July 2023 Ascension Highlights

It’s already August! July flew by quicker than any other month here on Ascension! With no more turtle work for the three of us to do our schedule has been more varied and the weeks have absolutely flown by. Some highlights of the month have included the first Whale sightings (21st July) of the season, helping with a variety of different teams and having some visiting oceanographers from Plymouth University for a week (7th July). July has also seen the continuation of Kung-Fu, Zumba and Volleyball (we’ve moved to indoors and it’s been a game changer) and saw the end of Sewing bee for the year (26th July). Here are the rest of my month’s highlights: 

On the 1st of July Anna, Abi and I went and helped out Tiff, Marcos, Lorna and Dee with Pierhead sampling again; weighing, measuring and taking samples from the catches from that day – we saw a lot of Yellow Fin Tuna and some Wahoo with the largest Tuna weighing in at 68.8Kg. Then in the afternoon we headed to the US base for the 4th of July celebrations at the Volcano club. Anna and I got some face paint done by Chrisna (I got a lizard and Anna got a butterfly), we walked around and looked at the stalls, lots of games stalls and some American snacks available to buy with a tabletop sale inside. Outside were most of the games, the face painting and the hot food stands. We got veggie burgers and fries and then went and watched the softball game that was happening on the pitch round the corner. 

Then later on in the evening there was a band playing live music which was really fun, and Anna and I spotted kids wearing flashing and light up animal ear headbands and decided we wanted to get some. We found that they were being sold by the snack stall and so we bought a pair of cat ears each (I got blue, and Anna got Purple) and then not too long afterwards we convinced most of our friends to buy some and soon the majority of the adults also were wearing them which was really fun. 

Then on the 2nd of July I had a chilled morning in the house and then went to English Bay with Emily for the afternoon to craft and read on the beach. The 3rd July Anna and I had the day off and spent it hammocking at the AIG beach hut. We rock pooled at Deadman’s and found a really big rockpool that we could swim in as well. 

On the 4th July Anna, Abi and I completed a CRACAB day on our own for the first time and on the 5th July, we were tasked with taking down the shade house structure on Northeast Bay which was very tiring but very satisfying. It took a lot of digging to loosen the posts enough to put them out and unscrewing the side posts wasn’t very successful, so we ended up having to use a combination of unscrewing and hammers but eventually we managed to dismantle the entire thing. It was a long hot day! 

The 7th July Anna and I were helping Jonny and Sunitha with cutting down vegetation and clearing the restoration site at the peak of the mountain where we’re currently trying to extend the cloud forest by opening up and planting different trees to extend it further down. Jonny got us to clear up and clean the tools a little early and kept checking his watch on the way back to the office, but Anna and I didn’t really think much of it. When we returned to the office, we saw our stipend was ready to collect so we went to the AIG building to collect it from the finance office. When we returned to the office Sunitha was blocking the door and wouldn’t let us inside and we were really confused. Anna looked at me with panicked eyes as if to ask If I’d told anyone it was her birthday soon, but I was silently trying to communicate I hasn’t because her birthday isn’t until August and I was equally as confused. When Sunitha let us into the office we entered and saw Toby in his turtle costume, and everyone shouted ‘Happy shellebrations’ and they were celebrating our end of turtle season! Lorna and Emily had baked a turtle shaped cake for us and Toby, Lorna and Emily had made a card for us each. Toby had drawn me a hatchling with a Haiku on, Emily had done a turtle for Anna and Lorna had done a water colour turtle for Abi. It was a very kind surprise and was definitely a complete surprise. We were also informed it was the first time this had been done for a set of interns which made it even more special. 

Then in the evening we all went to the VC for burgers to say goodbye to Weng Yuen and also well wishes to Mel who was returning to the UK because of a problem with her eye. 

 On the 8th July Anna and I had Sea rescue in the morning where we were learning how to put together a Pully System for a land rescue. In the afternoon we went over to Hayes for a crafternoon where we drew our fish for Dee’s leaving present and in the evening Anna, Carson and I watched the two Trolls films. 

Then the next evening we were called out on a real call out to help the Police look for a missing hiker who had come from the US ship which was in the Bay. We searched from around half 9 in the evening until around 1am and were then regrouped at the shipping office and told the search would resume in the morning at 6am so we returned to the house and were back at the shipping office early in the morning. Just as we arrived in the morning, we were informed the hiker had been found alive and well about 10 minutes before and had been taken to the hospital to be checked over. It was a relief to hear he had been found and he was all okay. We then went to work as normal that day. 

On the 11th July I spent the day with Jo and Diego at comfortless putting up fencing around the euphorbia site there and on the 13th July Anna and I started another beach clean removing the invasive weeds from the beach again (I can’t believe its back to that time again!), during this day we had a couple of fun finds at the dump, including a life sized cardboard cut out of Tom Jones! 

On the 13th July it marked the last MPA youth committee session of the school year, Lorna had planned a session around Shark awareness week (video with the kids in link) and each of the kids were given a different shark species that can sometimes be seen in our MPA to draw in chalk on the playground. I helped Peyton to draw her whale shark. 

