She has interviewed international football stars, wrestled Great White Sharks and presented television shows on networks across the world.
But there’s a part of Amanda Protheroe-Thomas that will always be sweet on Cayman.
The Welsh broadcaster and journalist was a fixture on sports, adventure, travel and home improvements shows in the United Kingdom and beyond before a chance conversation with a friend led to her applying for a job as educational tour guide through the mangroves and Stingray City, plus taking people diving and lobstering, employed by Fat Fish Adventures.
“It was November 2008; my friend was in Cayman and rang me to say she’d seen a job that was perfect for me – handling live stingrays. I said, ‘Of course, I do that every day,’ and just laughed.
“But I had just done the natural history series where I worked with Great White Sharks, turtles, Manta Rays and stuff. I have a diving license and boat captain license, so I thought I may as well try and fate would decide the rest. I didn’t think any more of it, and then ten days later I got the response saying to apply for a visa, so I jumped on a plane,” said Protheroe-Thomas, who famously once interviewed Jay-Z courtside at a Nets game.
Her memories of Cayman, not surprisingly, are of the sun-soaked variety, although during her three months here she only managed to grab four days’ vacation, including Christmas Day.
“When you love what you’re doing, it doesn’t feel like work. We’d get up early, check the weather, and I loved just being a mermaid, constantly wet and being in and out of the water all day. It was beautiful.
“I was really weepy when I finished. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to get up and see my stingbabies every day – it was really upsetting. My boss said I would be really ill, and I did – I developed land sickness for about two weeks when I got back.”
Tribal football
Unluckily for Protheroe-Thomas, UK Channel 5 fell into difficulties, meaning that rather than jetting to Las Vegas to take up a position as reporter for the NBA championships, she returned to Britain, where she snagged a high-profile job as presenter on Manchester United’s television channel.
Football being the tribal game it is, however, United fans stumbled on an interview that the young presenter had done for an obscure internet magazine in which she said she followed the fortunes of several teams, including, oops, arch-rivals Liverpool.
“That didn’t go down very well, believe me. I was loving it there, I love football. They were really pushing me to say who I supported and I said I just loved the game. But the journalist said, ‘You must look at some more than others.’ And I said Liverpool, because they’d had so many Welsh stars, but I also said Man United, with Giggsy and that sort of thing. I had a bit of abuse, to be fair, and it was a bit upsetting cause I did my job very well and they wanted me to stay on a bit longer.
“But when I got busted for saying Liverpool, I lost my fan base a little bit,” she said, wryly.
Facing the challenges
The next challenge could be travelling the world as presenter on Paradise Hunter, which is billed as ‘the best job in the world’, a 52-week journey round the world’s best resorts. There’s a fitness series planned, too – something she knows a lot about, having headed a team of 50 climbers of Mount Kilimanjaro in September for the Velindre Cancer Centre charity – despite a nasty car crash only days earlier.
“I was coming back from Manchester and got swept off the road by a big Arctic truck; it hit the back of me, spun me around and hit me again sideways and dragged me for 500 yards. Half my car was crushed, it was pretty crazy stuff.
“It wasn’t ideal doing Kili the week afterwards, carrying the rucksack, sleeping rough and climbing, but I got it done. It became more of a challenge, but I raised a lot of money and didn’t want to let people down,” she recalled.
From the highest mountains to the deepest seas, Amanda Protheroe-Thomas has seen more than most, but it was her experience on a little two-by-four island in the Caribbean that has made an impression she’ll never forget.
“Cayman was one of the most magical times I ever had. It was a dream come true being a mermaid for three months. It was amazing.”
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