May Highlights, Ascension 2023

The month of May has absolutely flown by! On the 5th May it officially marked 6 months since I arrived on Ascension, so now as I write this, I’m nearing 7 months and am over halfway through my time here. 

Some of the highlights of the past month have included the Kings Coronation Celebrations, Anna and I enjoyed making use of our new Hammocks, I drove up and down Green Mountain for the first time on 17th May, carried on crafting and started and completed a cross stitch reindeer, we practiced some fan work in Kung Fu (22nd May), On 18th May Anna and I helped Chrisna and Sophie build Cairns to mark the boundary of the Waterside Nature Reserve, Mel showed Anna and I how water samples are filtered for eDNA (May 2nd) and I also had my first day out on the boat with Marine team this month as well (May 9th)! 

On the 13th May we also celebrated Eurovision, by having a viewing party at Matt’s House, we all dressed in colours representing countries we were supporting so I chose Estonia 🇪🇪 as I had an outfit to complement the flag colours well. 

Sea Rescue 

This month I’ve had two sea rescue sessions, on the 6th May and one on the 27th May. On the 6th May we spent quite a few hours out at sea, we practiced deploying the drogue from SR1 and mooring up the two boats (SR2 and SR1). We also assisted some people who were fishing who asked if we could drop them back to the pier instead of them having to use the tender system to return, this allowed us to practice picking up people and dropping them off. 

On the 27th May Anna and I headed to SR base for 8am as usual. We started the session with a classroom theory session on basic chart work and navigation practice which I found interesting. We used charts from South Africa and practiced plotting waypoints and calculating time and distance using the charts as well. We then went out on the boats, I was on SR2 with Simon and Anna was with Herby and Kevin on SR1. The swell was quite big and as Herby put it, the conditions were ‘grumpy’, but we launched the boats and were craned in as normal. We made our way round to Comfortless and were about to head over to English Bay when the engines on SR1 started to play up, so we moored SR1 and recovered SR2. 

Shark tagging boat day 

On the 9th May I had my first day out on the boat with Marine Team. I arrived at the office at 7:30am as usual and Tiff, Simon, Dan, Josh (a Volunteer from the US base) and I headed to the Pierhead. Simon and Dan went out to the tender to get Moray (our RIB) and came back for Tiff, Josh and I who helped put all the kit we needed for the day onto the boat. We then headed round the island towards Pan Am direction to a place Dan called Ladders. They let me drive the boat all the way, which was really cool, and when we arrived at Ladders, we got bait ready to look for some sharks! The bait was attached to line by hooks and Josh and I each had a line thrown into the water and lowered down, there were lost of trigger fish around who kept going for the bait, so we had to keep throwing in the line and then pulling it out, so they didn’t eat it all. Then out of almost nowhere Simon spotted a small Galapagos shark which was interested in my bait. Dan and Tiff prepped the boat behind us whilst we waited to see if the shark would bite the bait and get hooked. It didn’t take long for the shark to hook onto Josh’s line, and we quickly moved into our assigned points on the boat. I was assigned the head end of the shark, Josh was on the tail end and Simon was holding the pectoral fin area whilst Tiff was scribe/passing Dan what he needed and Dan was doing the data collection such as measuring the shark, taking a blood sample, sexing, taking skin samples and inserting/attaching the visual tag and pit tag. I was holding the line which was attached to the hook in the shark’s mouth and had to pull the rope to keep the shark in the correct position alongside the boat whilst Josh had a rope tied around the tail end of the shark doing the same thing at the other end. It was so amazing to be involved and to see my first wild shark! It was also nice to practice to process on a smaller shark before catching anything larger. 

The first shark was a small female (she had no claspers) and once Dan had finished collecting all the data etc. Simon removed the hook from her mouth, and she was released and allowed to swim off. We then tried baiting again in the same area but didn’t have any luck, so we moved off further out to sea and further around the island. We had been sitting in one spot baiting for about 15 minutes with no luck when we suddenly had four or five silky sharks swimming around us, it took a while but eventually one of them bit onto Josh’s line and we resumed the same positions and jobs as the first shark. 

This shark was slightly bigger but still not a huge one, this one I think was a male if my memory is correct and Dan felt the claspers to see if they were calcified to determine whether it was mature or not. This shark moved around a lot more and it was harder to hold it in place, but Dan managed to collect all the data needed and we let it go. We then rebaited and managed to hook another shark, but the shark had thrashed around lot and got itself twisted around and the hook came out of its mouth and got hooked on its tail, so Tiff and Dan managed to unhook the tail to let it go and we decided it was time to head back to the office. Once we were back at the office Tiff showed me how the shark blood is put into the centrifuge to separate the plasma and the red blood cells before its but in the freezer to be sent off for analysis off island. 

Ascension Day Bank Holiday weekend 

The 18th May marked Ascension Day (the island is named after Ascension Day as it was rediscovered on that day in 1501. We had a bank holiday on the 19th in celebration and Anna and I took the opportunity to hammock at AIG beach hut Thursday night as we didn’t have work on the Friday. We did some yoga as the sun went down and again under the stars later that evening. We then also started the next day with morning yoga overlooking the sea as well which was pretty amazing. 

We then spent the afternoon at Hayes house doing some crafting with Emily. I had begun a cross stitch reindeer the weekend before and carried on with that. Then the next morning Anna, Abi, Toby, Marcos and I got up early Saturday morning and went to Comfortless at 8:30am to meet Sunitha, Lorna, Emily, Mel and Jaco who had camped there overnight, and we all went for a morning Snorkel. I saw lots of flat fish and moray eels. 

