At Sea in the North Atlantic
“Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake.” -Joseph Conrad
The time is indeed going by quickly now – we will be in the Cape Verde Islands tomorrow. We’ve covered an enormous amount of territory – over 6000 nautical miles as of today. It isn’t just miles – Endeavour has sailed through several entire ecosystems, and tomorrow we will arrive in yet another totally different place, both biologically and socially.
We don’t just look forward, though. Reflecting on recent days, we take one more chance to look back on our time at Ascension Island. Pictured here is a Zodiac in front of the impressive sea-arch at Boatswain Bird Island, our last call before sailing away from Ascension. This steep-sided stack rock is now home to almost all of the seabirds associated with Ascension. Boobies, noddies, frigates and the ‘bosun-bird’ itself, the long-tailed tropic birds all nest here. Of course they used to nest on Ascension itself, but for the past several hundred years, since humans arrived with their retinue of rats, cats goats and the like, the main island has only been able to host the ‘Wideawake’, or sooty tern.
Even Boatswain Bird Island itself was, for a time subject to human exploitation – the guano deposits were mined at various times to provide fertilizer for the British market. By the 1950’s, however, this practice had become unprofitable and birds were left in peace.
Thus it was that a young ornithologist, our very own lecturer Bernard Stonehouse, arrived at Ascension in 1957, as leader of the British Ornithological Union’s Centenary Expedition to Ascension Island. The seabirds quickly led him to Boatswain Bird Island, where Bernard, his wife Sally and their companions managed to get ashore. There appears not to be a single square meter of level ground on this rock, yet they managed to erect a tiny hut and stay on the island for periods of up to a week at a time. It was indeed a thrill for us to share a visit here with Sally and Bernard, even though few, if any of us could imagine living on this tiny, feather-encrusted isle!
“Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake.” -Joseph Conrad
The time is indeed going by quickly now – we will be in the Cape Verde Islands tomorrow. We’ve covered an enormous amount of territory – over 6000 nautical miles as of today. It isn’t just miles – Endeavour has sailed through several entire ecosystems, and tomorrow we will arrive in yet another totally different place, both biologically and socially.
We don’t just look forward, though. Reflecting on recent days, we take one more chance to look back on our time at Ascension Island. Pictured here is a Zodiac in front of the impressive sea-arch at Boatswain Bird Island, our last call before sailing away from Ascension. This steep-sided stack rock is now home to almost all of the seabirds associated with Ascension. Boobies, noddies, frigates and the ‘bosun-bird’ itself, the long-tailed tropic birds all nest here. Of course they used to nest on Ascension itself, but for the past several hundred years, since humans arrived with their retinue of rats, cats goats and the like, the main island has only been able to host the ‘Wideawake’, or sooty tern.
Even Boatswain Bird Island itself was, for a time subject to human exploitation – the guano deposits were mined at various times to provide fertilizer for the British market. By the 1950’s, however, this practice had become unprofitable and birds were left in peace.
Thus it was that a young ornithologist, our very own lecturer Bernard Stonehouse, arrived at Ascension in 1957, as leader of the British Ornithological Union’s Centenary Expedition to Ascension Island. The seabirds quickly led him to Boatswain Bird Island, where Bernard, his wife Sally and their companions managed to get ashore. There appears not to be a single square meter of level ground on this rock, yet they managed to erect a tiny hut and stay on the island for periods of up to a week at a time. It was indeed a thrill for us to share a visit here with Sally and Bernard, even though few, if any of us could imagine living on this tiny, feather-encrusted isle!
