Ascension Island Expedition -- Ascension Island, Day Three: The Dive

HIGHLAND SPRINGS, Virginia (Friday, January 25, 2008) – I was nervous when I woke up Sunday morning in my room at Ascension Auxiliary Air Field. This was going to be my big day. The dive gear I had lugged with me 10,000 miles from Richmond eastward to London; northward from London to Thurso, Scotland; southward from Thurso to Oxford, England; and then from Oxford even farther south to Ascension Island was either going to prove useful, or it would prove to be a total waste of shipping weight and effort.

This was the day I was to go scuba diving to see some of the sea life off Ascension.



I had many reasons to be nervous. I had been scuba diving only six months. All my dives at that point had been in fresh water; This was my first ocean dive. I was diving with people I had never met before: my contact, Jimmy Young, and his friend Paul Fuller. Some of the equipment I was using – tank, regulator, and buoyancy compensation device (BCD), in other words, the stuff that was to keep me alive – I had never seen before. This was to be my first dive from a boat as well as my deepest dive to that point. If I screwed up and got swept away in a current, I had thousands of miles of South Atlantic Ocean to drift in before reaching any alternative landfall.

Oh, and I hadn’t had much breakfast and NO coffee – none of the places that sold coffee to walk-in customers like me were open at the time I had to meet Jimmy and Paul at the pier in Georgetown.

I donned my swim gear and dive skin, loaded my dive bag with mask, fins, snorkel, and camera into our Obsidian Hotel rental car, and Tom Smith drove Steve Stephenson and I down to the pier. It wasn’t a long drive from the air field – nothing is a long drive from the air field – but I had plenty of time to repeatedly and silently recite a version of the Alan Shepard prayer: “God, please don’t let me fuck this up.”

Since I had not met either Jimmy or Paul before, I had no idea whom or what to look for when Steve, Tom, and I arrived at the Georgetown pier. I walked up to a group of divers unloading equipment from a small sport utility vehicle. They turned out to be a different group of divers. Paul and Jimmy were easy to spot after that – it’s not that big of a pier.



They were loading dive equipment into a Zodiac – à la Jacques-Yves Cousteau – that was sitting on a boat trailer. I’ve seen the type of rig before: john boats, bass boats, other small boats loaded on trailers pulled by your everyday car or truck. So far, so good. Something was missing, though. The boat ramp.

The Georgetown pier was at least 10 feet above the sea surface. I scanned the beaches around the pier but saw no place to back the trailer into the water. I doubted Jimmy or Paul planned to shove the Zodiac over the rail. So how were they going to get the boat in the water?

When our gear was stowed to Jimmy’s satisfaction, he went up to a large shed – garage – at the end of the street adjacent to the pier. An engine started, and the next thing I saw was a small, green, self-propelled crane heading to the pier. Jimmy was at the wheel.



He drove to the end of the pier next to the trailer and positioned the lift arm over the center of the boat. Paul then attached lift straps that ran under the boat to the hook at the end of the crane’s arm.

Jimmy lifted the boat a bit, Paul tested then straps, then Jimmy picked it completely off the trailer and lifted it over to the edge of the pier. Paul and I watched as he lowered the boat into the sea, then Paul went down the notorious steps that led from the top to the base of the pier and jumped in the water. Paul swam to the boat, climbed in, then unhooked the straps and threw them in the boat. Jimmy drove the crane back to its parking space. Paul started the Zodiac’s outboard motor, steered the boat to the base of the steps, and tied off the pier while Jimmy and I made our way down the steps.

I crawled in, found a seat on the side of the boat as Jimmy and Paul directed, and waited for my heart and respiration rate to slow down. Before my vital signs had a chance to return to normal, Jimmy and Paul cast off the lines; Paul put the motor into gear and steered the boat out of Georgetown Harbor toward the vast Atlantic that lay ahead. I waved back toward Steve and Tom, then turned my attention to the sea.





MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Saturday, January 26, 2008) – In some ways, the trip to the dive site was like a ride in a john boat on a very, very large lake. But what a lake it was! We hugged the shore of Ascension on our right – no shore was visible to our left. But there were other craft, sail boats, motor boats, and one large, mysterious ship (the MV TSgt. John A. Chapman, on contract to the U.S. Military Sealift Command) moored off Georgetown.



By the time we passed the north end of Long Beach, we were alone. We didn’t travel too far before Paul eased the throttle back and Jimmy dropped anchor. I think it was somewhere between Pyramid Point and English Bay. A few yards from the boat, a guano-covered rock jutted out of the sea. Brown boobies (Sula leucogaster) and black and brown noddies (Anous minutus and A. stolidus, respectively) alternately zipped around us and rested on the rock and shore nearby.

Jimmy, Paul, and I got our gear together. I nervously assembled the BCD and regulator that I had borrowed from them, put my camera together, and realized that I could not remember how to use the strobe on my camera, a Sea & Sea Motor SeaMaster Pro-EX. I couldn’t remember a lot of things at that point – so I kept reciting Alan Shepard’s prayer to myself.



