Disappointment at Ascension Island

Georgetown, Ascension Island Tender Pier

When our cousin, Phil, heard that we would be visiting Ascension Island on our world voyage, he said, “Why are they going there?”  He works for NASA and spends several months at a time on this isolated island, one of the few in the South Atlantic.  NASA has done substantial research here and maintained an airport to maintain contact with other island and with Britain which administers the island.

Unlike Phil who probably found Ascension to be too remote and with a slower pace of life since it supports a permanent population of only about 1,000 inhabitants, we were eager to see this island.  With even less people than St. Helena, it depends on the few ships that stop there as well as several fights that arrive from Oxford and from the Falkland Islands far to the south.  Ascension brings only 3 or 4 cruise ships a year to its shores, and primarily those that are traveling between South Africa and Brazil or the US as we are.  Understandably, residents were excited that the ms Amsterdam was to be paying a visit to Georgetown, the capital, port, and only real town in the entire island (although there are four other smaller settlements).

Ascension, another volcanic island formed about 1.5 million years ago, is a naturalist’s paradise.  It was discovered in 1501 but was left unrecorded until it was rediscovered two years later on Ascension Day and the island was thus named. In 1815, when Napoleon was banished to St. Helena, Britain worried that Ascension might be used in any effort to rescue Napoleon.  As a result, Britain asserted control over Ascension in 1815 but after his death in 1821, that concern abated and Ascension for many years was used as a sanitarium for ships engaged in the suppression of the slave trade.  Until 1922, Ascension was a naval possession of Britain.  In that year, it became a dependency of St. Helena and maintained its strong ties with Britain.

Except for the NASA involvement, the primary local “industry” was the sale of its colorful postage stamps which are desirable for philatelists.  Tourism was almost non-existent as indicated by the fact that we were to be one of the very rare ships to visit the port.  It does offer souvenirs for tourists and now even has some guest cottages and a hotel.  For tourists, there is sport fishing and even an 18-hole golf course, though Ascension “brags” that it has been officially designated as the worst golf course in the world!

We had been told that some representatives of the island would come on board to tell us about Ascension Island and there would be a post office available as well as some souvenirs for purchase.  Barb and I thought it would be a good idea to listen to the talk and then go into Georgetown after an early lunch.  Holland America was offering no tours, so we were just going to go into town and explore that a bit.  We decided to get to the Wajang Theater early since so many people were likely to want to hear about the island.  I got there about 9:30 with the talk starting at 10:00 AM and I was surprised to be absolutely the first person to arrive.  A few more people began to trickle in.  Cruise Director Bruce announced that the ship was cleared and that tenders were ready to get everyone who wanted to go to shore.  The two naturalists came into the theater and it seemed like they were on their own!  They got little help in setting up the speaker system and when the tech person did theoretically get them ready, he left.  No one from the ship came to introduce the guests.  If there was an announcement of the talk, I missed it; I had seen it listed the daily program.  Surprisingly only about 30 people arrived to hear the talk. Very disappointing representation by the guests we thought.  By 10:05, the naturalists were still standing there waiting for an introduction, so they finally said, “Well, we might as well begin.”  But we could hardly hear it because the mike wasn’t calibrated well enough to have them heard.  No one was around to help them so they had to handle it themselves.

While they were attempting to speak, announcements were made which interrupted them several times.  The first indicated that tendering operations would commence.  A few minutes later, we were informed that the tenders were having a difficult time securing the boats to the tender platform and that individuals should expect to get their feet wet as they stepped off the tender and then they would have to negotiate their way up about 20 steps with no railing.  A few minutes later, the Captain spoke, indicating that he was having to cancel our call on Ascension island because of the high swells and the resulting physical damage threat to the tenders as well as the likelihood of injury to passengers attempting to get on and off tenders and up the stairs.  Needless to say, it was disappointing since we know how few people actually get to go to Ascension Island!

So what we would learn about the island would come from Sam and Kari who are British and are in Ascension as naturalists and researchers.  Sam said they arrived about two years ago to study the rare Green Sea Turtle on Long Beach near Georgetown.  The turtles make the long migration through the water from Brazil to Ascension.  They lay eggs on the beach between January and June.  From March to July, they hatch.  To measure how many turtles might be on the island, each evening the beach is swept of tracks and then the next morning the number of turtle tracks is identified.  The naturalists feel that there were about 400 separate turtle tracks in an evening.

Also certain breeds of sooty terns, boobies, and frigate birds are endemic to Ascension Island so their presence is taken seriously.  The problem was that there were many feral cats on the island that had been brought to rid the island of rats.  They found these cats enjoyed the taste of the birds more than that of rats and they were depleting the number of birds!  There was a concerted effort to rid the island of the feral cats and that seems to have succeeded.  Now the birds are returning under close supervision of the naturalists.  They have placed tracking devices on some of the birds and they determined that one sooty term was at sea for ten full months and never once touched land (they have the ability to sleep while in flight)!  To bring back the frigate birds, Sam and a partner worked on creating decoy birds that resembled the frigate birds to land and lay eggs.  At least two did lay eggs but only the eggs of one pair hatched. They consider it a good start in returning the frigate birds to the island and we even saw several from the ship.

They also described the black fish we saw from the promenade deck in the water below. There were many of them but we found they aren’t desirable fish and this is the season when they tend to be present.  We learned that they will vanish overnight sometime soon and will be back next year in the correct season.

Because we couldn’t go to shore, everyone who wanted souvenirs had to purchase on the ship, so I decided to run out to the sale and would return after I made purchases.  When I got out to the area where the sale was conducted, it was bedlam. Everyone had the same brilliant idea.  People were mobbed around the tables, trying to buy everything from tee shirts in the correct size to magnets to postal collectibles.  I decided to buy a t shirt from this remote island and to go back to the lecture to tell Barb she needed to go out herself so she could get something if she wanted in her size.  By that time the naturalists’ talk was over.

It was a disappointment to be so near and yet so far from setting foot on this unusual island, but safety is paramount and with the injuries we have heard about recently, we needed no more of them.  Barb is still bothered by her foot problem that she first experienced in Wellington, New Zealand on February 10.  Today she turned her foot wrong and it has been aggravating her.  She commented that if we could have gone ashore, she would have done so and that maybe it was a blessing in disguise that we couldn’t go on the island.  Getting on and off a rocking tender and walking through water and then up some slippery steps could have posed real problems!  Well, next year’s World Cruise goes to Ascension again … but we won’t be on that cruise!

Captain Mercer announced that the souvenirs would continue to be sold until about 1 PM when we would set sail again.  However, since we couldn’t go on the island, he would sail around it for us to get a look.  The nearly two hour journey was narrated by Barbara Haenni, Travel Guide, and we could pick out various natural and man-made locations.  Since once again, we were fortunate enough to have the island on our side of the ship, we invited friends Bob and Nancy to see it from our verandah.  Fortunately we met them in the hallway as we were beginning our scenic cruising.

So…. Have we been to Ascension Island?  The answer is both yes and no.  Yes, we saw this isolated island in the Atlantic Ocean but no, we weren’t fortunate enough to set foot on it and to walk around on shore.  We remind ourselves that we have been fortunate to see what we have seen on this amazing cruise and that with the vagaries of weather and political conditions, a few “misses” are normal on an adventure of four months duration. 

Now we are down to just four more ports before we reach Ft. Lauderdale on May 1!  We are now heading across the Atlantic with our next port on Sunday in Fortaleza, Brazil!

CT