March Highlights - Ascension 2023

March has seen the continuation of hot weather (Mid-thirties most days), but also severe weather warnings, and has been super busy with some exciting work! I’ve also enjoyed continuing with weekly Kung-Fu and Anna and I have also started to go to weekly Zumba meetings at Two Boats Club on Tuesdays. I also received a Covid-19 SpikeVax Bivalent Booster Vaccine at the end of the month and the 5th March also marked 4 months since I arrived on Ascension and officially 1/3rd of the way through my contract. My highlight of the month was probably satellite tagging my first turtle! But I’ve also seen lots of hatchlings, even a couple of mass hatches which were pretty amazing to witness, and we reached the peak of the nesting season with 228 Nests on Long beach in one night. Abi also celebrated her 36th Birthday on the 30th with a BBQ and firepit at Pierhead beach on the 31st which was a really nice, chilled evening. 

Here are some of the other things that happened on Ascension in March: 

Sea Rescue 

This month Anna and I have been involved in two training sessions with Sea Rescue. We are part of the Port Crew and our on call weeks alternate with Midships and Starboard Crews meaning we are on call every three weeks. On the 4th March Anna and I attended our crew Saturday morning training session as per normal. We were supposed to be conducting a training exercise of picking up two of our work colleagues (Adam and Jonny) from Spire beach where they had hiked to and camped overnight for Adam’s invertebrate project looking for endemic crickets and other invertebrates. Unfortunately, the Swell of the sea was quite bad that morning and the US base were using their crane at the pier to unload cargo from their boat, and so were reluctant to crane us into the water unless there was an actual emergency. We were trying to get hold of Jonny and Adam on the radio and Satellite phone to let them know (whilst we did our weekly boat checks), when Herby notified us that we had a call to help a sinking boat in Clarence Bay.

Luckily it was just a boat moored up, not one with people in so it wasn’t a life or death situation. We finished our boat checks as Herby and Kevin took Sea Rescue 2 (the JetRIB) out to scout out the situation. Anna was put in charge of trying to contact Jonny and Adam and I was helping Aaron with the Radios and recording all communications in the Radio Log. We then received a radio call asking for the Sea Rescue Pump to be brought onto the water and for Sea Rescue 1 (our bigger boat) to be deployed with Becky, Simon and Aaron as Crew. That left Anna and I manning the radio communications at base which was a little daunting, but we were happy to be of use. I continued to write down all radio communications in the logbook and we kept trying to contact Jonny and Adam. Eventually just after midday the rest of the team came back onto land for a break, as unfortunately the boat was still sinking. Becky, Anna and I went to the Chandlery for food supplies and everyone made some quick lunch from the snacks we had chosen before they went back out onto the water. 

We then finally made contact with Adam and Jonny who were hiking back up to the road where Laura and Sophie were waiting in a Landover to pick them up. Unfortunately, the boat was not able to be rescued as no one on island had large enough lift bags, some divers also tried to help recover the boat but eventually the owner of the boat gave the go ahead to end the attempts and get all crews back onto land. 

On the 25th March Anna and I had our second sea rescue training session of the month. We did a quick classroom session before our boat checks, which included some navigation and chart work. We were told we would be conducting a trip around the entire island and so we were tasked with plotting a course using the chart with the relevant number of waypoints to put into the chart plotter on the boat. We also had to calculate the distance of each leg and how much fuel would be required to complete the journey and how long it would take us. It was really interesting to get back to chart work, as I haven’t done any since my HSE diving course back in 2018! Herby then put Anna and I in charge of the waypoints and chart plotter as he wanted us to learn how to use it. I was put on Sea Rescue 1 with Aaron, Becky and Herby for the beginning journey and once Herby showed me how to input the waypoints, I was then in charge of entering each one and instructing Aaron on what magnetic bearing and course to take and how long until the next course change etc. Anna and Simon were then on Sea Rescue 2 alongside us. 

The boat trip was really amazing, it was so nice to see the island from that view and we even saw flying fish and bottlenose dolphins around the boat which was really cool! We were navigating round the island the opposite way round to the usual course normally taken so the swell was acting against us making it a bumpy ride, also making inputting waypoints even harder on the move. When we eventually made it round to Boatswain Bird Island I was a little relieved to be swapping over with Anna to SR 2 to enjoy the ride round the second half of the island. We stopped at Boatswain Bird for 5 minutes to enjoy the view of Letterbox, the Island and take in the incredible spectacle of the hundreds of seabirds nesting on and flying around Boatswain Bird! It’s home to Red footed Boobies, Brown Boobies, Masked Boobies and some of the Endemic Ascension Frigate birds as well. 

I then swapped over onto the JetRIB with Simon and Anna took my place on SR 1. Just as we were about to continue the Journey one of the motors on SR1 stopped working and so we went down to 1 motor. This meant our exercise ended and we had to make our way back to Clarence Bay as quickly and safely as possible but luckily were able to continue round the island to complete our round trip.

Shark scientists 

 On the 18th February three shark scientists Sam (University of Exeter), Dave (ZSL) and Nigel (University of Windsor, Canada), arrived on island to assist with the shark tagging programme here on Ascension. Sam was a lecturer at Exeter Uni during my masters and is a former director of AIG Conservation. 

