Our home away from home for now, the Obsidian Hotel, Ascension Island.
Ascension Island. Volcanic, 100 kilometers west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the tip of a 3,200 meter high, 60 kilometer wide shield volcano. Most recent lava flows are thought to be in the last 1,000 years but there have been none since 1501. It’s some eight degrees south of the equator.
While Ascension had been discovered previously, it took the arrival of Napolean in 1815 to prompt the British government to set up a camp here, to prevent the French from attempting a rescue mission.
The waters off Ascension are home to spotted and bottlenose dolphins, humpback and Gervais’ beaked whales and the big attraction, the green turtle. The green turtles are laying right now (December to June) and then begin an incredible swim across to Brazil, returning in time to the very same beaches here to once again lay their eggs.
We're booked into a walk with the Conservation Service tonight to see nesting turtles, and it doesn't look to be too much of a challenge. On a quick walk to the beach when we arrived we saw four or five turtle trails from the water to the holes they'd dug last night, I guess, right by the jetty.
There are frigate birds, petrels and my favorite, the silly-looking masked booby. About 25 species of plants are thought to be native, ten unique to the island. 135 species of invertebrates have been recorded here, including Psuedoscorpions, flightless crickets and the blues-singing Endemic Blind Spider.
Ascension is home to butterflies, including the African Monarch, geckos and land crabs, feral cows and sheep and chickens, and grey rabbits. And Obsidian. In fact, the only hotel here is the Obsidian Hotel, our home for a couple of days.
All the way around the bottom of the island is barren, but a mountain rises toward the east of the island informatively named Green Mountain, atop which are nature walks and trails. The island’s only naturally produced water comes from up here.
We have a car hired for tomorrow morning to check it out up there. Too hot down here.
Note: I've posted several more photos to this trip's Gallery at EarthPhotos.com this afternoon. Many with no captions yet, some duplicates, all out of chronological order. Not very organized just now. Sorry for that, but they're there.
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