Ascension Island, Atlantic Ocean
This voyage has developed a familiar routine over the past three weeks. Sea days interspersed with visits to remote and little-visited islands, or is it visits to islands interspersed with sea days? The island groups we have visited each have a character of their own but all share a common link. Ascension is the last link in this chain of islands, and like the Falklands, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha and St Helena it too is a remnant of the British Empire, and the culture in each island reflects this. The next time we visit a new country will be in Senegal, and we will have completed our journey across the Atlantic, from South America to Africa. There we can expect a dramatic change in our cultural experience compared with the variations on the theme of ‘British-ness’ encountered thus far.
But Senegal is still sometime in the future, today was all about Ascension and it proved to be a full day. One that began pre-dawn in Zodiacs as the sun rose over Boatswainbird Island. This large stack, a few hundred metres from the coast of Ascension is an important breeding location for a multitude of seabirds, but is critical as the only nesting place in the world for the endemic Ascension frigatebird. Frigatebirds were driven from the mainland by introduced feral cats, but the cats never reached Boatswainbird Island, saving the frigatebirds from the fate of extinction. A recent programme to eradicate feral cats from Ascension has been successful and seabirds are recolonising the mainland. Masked boobies are in the vanguard, with over 600 pairs this season in areas where there were none a decade ago. While frigatebirds have yet to return to breed on the mainland, conditions are now right and hopefully the wait will not be much longer.
The day finished near midnight on a shell sand beach under myriad stars as we watched green turtles laying their eggs. This population is also flourishing through conservation measures and numbers appear to be at record levels this season, although the season has not yet finished. In the (32¢ªC) heat of the day between the seabirds and turtles we headed for the cool of Green Mountain where we encountered endemic plants and heard of the successful efforts to restore their populations, including the remarkable story of the rediscovery of the parsley fern in 2010, after many years when the species was thought to be extinct.
Throughout this voyage we have heard much about the negative impacts of human activities on the unique wildlife of these remote islands, their remoteness no protection from the all-encompassing reach of human activities. We had first-hand experience of that impact at Nightingale where the Oliva ran aground, spilling oil and fouling penguins (all while the story may have faded from the news cycles, the saga is ongoing). We also encountered people on the frontline working to protect and preserve these places and their wildlife, such as the rat eradication team on South Georgia. The seabirds, plants and green turtles of Ascension have all benefited from active conservation programmes that have all been notable for their success, showing that there is good news out there and that with a will, much can be done for the vulnerable wildlife of these wonderful islands.
