February Highlights - Ascension 2023

Time is flying by so quickly! Here is my round up of February highlights of my time on Ascension so far. Lots of things have happened this month some highlights include passing my driving test on the 8th February! So, I’ve been enjoying driving and doing stranding checks on my own 😊, camping at Garden Cottage on the 11th February, and trying out Kung Fu with Abi at Two Boats School on the 20th February - I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go back next week! 

On the 11th February Anna and I got to go on the sea rescue boat for the first time! As part of our Saturday training session, we joined the rest of Port Crew for some boat driving practice where they were practicing coming alongside the steps of the pier to drop off and pick up people. Anna and I even got a short go at driving the boat towards Pan Am after the exercise. Being out on the boat was so much fun, it was really weird heading out to sea away from the island – the furthest we’ve been off island since arriving in November! We even saw a turtle out swimming in the sea and it was such a great feeling being out on the water. The boat entered the water via a crane which lifted us on the boat up into the air and the placed us in the sea! It was crazy! I was in charge of making sure the back strops were in place and didn’t twist as we were lifted in the air with Boots (Aaron) on the Helm and Kevin assisting us, as we were lifted into the air we were then guided over the pier and down into the water, Kevin then detached the strops and we picked Anna and Simon up at the steps. 

Later that evening some of the Conservation guys had booked out Garden Cottage up on Green Mountain for the night for some camping. Anna, Abi and I left Chinatown at around 17:30 and headed up the mountain. We borrowed a tent from Simon and set it up on the lawn outside the building alongside the others who had arrived earlier. A BBQ fire had been started and so some people began cooking some food, I had made a large tub of couscous with Olives, Mushroom, Sweetcorn, green pepper, tomato, red onion, paprika, lemon juice and feta as well as baked peanut butter and chocolate chip oat cookies to share with everyone. At around 21:00 we decided to go for a night hike around Elliot’s Path which was also a lot of fun. 

It was very dark but we took torches with us and had an adventure following the path in the darkness. In some parts when we were past big areas of vegetation, we would reach the open edged parts of the cliff and the dark abyss of the views were quite stark and hard to describe. It was amazing and also slightly terrifying knowing there was a sheer cliff face drop right there that could barely be seen, yet you could tell how far we couldn’t see. Just darkness over the edge. 

Once we arrived back at garden cottage everyone enjoyed some drinks and a dance before heading to our respective tents or hammocks for the night. 

I’ve also been enjoying lots of diversity with work as well … 

MPA Youth Committee 

On the 9th February I had my first chance to get involved in some outreach at the local school on island with the MPA youth committee which is an afterschool group run by the outreach officer Lorna. She was running a session on the Anchaline pools which are found on Ascension and giving a briefing on a hike she had planned for that weekend with the kids, to take them to see the anchaline pools themselves. Anchaline pools are landlocked, saline bodies of water with a permanent connection to the ocean but no surface contact (through caves and crevices). First we started with a short presentation explaining the pools and then a few games to get them familiar with some of the organisms they were likely to see in the pools including the two endemic shrimps and three endemic amphipods, and also designed information boards to inform the public of why the pools are so important. 

Land crabs 14/02/2023 

On the 14th February I got to help out with the land crab surveys which was so much fun! It was one of my favourite things I’ve done apart from turtles. We went out at night and used PIT scanners to scan all the crabs which were getting ready for the spawning, if any of them showed up as having a tag we would put them in a bucket and then notify our partner. Then one person was in charge of handling and holding down the crab whilst the other measured the carapace and scribed before releasing. This carried on from around 19:00- 21:30. We managed to get 5 recaptures in total, and I found one. It was also very surreal because there were also turtles nesting very close at the same time, the whole thing felt like a very big pinch me moment. 

Turtles Turtle Tours have also been a highlight of February – I’ve really enjoyed leading tours, taking people out onto the beaches and spouting turtle facts at anyone who will listen. We’ve also started to see our first few hatchlings making their way to sea! It’s a little early in the season but some of the earliest nests have started to hatch. We even had one hatchling fall into a nest that was being laid on its way! Luckily it wasn’t too hard to fish it out of the egg chamber so hopefully it made it to the ocean okay after! 

We’ve been on a break from raking between the 13th February and will begin again on the 27th as the model used by Exeter Uni to predict nesting numbers is robust enough to allow a break before the peak of the season which is fast approaching. Before our break we were reaching numbers of over 140 nests per night on Long beach and over 500 tracks so 250 turtles. 

Strandings have also picked up, there have been two incidences in the past week where we’ve had seven turtles also stranded on the beach or in a rockpool at the same time and had to assist back to the ocean. On the 14th February Anna and I were with Diego for a CRACAB Day and we went to Hummock to do the moisture probes and found seven turtles all in a deep rockpool on Hannay’s beach! Anna and I spent a while trying to get the turtles over a ridge which would allow them to get into the ocean but it was also kind of incredible watching them swim all around our ankles, like something out of a dream! 

On the 23rd of February we had a turtle stranded on the Pier! We received a call at around 7:35am when we were just about to head out on our stranding checks around Deadman’s beach and Pan Am. The caller let us know there was a turtle stranded at the Pierhead so we double checked if they meant Pierhead Beach or the actual Pier and they told us it was on the Pier itself! The turtle had made its way all the way up the beach, round the back of the ship yard and carpark area, buildings and warehouse and down onto the Pier to the side of the tearoom building on the pier itself! She was also one of the largest turtles I’ve seen here, and she was very tired from her journey but still seemed to have a little energy to move. We managed to encourage her forward and onto a truck with a lifting mechanism that the pier staff have, and then took her back down to the beach to return her to the sea. 

Between the 20th February and the 25th February, we conducted our monthly night work week where we put 5 temperature loggers at Pan Am, North East and Long beach which is definitely my favourite part of turtle work. Here is a Photo of me with a turtle for Scale 😊