Travels of a Fish Nut

Comfortless Cove is a beach in the next bay to the north of Long Beach. It was used by vessels infected with yellow fever and was originally called Comfort Cove but it’s name changed and got stuck. It is a small bay and would normally be dismissed out of hand as a beach destination. However, it has one advantage over the majority of beaches on Ascension in that it is possible to swim in the sea here. Much of the sea surrounding the island is too dangerous to swim in, with dangerous currents and breakers making it foolhardy to venture in. Comfortless is about ½ hour walk from Georgetown but, I have been finding out to my cost, nothing is ever straightforward on Ascension. Directions normally consist of ‘follow that road’ while pointing vaguely to a cross-section. After a false start I got more distinct directions and a basic map and headed off. After a good half an hour I was less than halfway there and the day was hotting up, but a kind offer of a lift got me there in much better time....

The turtle watching began at the Conservation building in the centre of town where we watched a short video on the turtles of Ascension. Then we headed out to the beach I’d been on just a few hours before. The group walked along the track at the back of the beach while two people from Conservation walked around the beach turtle-spotting. They don’t come onto shore until quite late (at least 10 pm) so we had to wait a while before we got the word that one had been found laying. We were told not to approach the turtles coming up the beach but once they begin laying nothing will distract them. We walked towards the shore and there in a huge crater, at least 3 metres across, was a green turtle. This turtle was about average size, with a carapace of about 1 metre in length. She was busy laying her eggs and you could actually see them coming out from the cloaca below the tail. Females travel from the Brazilian coast every three or four years to mate and lay eggs on Ascension. They take so l...

The RAF flight to the Falklands stops in Ascension island, a tiny volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, partly because of the turtles which nest here and partly because I have a thing for remote places! I arrived on Ascension in the morning with the sun already high in the sky and blazing down. After getting settled into the accommodation I went for a walk around town. Georgetown, the capital, is a small coastal town on the west of the island. The buildings are mostly single-storey white blocks and there is little to outwardly distinguish the shop from, say, the police station. There is one shop in town which sells everything (for a limited version of ‘everything’ – food, cleaning products, clothes, DVDs, presents, fishing gear is all present in greater or lesser amounts). One thing that immediately surprised me was how little vegetation there was, and subsequently, how little fresh fruit and vegetables were available. Everything comes ...