Sunday February 2^nd ,  2014

South Atlantic Ocean, 9 14.7S 19 51.9W 

Today's Blog by David (Time zone: UTC – 1.0 )

“Things are looking up”, I thought as I was woken as  my face was stroked by the soft touch  of  feathers in the hands of a beautiful young thing.  It was the highlight of our first night at sea after we left Ascension Island.

Well, not exactly ‘stroked’ -  more thrashed really;   and not really a ‘beautiful young thing’ either, rather a very frightened  Storm Petrel (a Wilson’s Storm Petrel in fact), that had had the misfortune to try to land on an open window and found itself sharing a cabin with me.  Probably more of a shock for it than me…….. 

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Picture Question

Who or what made these tracks?

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We left Ascension Island early on Friday having spent two nights there.  It was quite an interesting visit really because of the contrasts.  Firstly it is a volcanic island, black lava,  but with some sandy beaches:

However, it is not exactly the most welcoming place we have visited. Although  Ascension is a British Overseas Protectorate, it is basically a military installation and one needs to be vetted before arrival. So  even we Brits had to apply for en Entry permit. Because we needed to show evidence of Medical Insurance, entering Ascension involved more paperwork  (about 40 A4 pages) than anywhere else we have been.

On arrival, the Harbour Master, Police, Customs etc. were all very friendly and helpful ……………. but to find them we had to get ashore.  That involves a landing at the pier, via  some steps but where we are not allowed to leave the dinghy (because it will block the steps for every other user).  If there is a swell running,  it can get quite lively (shades of Niue…); indeed on one journey ashore,  I was standing on the landing platform to take bags and stuff from the boat and the swell came in – and engulfed me up to my waist!  Delightful!

Once ashore, that Ascension a thriving hub of activity is evidenced  by the main street’s midday traffic. (The seat of Government, centre left). :

There are no indigenous people on Ascension - no permanent residents, either.  You can’t live there unless you have a job and you can’t own land or property. The Crown owns all the land and people who live there are on one to three year employment contracts, renewable indefinitely.  There are about 900 such people of which about 60% come from St Helena.    Accommodation comes with the job.  Therefore, there  are no unemployed, no disabled people (the political correctness of UK legislation seems to have passed  by this island) nor any  retired people.   Being ill is not advisable; although there is a medical centre, the most accessible hospital is in the UK.

The BBC were among the first to establish a presence there – a relay station for the BBC World Service  - and so they had to install the infrastructure utilities (power, water etc.)  and they still maintain it  for the island’s residents (for a fee).  (So, THAT’s where our licence fee goes!). The principal employers are now the US Air Force (under a 99 year lease granted in the 1940s; they established and maintain the airfield (a  long runway, extended to 10km to facilitate emergency Shuttle Landings under NASAs space programme – err there were no such emergencies). The RAF also have a presence here as do, hardly surprisingly if you think about it,  GCHQ and CSO.

There are about 50 beds on the island for tourists  and transients on passage to St Helena (via the RMS) or the Falklands by plane.  There is a Basil Fawlty kind of hotel with 18 beds which has a restaurant that caters for its residents – if you ­do manage to get a table there, it is the best food on the island – but, frankly, ‘best’ is not difficult. The  highlight though was that the hotel did sell Morelands ‘Old Speckled Hen’, which was a welcome change from the usual tropical  “gnat’s”.  (Tropical? Didn’t I mention that it had warmed up lately?)

The most accessible eatery is at the Volcano Club, on the US Air Force base – a provincial US  style sports bar and café where we had a T-Bone steak and all the trimmings (not gourmet, but recognisable as a T-Bone) for £10.  

Charles Darwin did get about, didn’t he?  We first heard from him in Galapagos, then right across the Pacific … and now Ascension.  Apparently, he arrived here in the 1830s and advised them (the British Garrison) to plant various trees on the leeward side of the mountain in order to provide a microclimate in which they could grow food. This they did, importing plants from around the world via Kew Gardens and now above about 1,000 feet,  the island is a series of complex micro climates which support all manner of fruit and vegetables.  Well, they would if anyone still farmed them rather than relying on food freighted in from the USA and UK.

There is a Tourist office (personnel establishment:  1 person) who offered a half day island tour, the highlight of which was the breeding colony of circa 60,000 Sooty Terns.

There is also a conservation office. Quite who funds it or runs it we didn’t establish but they are dedicated to protecting a number of species  of endangered plant that are endemic to Ascension, the sooty terns and the breeding grounds of the Green Turtles which lay their eggs on the beaches around Ascension (which is an important breeding site for the species). 

We did go ashore at night to view  turtles laying their eggs. We followed a track, (as per the picture question above), and at the end of the trail  we found:

Under her stern, (RH end),  she had dug a pit and there were circa 100 golf ball sized eggs in it.  Here she is in the process of covering it up.   Just like a David Attenborough documentary, really!