Week 2! AIG

Monday 14th November 2022 Today Anna, Emily and Cain (Junior Conservation Assistant) were helping Sunita and Johnny (Park Wardens) with some work up at the top of Green Mountain. Cain, Anna and I were clearing some of the sweet ginger plant that looks kind of like giant lemongrass and smells really nice. Its really lovely on green mountain because its so much cooler than below because of all the plants which create a mist at the top as well. We had a short break at 11am and then a lunch break at around half past 12 before finishing up around 2pm and heading up the dew pond letterbox walk path to the peak of the mountain. We then took the tools we had used back down to red lion near where the shade houses are before driving back to the office. Anna and I then made an oven bake with potatoes, aubergine, green beans, quorn pieces, carrot and garlic for dinner before heading to the office to use the internet for a little while :) We also recieved a fruit delivery from our friend Austin from the American base.

Tuesday:

 Tuesday 15th November Anna and I were scheduled to do the weekly CRACAB Monitoring with Emily and Diego, this was the same as our first fieldwork day last week where we visited each site and had to take moisture probes and check on/water euphorbia at particular sites around the island. Some of the Marine team were heading off on a week long voyage on the RMS Discovery that morning, it’s a research vessel which had travelled from Southampton and was going to survey and map the seafloor around ascension as well as sample the deep sea to discover more about the MPA around Ascension and collect fish and water samples to conduct ID and eDNA studies on. We also had to take a trip up one of the hills in the US base as there are some euphorbia plants there that needed checking this time we had to have a US Security escort up and down the hill. We were also tasked with putting up posters around the island at the various different clubs such as volcano club in the US base, two boats club in two boats and saints in Georgetown. The posters are for a talk happening on the 22nd November when the RMS Discovery docks back next week. In the evening we met Emily for a walk to the Pier to see if we could see any Sharks at night, we didn’t see any unfortunately but we did see out first Brown Booby. Unfortunately a brown booby then flew into the crane that is currently on the pier for the aggregate for the runway and it fell and died. As Anna and I had been shown the protocol for dead birds at the wind turbine on Friday we decided to go to the office and get the bags and put the booby in the freezer as a fresh sample for dissection. 

Wednesday: 

Wednesday Anna, Emily and I were scheduled to do more Mexican thorn clearance in the Mars Bay national park with Chrisna and Sophie but the road leading to where we needed to go was closed around the US Base so we ended up doing some Mexican thorn clearance around waterside instead, just the otherside of the runway construction. It was a really hot day and the clearance was a lot more tiring than the last time because the trees had seed pods this time which we had to check for and pick off the branches to make sure they didn’t spread which was very time consuming and made cutting down the trees take a lot longer. The seed pods looked like very juicy big green beans to me, It made me wonder if anyone has ever eaten them and whether its safe to do so! In the evening Anna and I got a lift from Sophie to travellers hill where the NAAFI is as we’d arranged with the others we were all going to go for a swim at the pool there as Johnny the park warden is one of the lifeguards at the pool and was lifeguarding that evening. We arrived at 17:30 and left around half 6. Sunitha, Emily and Mel arrived with Johnny and it was really nice to cool down after a hot day of Mexican thorn by swimming in the pool! In the evening our friend Ed from the Security office at the US base dropped by and gifted us lots of fruit and veg which was really kind of him, he brought apples, bananas, mangoes, celery, carrot, spinach, cauliflower, grapes and kiwis! 

Thursday: 

Thursday 17th November Anna and I had our first unsupervised day. Sophie took us to visit a few of the local beaches to Georgetown which need weeding in preparation for the sea turtle nesting season and then left Anna and I on long beach to remove any plants in any of the old turtle holes and across the beach. It was tiring work and a very hot day, but listening to music helped and we got a good section of the beach cleared by the afternoon. We then returned to the office for half past two and Sophie took us to the dump to show us where to put the 5 huge bags of weeds we had collected. We then returned to the office to celebrate Chrisna’s birthday which had been the day before and we had cake and sung happy birthday to her as she had her birthday off. 

Friday: 

Friday 18th November Anna, Cain, Sunitha and I were with Johnny in the morning doing Park Warden Work on Green Mountain. First we stopped off where the tree surgeons were starting work to check the trees for any Fairy tern nests and then we went up to an area off Elliots path on Green Mountain called Windy Ridge where there was a little bit of a scramble up the side to some fog catchers which catch the fog to run water down towards the endemic moss growing on the rocks. The Fog catchers needed some repairing as some had some rips so we were tasked with sewing up the gaps and holes. Anna and I listened to a cheesy music playlist and worked together to sew up the holes from each side whilst the wind battled against us. It was pretty surreal being up at the top there where we were enveloped in a huge cloud of fog, wind and even rain at one point! It was like being back in the UK. It was hard to believe we were still on Ascension and that down on the beaches it was glorious sunshine and heat, where as we were in the cold, wet and wind. For Lunch we headed down to Red Lion which is about halfway up the hill to meet the plant team where we all ate lunch together. Anna and I then joined Emily, Diego and Jolene in the Green Mountain shade houses where we were repotting endemic hedgehog grass into larger pots for most of the afternoon. We then headed down the mountain and across to cross hill to refill one of the water tanks before heading back to the office. In the evening Anna and I then joined Johnny, Sunitha and Sophie to go to the Cinema room at the NAAFI where it costs £3.50 to watch a film and they play one film each evening. We went and saw a film called Amsterdam which I knew nothing about but we thought it would be fun to see what the cinema was like. The cinema was really nice actually, proper cinema seats and a screen size and room that was pretty similar to the small cinema we had in Cornwall, I was very impressed. The film was very odd, it was pretty good but I was quite confused for a lot of it, although it had nearly every big and famous actor you could think of in the cast. After the Cinema we headed to Saints Club in Georgetown for the evening where they were having a ladies ‘black dress’ night but it was pretty chilled and most people were not wearing a black dress. 

Saturday: 

Saturday 19th November Anna and I woke up and made pancakes for breakfast before heading to the local Georgetown shops which only open Saturday mornings to pick up a few supplies. We then headed back to the bungalow and Anna baked some bread and some banana bread whilst I batch cooked some Bolognese and some chilli to meal prep for the week. In the afternoon we had arranged time to call our families on the internet in the office and so each spent some time doing that which was really nice and we then had a chilled evening and made cauliflower cheese and roasted veggies for dinner. 

Sunday: 

Sunday 20th November Anna and I had a chilled morning in the bungalow, I read my kindle and we got ready for our afternoon plans. At 12pm Ed came and picked up Anna and I and took us to do a few letterbox walks to tick off in our book. We first went to an area near the NASA site and green mountain to do walks called Nature Trail and Warpath which were fairly easy tracks with some nice views down and across the coastline on the side of the mountain. We then headed a little way up the mountain and completed one of the trails called Dampiers view which crossed past Dampiers drip which is where the first water source had been on the Island when Dampier had landed in the 1700s. We then did our final letterbox walk near travellers hill called lady’s Hill which was the steepest walk of the day and which had a cairn at the peak covered in shoes from people who have left the island and left shoes at the top. After completing our walks we then headed down to the NAAFI and Ed treated Anna and I to some Veggie Burgers as we watched the Qatar football match on the TV.