Ascension Island
There is an odd sense to Ascension Island. So much about it is strangely incongruous. It sits alone in the South Atlantic, far from anywhere. Like so many other remote regions there is the obligatory signpost that reads New York 5,770 miles, Cape Town 3,100 miles, London 4,830 miles and so on. Surrounded by sea and white sandy beaches one might expect a lush tropical island but that it is not. The land is dark, splotched with introduced plants. The highest peak, Green Mountain is exactly as the name implies, lush and green, its vegetation carried from continents far away. At each moment there seems to be something peculiarly out of place.
Some thought it was a cruel April Fool’s Day joke when we were roused from our slumbers long before dawn only to discover that we really weren’t going anywhere. It was no joke. We really tried. Somewhere in the Atlantic a storm had churned the seas and mysterious swells crashed on the shores and rose and fell dramatically on the pier at Georgetown. Our intent had been to comb the beaches in search of green sea turtles, both large and small. Nightly during the breeding season the females lumber from the water dragging their massive carapaces onto the soft and welcoming sand to deposit their hopes for the future. Nearby tiny eruptions from nests of weeks ago produce hundreds of miniscule creatures that seem to know exactly what to do. Get to the water. Although we couldn’t get to the sands, the hatchlings came to us, surging in through the ship’s open side gate, pausing only long enough to be admired before they were invited to continue their swim to Brazilian waters.
Above the island a sliver of a moon smiled down on us like the proverbial Cheshire cat. As that blue light of dawn washed over the scene the twinkling lights of shore were unmasked. The blue light morphed to mauve and the sea to navy blue. Our brains do try to fool us often telling us white is white but when eyes are open and minds are free we discover everything is not always as it appears to be. Not only was there a village nearby but an amazing array of antennae and satellite transmitters perched in valleys and on leveled cinder cones. Two countries maintain military bases on Ascension and the island is a center for transatlantic communications.
A falling tide freed us to head out to explore both Georgetown and the southwestern corner of the island as the morning wore on. Wideawake airfield was quiet today but in days gone by planes came and went with rapid regularity. It was a secret for so very long, this stepping-stone for military flights from the USA to Africa and Europe. It was not the roaring of engines that stimulated one to name this place wideawake but the voices of myriads of sooty terns that had once made their nests right where the runway is today. They moved, but not far. Mars Bay Nature Reserve now protects their unusual habitat. Walking beside a rough and ragged lava flow we could almost feel the heat it would have emitted as it slowly flowed toward the sea so many years ago. At its edge black and white wings flashed as terns swirled about our heads and screamed, “wideawake, wideawake.” Their companions sat on their single eggs tucked between the boulders. As most animals on a hot and steamy day we made our way to the shoreline to watch the dancing red crabs in the intertidal zone. The terns aren’t the only life protected here on the arid plain. Inside a small enclosure a smattering of mounds of Ascension spurge (Euphorbia origanoides) struggle to survive. Life seems a little upside down when the native endemic plants need to be fenced in and exotics flaunt themselves from shore to mountaintop.
Naptime was scheduled for the afternoon. But no, a pod of killer whales approached. Once again the unexpected became the norm and excitement reigned. What can tomorrow possibly bring?