Team Day 

On the 23rd May we had a team day. Anna, Abi and I started the day with turtle work as normal. We had to count and rake Long beach before heading back to the office for Adam to brief us on the day’s activities. Adam went through a presentation on different sampling methods for invertebrates which we missed most of as we were raking but we returned in time for the end of presentation quiz and to be told we were heading to the bottom of Green Mountain to do some invertebrate sampling and a baseline survey for ants (all ants on Ascension are invasive/non-native). 

Abi and Dan helped lay out a transect and then jam in small plastic tubes was placed at intervals along the transect. We were also split into groups and Anna, Emily and I were assigned the end of the transect, we were instructed to use the various equipment we had been given to sample a 10-metre radius at the end of the transect for 15 minutes. Anna had a pooter and was doing a visual search on the ground for any insects to collect and place in ethanol to preserve, Emily had to select two 1 metre squares and collect the leaf litter and topsoil to sieve and collect any insects and I was using a net to bash the plants in the 10m circle to collect any insects that were on the plants (mostly invasive Nicotiana plants). It was quite funny us all being together – it felt like a school trip. 

Once we were all done sampling invertebrates, we headed up the mountain to near the residency and Adam showed us a malaise trap he had put up to catch moths and flying insects. We had to scramble up the side of a very steep path to get to it! We split into groups again, I was with Anna, Emily, Chrisna and Marcos and we erected our malaise trap after some initial confusion it was simple to put up. 

After that activity was finished, we all headed up to Garden cottage to have lunch – everyone had brought a dish they had prepared (we were all assigned savoury or sweet and omnivorous or vegan). I was assigned omnivorous savoury like I was at Christmas and so I decided to make Pizza again. I made a sweetcorn pizza, a cheese and tomato pizza and a veggie pizza with olives, sweetcorn, pepper and tomato on top. 

We then spent the afternoon having a huge team meeting with everyone sharing what they had been up to for the past 6 months and what they had coming up next. It was actually really interesting to hear exactly what everyone has been up to because even though we all work in the same building we never really get to see what everyone is up to because we’re all always out and about doing different things. Dee then gave everyone Chocolate oranges after they had spoken, and everyone made suggestions about different awards the person should be given. 

Anna, Abi and I had prepared some turtle stats of the season so far, so we read them out for everyone (As of 15th May).  

Letterbox walks 

 This month we have completed three more letterbox walks taking our total up to 21 so far. On the 20th May Abi, Anna and I went and did Bat Cave which was a simple walk across some of a lava flow but also includes descending into a fumarole cave to get to the letterbox. I was a little nervous about it before we started as Abi had showed us pictures of the cave entrance from when she did it before with Emily and Lorna and it look very narrow so we had agreed Abi would go down first and then Anna would follow. When we arrived, we realised there is a bit of a gap between the ladder and the top of the entrance where you descend holding onto rope to get to the ladder which I was a bit scared of, but my legs are quite long for my height, and I manage to reach the ladder in two steps and get down to the bottom of the cave. Abi and I were waiting for Anna to come down when she announced she was too scared to come down because she is scared of heights. Abi and I managed to encourage her, and I went back up and showed her where I put my feed to get to the ladder and Anna then made it down in no time whilst Abi and I sung to her to distract her on her way down! Once we were all inside, we explored a little and it was cool inside. 

After team day on the 23rd May Lorna, Toby, Anna, Abi, Sunitha, Marcos, Jonny, Wen Yuen and I went for a hike to Goat Hole which is now one of my favourite hikes so far. The views were beautiful and the landscape around the area is different to most of the island, although the path was quite steep and there were lots of guava growing over the path which was a little scratchy, but it was an enjoyable hike. Anna wrote a haiku at the letterbox and afterwards Abi, Wen Yuen, Marcos and I went to the VC for the free outside movie evening, and we watched the Ant Man and the Wasp film. 

On the 26th May Abi, Anna and I decided we wanted to do a hike after work, and we decided upon South Red Crater. This was the first letterbox walk we had done without someone who had done it before (the directions in the letterbox books are usually questionable) but we parked up at the bottom of mountain red hill and headed off onto the lava flow and rocks towards the three peaks of south red crater. The directions for this walk were particularly minimal and there wasn’t much of a clear path at all, but we headed towards where we could see the crater and after around an hour made it to the peak. There were some lovely views of the sooty tern colonies and the runway as well as the vast ocean in front and then behind the contrasting views of mountain red hill and Green Mountain. On the way back we then also stopped off at the VC for food which was a nice treat. 

Turtles 

Raking has continued through May as usual; we did have a raking break in April and since returning turtle numbers have been dropping, we are now down to around 10 nests on long beach a night! Which is way down from the over 200 we had at the peak. We also gave our last turtle tour on and did our last stranding checks this month on the 12th May. On the 11th May we also did our last Turtle tour of the year. 

On the 4th May I also lead the MPA YC Turtle tour, I always enjoy getting to show kids how amazing wildlife can be, and whilst some of them weren’t all that interested, a few of them were really fascinated and that was lovely to see. 

On the 18th May I also went with Lorna and Toby to help at an MPA YC session where the kids were painting a submarine and large cardboard frame for the upcoming Marine festival in June. 

We’ve continued to see the number of hatchlings increase as we’ve travelled through May, and on the 11th May had a huge mass hatch in the day! 

On the 17th May we also got a call early in the morning for some people who live near Deadmans beach who had lots of hatchlings in their front garden, so we headed to their house to collect them and on the way there were loads of hatchlings all over the road that we ran around collecting. I was driving and was trying not to run any over! We put them in a bucket of sand and covered them in a damp towel to then release them later that evening once the chance of predation and heat exhaustion had passed.