Wednesday, April 9. Sunny skies, calm seas, 82F.
Last evening, just before sailing for Cape Verde Islands, the captain announced that we would all be surprised to hear of our new destination: Ascension Island! Now Ascension Island was always on our original schedule but for some reason when Holland America cancelled the West African ports because of ebola they also dropped Ascension. Ascension is some 1000 miles off the west coast of Africa, but I assumed there was logical reason to avoid it.
So, if we are now going to Ascension, are we going to drop one of the other ports the captain told us we would be going to to fill in the days allotted on the cruise. Coming in early to Fort Lauderdale is not an option. There is likely another shoe to drop on this yet methinks.
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After we found out we are going to Ascension after all, I asked my friend in Britain, if he could send me some information on Ascension. He did and also included a little story that, with his kind permission, I will include, along with the Wikipedia write up on Ascension.
Firstly, Canberra was a British Cruise Ship that was used as a troop carrier to get British Troops to the Falklands during that war with Argentina. P&O is the name of the owner of Canberra.
Now his story…
My knowledge of Ascension Island is that it came to prominence during the Falkland's War as a staging post for the Royal Navy and the RAF. I do recall a tale about one of Canberra's Pursers, when on passage to the Falkland's, being sent ashore to the RAF base to purchase as much beer as he could for the hundreds of thirsty Royal Marines that they had on board.
The RAF were very helpful until it came to paying the bill when they would not grant the ship credit. The Purser had no option but to charge it all to his credit cards. Because they were not allowed communications with their families his wife only found out when the account arrived in her post at the end of the month.
Naturally P&O's head office settled up without any quibbles but it must have been quite a moment for her wondering what kind of trip her husband was on!
As previously mentioned it is one of The RMS main ports of call in order to transfer Saint Helenians to and from their work places at the military establishments on Ascension.
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Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) from the coast of Africa and 2,250 kilometres (1,400 mi) from the coast of South America, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha,[1] of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) to the southeast. The territory also includes the "remotest populated archipelago" on earth, the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, some 3,730 kilometres (2,300 mi) to the south (about thirty degrees of latitude) and about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.
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Today was a quiet day at sea for us. We attended one interesting lecture on whales, Fellette did some pool aerobics and I spent a LOT of time on photos. I also did an usually large amount of reading. I am getting rather used to this lazy life, but only because I know it is coming to an end.
Tomorrow we will see if we can get ashore in Ascension, which is notorious for failed landings by cruise ships. Time will tell.
Pics.
- A rather interesting new coat of arms for Ascension.
- Fellette at work today.
- Doug at work today.
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