal and yellow, and the other two rings describe the individual bird. While I was there I got friendly with the local metal, yellow, yellow-blue. I named her Ruby. If you whistle, they come. We fed them bird feed and boiled eggs as well as fresh water every day. They were fed at 8am and 4pm. 

The Island Conservation Society of Seychelles  promotes the conservation and restoration of island ecosystems.