advice on compact camera

[flower_girl]

Hello all, Wondered if you may be able to help out?

I work on a project to manage sand dunes and I need to purchase a camera for the project. We have £150 in the budget (although I imagine I could push this to £200 if i cut down on a few other bits). It would mainly be used for recording what work we've done and monitoring results.

Now... my own compact camera is broken as a result of too much sand (as I was using it for work) so I don't want to buy a new camera only for the same to happen. So I was thinking about a waterproof camera as this may stand up to the sand and salt better. However the waterproof aspect will push up the price...??

Also, I would like to be able to use it to take photos of the dune plants at a fairly close range and would therefore appreciate a decent macro function.
And one with a good zoom may help when recording wildlife too.

I've had a trawl through some reviews and it seems I have to decide between waterproof/toughness and picture quality/zoom as my budget isn't enough for both.

Anyone able to recommend otherwise??