Chapter 12 - By Martin Thomas

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 create a sort of sanctuary, and he had taken me at my word and obtained these little birds for us. They were gorgeous, and proved a timely distraction from the swarms of bloodthirsty sandflies. The children were of course enthralled with the new pets, although I tried to explain that these were wild creatures that would fend for themselves on the island. As we had no enclosure prepared for them, and we wanted them to acclimatise to their new setting and to us before they were set free, I released them in the bathroom, where they immediately set up house in the open shower. We retired that night to the sound of their gentle trilling, and I assured Jenifer that the duck poop that was accumulating in the shower tray would be quickly washed away with a simple twist of the shower nozzle. For some reason she did not seem very impressed with this, and requested that the ducklings and their accessories be removed before her morning shower. In the morning, however, we found that the ducks had removed themselves. Max had got up at some early hour to use the bathroom, and returned to bed leaving the door ajar. When we awoke the ducklings were gone - presumably they had filed out quietly and made for the nearby mangroves. I was not too concerned about them, assuming we would see them again when they became hungry. Our caretaker, Juan, who had recently returned from his annual vacation, was given strict instructions to look out for the ducklings and feed them during our absence, and the next day we once more left the island.

Spoiled a little by our relatively luxurious stay on Coco Cohiba, we had decided to spend a few days at Montelimar, a resort on the Pacific coast, before going on to Miami. The resort was on a beautiful black-sand beach, very reasonably priced, and heaven for the children. Pest free, we relaxed, swimming in the surf and enjoying the fabulous local food. At week’s end we left feeling almost normal again, and looking forward to the civilised atmosphere of Miami. The trip would also give us another opportunity to add to the items we needed for our island home, as well as buy more educational materials, which were not available in Nicaragua. A week would be ample time to complete our business, then we would return to the island, and begin our life there once again.

It was much colder in Miami than we had anticipated. We had quickly become accustomed to the permanent warmth of Central America, and were unprepared for the chilly weather that greeted us. We huddled in our hotel room and kept a low profile while we awaited our Italian funds. Fortunately the hotel had high-speed internet access, allowing me to be in touch with my Italian lawyer, and to organise the necessary transfers. In the end the settlement meeting was delayed again, so we were forced to stay another week. We had a long shopping list, so while we waited we went window shopping, making notes of where we could find what we needed and setting up contacts so that we could do all our buying in one day.

We had inspected the range of cookers and refrigerators that were available in Managua, and found them very old-fashioned and quite expensive. In Miami we bought good-sized, well-priced American models, and arranged for a shipper to bring all the housewares down to Nicaragua in a container at a later date. In addition to household essentials we bought a snorkelling set each, and apparatus for capturing and studying the creatures we hoped to catch when we were back on our beach island. A few days later, back we were. As we approached the cay in our heavily laden boat we felt full of expectation for the future in our little paradise, which of course was now sandfly free …

Roger pulled up onto the beach in front of the cabin, and we began to pile out of the boat. It had been a fabulously calm trip out to the island, with only the gentlest of sea breezes. I was wearing a white t-shirt, and as I walked up the beach to open the cabin I noticed that my t-shirt was no longer white: it was literally covered in sandflies. I turned in shock and started back to the beach, where I saw that Lily and Max were also under attack. I think it was the only time I had yelled out loud on the island, but yell I did, shouting to Roger, ‘Get this boat back out on the water, and wait there until I call you!’ I almost pushed Lily and Max onto the boat, where Jenifer was still sitting holding Caspar, and Roger frantically started the engine as they glided back out into the bay. I knew there would be no sandflies out in the breeze, and I needed time to get the cabin ready. I was furious. We had carefully treated the children’s bites after the last infestation, and they had only just healed up after several weeks. The idea of going through it all again was just unthinkable.I summoned Juan, and we turned on the generator and started the trusty fan to clear out the cabin. I

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