We arrived at Acension island first thing in the morning after a days sailing from St Helena. This is also not a big island at only 34 sq miles and has even less people with a total population of 880. Its also not easy to visit this island as you need special permits sometimes taking months to get but as we were only going to sail around it thankfully we didnt need to worry about all that. We stopped in the harbour to pick up half a dozen people who were coming on board to sell souvenirs, stamps and postcards so we had the unique chance of writing a postcard, stamping it and posting it off. Not many people I know have received a postcard from Acension Island, in fact after visiting the island there is still noone I know who has, sorry about that.
They also took on board a marine biologist who gave a commentary from the bridge as we sailed around. It looked a lot flatter than St Helena, at least there wasnt a huge cliff to scale to get to the town. The harbour was quite pretty with a few yachts bobbing around and a lovely long golden sand beach. Apparently the green turtles visit this beach to lay their eggs. Back in the old days the Brits killed a lot of the turtles and they end up as turtle soup on the tables of royalty and the gentry. Now they are protected and the numbers are starting to increase again.
I dont really have much information on this island as there were no hand outs so the following is the best I can do. It was discovered in 1501 by the Portuguese of course and was named after the day of its recorded discovery but it wasnt until 1815 that the British set up a navel base on the island, partly to do with making sure no one tried to rescuse Napoleon on the neighboring island. After he died in 1821 they set about They were also trying to fight the slave trade where a lot of these islands were used by the traders to buy, sell and replenish provisions. Coming forward into the 20th century NASA built a tracking station here to monitor the Apolo lunar landing. They also built a very big runway, I think its the longest in the world, just in case they had to land it there. Happily they didn't as there would have been no way of getting it back from there.
We noted that there were lots of big domes on the island, I think some of them were observatories as the stars are very clear here with no pollution of any kind to get in the way.
There seemed to be a lot more flat land here even tho it was still mountainous but not so sheer or dramatic. A pod of dolphins escorted us around for part of the time and there were a lot of sea birds, mainly terns wheeling around the ship and cliffs. It was the most birds we had seen since setting out I reckon. The other creature they have on the island is the massive land crabs. These crabs live up in the mountains and only descend down to the sea to spawn. Once that was done they make the long arduous journey back up into the mountains again. We never saw any of course but I do have a postcard of one.
We sailed around for a total of 40 miles, at one stage coming in very close to the shore. The commodore stopped by our table a bit later for a chat and I mentioned how close we were, fearing another Costa Concordia, he just smiled and said that was why they had a bridge management team onboard, whatever that is. He had never been to this island before but he said having met 8 of its occupants, sailed so close to the land and brought the TShirt he now felt he had truly been there!
They also took on board a marine biologist who gave a commentary from the bridge as we sailed around. It looked a lot flatter than St Helena, at least there wasnt a huge cliff to scale to get to the town. The harbour was quite pretty with a few yachts bobbing around and a lovely long golden sand beach. Apparently the green turtles visit this beach to lay their eggs. Back in the old days the Brits killed a lot of the turtles and they end up as turtle soup on the tables of royalty and the gentry. Now they are protected and the numbers are starting to increase again.
I dont really have much information on this island as there were no hand outs so the following is the best I can do. It was discovered in 1501 by the Portuguese of course and was named after the day of its recorded discovery but it wasnt until 1815 that the British set up a navel base on the island, partly to do with making sure no one tried to rescuse Napoleon on the neighboring island. After he died in 1821 they set about They were also trying to fight the slave trade where a lot of these islands were used by the traders to buy, sell and replenish provisions. Coming forward into the 20th century NASA built a tracking station here to monitor the Apolo lunar landing. They also built a very big runway, I think its the longest in the world, just in case they had to land it there. Happily they didn't as there would have been no way of getting it back from there.
We noted that there were lots of big domes on the island, I think some of them were observatories as the stars are very clear here with no pollution of any kind to get in the way.
There seemed to be a lot more flat land here even tho it was still mountainous but not so sheer or dramatic. A pod of dolphins escorted us around for part of the time and there were a lot of sea birds, mainly terns wheeling around the ship and cliffs. It was the most birds we had seen since setting out I reckon. The other creature they have on the island is the massive land crabs. These crabs live up in the mountains and only descend down to the sea to spawn. Once that was done they make the long arduous journey back up into the mountains again. We never saw any of course but I do have a postcard of one.
We sailed around for a total of 40 miles, at one stage coming in very close to the shore. The commodore stopped by our table a bit later for a chat and I mentioned how close we were, fearing another Costa Concordia, he just smiled and said that was why they had a bridge management team onboard, whatever that is. He had never been to this island before but he said having met 8 of its occupants, sailed so close to the land and brought the TShirt he now felt he had truly been there!
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