On the 7th March they did a talk for the residents of the island about the work and research being done on the Galapagos Sharks seen around Ascension. It was really interesting to hear about exactly what is being done, as we often hear snippets in the office but haven’t had the full story yet. They’re currently deploying acoustic tags which send pings alongside an acoustic array to receive the pings around the island and monitor the sharks movements, alongside monitoring oceanography to see what is affecting these movements. Some cameras will also be put up in popular swimming locations to monitor shark activities off the bays as well. Shark deterrent devices for fishermen are also being trialled to see if any are effective. 

On the 9th March I went with Dave and Lorna to the MPA Youth Committee meeting where he was talking to them about what the shark project is about. We then also got the kids to create comic book strips about the day in the life of a shark around Ascension. 

Live Music 

On the 11th March one of our friends Caleb from the American base was playing Drums for his band Live band at Two Boats for a fundraiser for the Turkey and Syria Earthquake. It was really fun to have live music and dance the night away! 

Satellite Tags 

On the 12th March Anna, Abi and I went to Help Toby paint the sat tags in preparation for Tuesday. On the 14th March Anna and I went to Zumba for the first time before nightwork and Satellite tagging turtles! I’ve written a separate blog with all the details of the tagging, but I had the best night ever! Getting to satellite tag a turtle will definitely be one of my highlights of my whole year and time as a conservation intern.

Turtles 

 Whilst raking in the morning of the 15th March I noticed two hatchling clusters, where their heads were peeping out of the sand, where they wait until the cover of darkness to make a run for it to the sea. So I marked where they were so that I would be able to find them in the evening. I then went back to the beach at around 7pm in the evening, just as the sun was starting to set to watch them head to sea. It was a truly incredible experience to see them hatch in a flurry and frenzied crawling to the ocean. Quite an emotional experience! I watched the first nest erupt, then followed a few to see them enter the water before heading to the second nest to watch the same thing under the cover of darkness.

On the 16th March whilst carrying out our daily stranding checks we unfortunately discovered a dead turtle stuck between two rocks at Pan Am. This was a very fresh dead turtle though and Toby had asked if we found one at any point to let him know so he could dissect it for its GI tract for his plastic study. We radioed the office and around midday Toby headed to the beach to meet us. Anna, Abi and I then assisted with the dissection, first having to free the turtle from the rocks and then move her slightly further up the beach and away from the water. We then flipped her onto her shell and Abi and Toby used Scalpels to cut around the edge of her plastron where it met her carapace edge and opened her up. It was really fascinating to see just how green their green fat really is (where they get their names from) and we found out she hadn’t laid any eggs that night as she was full of fully formed eggs and the rest of her follicles ready for fertilisation were also visible. One thing that’s good about a turtle for dissecting is that they act like a big bowl and all the innards stay inside instead of spilling everywhere. (I have photos if anyone is interested but will not post on here as they are pretty yucky). We collected her GI Tract and then pushed her into the sea to be reclaimed by nature. 

Weather Warning 

The week of the 13th March we received many emails detailing a Serious Weather Warning from the Met Office for the 17th – 20th March. We received a little bit of rain Thursday evening but then Friday heavy rains followed and even some lightening and Thunder. Counting nests was cancelled for us Friday so the three of us took the day off and spent the day on the porch colouring in and listening to the rain which was actually a nice change of pace for our usual busy days! 

We received a second weather warning for 25th – 29th March which again brough heavy rains to the island. On the 28th March the decision was made that we wouldn’t rake Long beach that we would still count nests and tracks. Abi went on Stranding checks whilst Anna counted nests and I counted tracks. Whilst I was counting tracks I noticed a mass hatching event happening but a lot of the hatchlings were getting stuck in turtle holes. So, I spent about five minutes running back and forth in the pouring rain with handfuls of hatchlings to place them on the edge of the sand cliff that had been created by the waves, so that the hatchlings could make it to sea by themselves from there (luckily no Frigate birds were out in the rain). It was a very surreal experience! 

Whilst the weather was bad, the three of us decided to make some Paper boats to release into the very large puddle that had formed outside or Bungalow. I named mine the Turtle Voyager, Abi’s was called Hatchling’s Ahoy! And Anna’s was called Puddle Jumper. 

First Nest Excavations 

On Monday 27th March we also carried out our first nest excavations of the season! I’m not sure if anyone remembers back to my blogs from Grenada but I did a lot of excavating back then so this was very familiar for me. Toby came with Anna, Abi and I to North East Bay for the afternoon for training purposes and to help us do the first excavations for the loggers we placed in nests for our nightwork in January. The reason we were excavating North East first out of Long beach, Pan Am and North East is because North East has darker sand and so the incubation period is shorter as the sand is warmer on North East than the other two beaches (which I think is really interesting). Apparently North East is usually the hardest beach to excavate at here because the sand is really fine and dries out super quickly as you dig, making it easy to cave in as you are digging which was can be super frustrating. Luckily for us the rain had compacted the sand a little and cloud cover meant it wasn’t drying out too much making actually quite nice conditions.