The week of the 7th – 14th July also saw us receive two visitors from the University of Plymouth – Dr Phil Hosegood and Dr Kit Stokes who are oceanographers. They have been helping study the physical oceanography around the island to help create models to support the shark project, allowing more predictions to be made about why the sharks are around Ascension, why they congregate in certain areas and why they disappear from time to time as well. On the 13th July a public talk was hosted at the Travellers Hill cinema room, and they talked about the project and what their current findings mean for Ascension which was really interesting. 

https://www.facebook.com/AscensionMPA/posts/pfbid0229AHBpdw5FpGBh4Lebz2c7YLGsY7jM2piZGRzqekCnCDTbfhSDmxV9T9YTAAFBSHl

The 16th July it was Emily’s birthday party where we did karaoke at Hayes which was lots of fun! Then on the 17th July Anna, Abi, Ben and I hiked Broken tooth, which might be my least favourite of the hikes so far but was still good to tick off from the book. We then went for Brunch on the RAF base afterwards which was nice. In the afternoon I then made a cake for Emily’s work birthday celebrations on the Monday. 

On the 19th July I had a CRACAB day with Jo and Diego which was nice. Jo bought Diego and I kinder eggs each and I got a small card inside mine. Afterwork Anna and I had a Sea Rescue meeting with all the crew’s to be informed about what it would be like whilst Herby is off island later in the month. The 20th July Anna and I were helping Laura with a Coastal Reserve clean up of Mars Bay where we were removing historical litter. This included removing as much as we could of old rusty fire trucks and vehicles that have been left from when the site was used as a firing range for the American Military.

On the 22nd July Anna and I completed the Northwest Point Letterbox walk just the two of us, it wasn’t a particularly exhilarating hike, it was across lava rock and care had to be taken whilst traversing it. We managed to find our way pretty well, apart from beelining for a huge Cairn which we thought was the letterbox, but it wasn’t there, we then found our way to the actual letterbox and managed to complete the walk there and back in just over an hour. We then spent the rest of the afternoon hammocking and crafting on English Bay which was really nice. In the evening there was live music at Saints which again was fun as always. 

On the 23rd July, Anna, Carson and I did Nature trail and then continued onto Breakneck and hammocked in the Pines at the base of Breakneck path. It might be my new favourite place on the island! It was just like being in Scotland. Anna and I loved Breakneck and couldn’t believe we hadn’t been there before. The two of us walk up to the marine barracks and spent a while standing on top of the old water catchment in the fog and then returned to the hammocks afterwards. 

The 24th July was the team day for Dee’s leaving. We were all up Green Mountain cutting ginger to create areas for planting trees. Dee planted a white olive tree and Laura and I planted a Capeu (I’m not sure how its spelt but I’ll change it once I do). We then went to Garden Cottage for our lunch which was again a bring and share style affair. I had made vegan cookies and Anna made a lemon cake. After lunch Dee was given her leaving gifts, which were the cushion cover we had all crocheted a line of and the Mexican thorn frame with a sea creature we had all painted. 

On the 25th July it was Dee’s last day in the office. Anna and I also completed CRACAB just the two of us. Then on the 27th July Abi and I were on the boat with Dan, Simon and Marcos shark tagging. We caught one shark, and I was in charge of holding the head end like the last time whilst Abi was the scribe and Marcos and Simon helped Dan with the shark at the other end. Unfortunately, I was hit with a very bad day of seasickness, so I wasn’t much help for the rest of the day ☹

The 28th July I had another Jo and Deigo day, this time shade houses and pest checks. Jo treated me to a slice of pizza from the NAAFI truck and we spent a lot of the day in the Two Boats shade house. Then on the 29th July Anna and I were back to Sea Rescue! It was a very quick session, only 15 minutes on the water sea trialling Sea rescue 1 after her repairs. In the evening we celebrated Marco’s birthday around a fire at the fire area at the front of Chinatown. Marcos taught us some traditional Brazilian dancing which was good fun. 

On the 31st July Abi and I had a Letterbox Day with Sophie and Laura. Because of heavy rains early in the year the track down to the plateau has unfortunately been completely washed out and so a vehicle can no longer get down to the bottom. This means we now have to hike from the gate of the Marty Wade Track all the way down to the Plateau. We started the day at the office at 6:30am and the hike took us around an hour and 40 minutes to get to the Plateau. Sophie and I then split from Abi and Laura who were going to try and satellite tag some frigate birds, whilst Sophie and carried out the usual productivity monitoring of the Frigate colonies. We also put up a camera trap at one of the colonies (I think B) and in total carried out the monitoring at six colonies in total. 

First Sophie would take a photo of the colonies and check the previous photo to see if we had any new potential nesting adults in the colony. Then we would tie nest days to rocks and I would crawl up to the birds and place a nest tag next to the new birds if they were on an egg or if they were firmly put and it wasn’t clear if they were or not (noted as AIA, Apparently incubating Adult). We then all met back at the beginning of the Plateau at 13:30 and hiked back to the land rover, which we reached at around 16:30. It was a long and tiring day, but I really enjoy being part of the important monitoring programme.