I call you worldly people because you are surrounded by lots of other faces, whereas we are only surrounded by 3 faces apart from our own, which is all getting a little boring.

Anyway, after much effort, we arrived on Ascension Island this morning, it seemed to take forever during the last few days.

We anchored up in Clarence Bay, amidst the South Atlantic Rollers and the turtles. We took our dingy to the pier landing steps, only to find that there was a 3 metre surge which required the use of jungle ropes and gymnastics and trapezes to get out of the dingy. If you hesitated for 1/2 a second, you suddenly found yourself looking up a 3m concrete wall, wondering if you could jump that high (and the answer is emphatically, no).

After much dithering, we all made it ashore and made our way straight to the administrator's office to check in, then closely followed by the pub for a pint before going to the police for the much sought after passport stamps.

A quick drive around the island was akin to a drive around the moon; the island looks like a scene out of a James Bond movie, all telecom masts, radomes, satellite dishes and airfields which are prohibited for non  authorised personnel. ie. us.

Many people we have come across have referred to us as the "boat people": it makes one feel like a refuge. I guess this is because everybody knows the mailship schedule, and there are no scheduled commercial flights, therefore if there are new people suddenly appearing on the island, they must have arrived by sailboat.  

Anyway, we are currently sitting in a cosy restaurant, with a bottle of pouilly fume down and a dingy trip from hell looming ahead of us, so I should go and tackle the beast.

If you don't hear from me for a day or so, you 'll know that I went plop and I'll be online again when I dry out (in both senses of the word).

Lastly, with regret, i must advise our readers about the demise of the great Iberian Ham. We found that he didn't have his sealegs after all, and we all decided it was time for him to go for a long walk on  a short pier. We buried him at sea (shot put style) after numerous forepeak assaults, all of which he denied vigorously, but silently never the less. He was duly tried and found he didn't have a leg to stand on.  The Captain said a few words of condolence namely, "F O PIG".  we found the ham was growing his own version of penicillin, which we decided not to indulge in at this time.  Please share with us your condolences and concerns for general shipping/navigation hazards.