Paul told me to attach the camera rig to a line, which he then lowered overboard. He then told me to don my gear, sit on the side of the Zodiac, and roll backward (as I had seen Jacque Cousteau’s crew do so many times on TV). When I was ready, I stuck my regulator in my mouth, put my right hand over the reg and my mask to keep them in place when I hit the water, and tumbled over the side.



My nerves settled as I sank down to the end of the line where my camera was suspended. I attached it to a D-ring on my BCD, then swam over to the anchor line and followed it down to the bottom as Paul had instructed. The waters surrounding Ascension, because of the low nutrient levels, are very clear. So clear, in fact, that one can easily get disoriented in the open water without some other frame of reference – hence the need to follow the anchor line.



I could see the bottom from the boat, but to actually reach it I had to go down to a little more than 65 feet. Once we were all together, I followed Jimmy and Paul down the slope to a depth of 75 feet.



The wall leading up to the rock and the nearby shore was quite steep, the dark-gray color of the lava that dominated much of what they called “clinker” on Ascension. From the base of the wall, the bottom sloped more gently out to deeper water. Unlike a coral reef, there were few obvious signs of life attached to either the wall or the bottom. The bottom itself was light gray, littered with gravel-to-cobble sized volcanic stones.

The life was there, of course. Black durgon (Melichthys niger) and ocean triggerfish (Canthidermis sufflamen) were the most abundant of the larger fish, which included sand tilefish (Malacanthus plumieri). Blue surgeonfish (Acanthurus coeruleus) fed among the rocks on the bottom. Rock hinds (Epinephelus adscensionis), fangtooth morays (Enchelycore anatina), and sea urchins (Diadema antillarum ascensionis) tried to hide their bodies among the rocks. Smaller species, such as the resplendent angelfish (Centropyge resplendens) and Lubbock’s yellowtail damselfish (Stegastes lubbocki) were more successful at concealing themselves.

I shot up a roll of film, but since my mind blanked on the use of the strobe, I kept it off. After the film was developed, I learned one of the cardinal rules of underwater photography – if you want to capture the colors at depth, you really need to use a flash! I noticed little more than a yellow-green tint to everything I saw, but the film didn’t capture the range of color I saw. There was nothing wrong with the camera, though. Water filters the light, absorbing some colors (reds and yellows) before others (blues and greens). Our brain adjusts for the effect, so that things look more or less normal to us, but film has no similar ability to compensate. The underwater photos you see here are much bluer on the original slides – but I have added back some of the missing color digitally after scanning the slides.



Being more nervous – and probably in much worse physical shape – than Jimmy or Paul, I used my air up faster than they did. I made my way back to the anchor, swam around it until my air pressure dropped as low as I cared for it to drop, and followed the anchor line back to the surface. I swam around the surface until Paul showed up, then we crawled in the boat and got our gear in. Jimmy was last to surface. With us all together and the anchor raised, Paul started the motor and steered the boat back toward Georgetown.



Going down the steps on the Georgetown pier earlier that morning was easy: A slip would have landed us in our destination – the boat. Getting out of the boat onto the steps upon our return, however, was another matter. The British journalist and author Simon Winchester has written about the treacherous steps on the pier. In his book, The Sun Never Sets, he writes of “nearly drowning myself as I leapt for the rope at the bottom of the Tartar Steps, missed, and slipped on the slime. . . .”

As Paul pulled the Zodiac up to the pier, Jimmy and I each grabbed ropes. But the treacherous swell kicked in, lifting the boat up and pulling it away from the pier. Like a fool, I held on to my rope. My feet pulled away – leaving me dangling like a pig on a slanted spit – and my hands slipped and I fell in. With my glasses on!







I crawled to the surface, realizing that being between a boat and a pier in a nasty swell was a less-than-ideal situation. Paul pulled the boat away. I tried to climb up on the base of the steps, but they wouldn’t sit still. I eventually grabbed one of the ropes and tried to pull myself up. Twenty years and 50 pounds ago, the gambit may have worked. Not this time, though.



A number of people called out suggestions. One, from Jimmy I think, was to hold on to the rope and let the swell lift me up on the steps. When a big enough swell came, I swung my legs forward as if in a sitting position. The water deposited me on the concrete on my stern. It wasn’t a dignified landing, but it worked! My glasses even managed to stay where they belonged -- on my head!



Jimmy and Paul pulled up. Steve and Tom – who had explored the area around Georgetown while I was on the dive – helped us unload the boat. Steve, Tom, and I said goodbye to Jimmy and Paul, and Tom drove into Georgetown so that I could find some coffee before my caffeine-deficiency headache set it. We then headed back to the American air field so I could get ready for work in Ascension’s terrestrial environments.

Ascension Island Expedition -- Ascension Island, Day Two: Green Mountain

MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Saturday, July 7, 2007) – Afterward leaving Jacqui Ellick and her Green sea turtle nesting project, I returned to the the American air field to shower, prepare lunch for the day (peanut butter and jelly), and head into the field with Steve Stephenson and Tom Smith.



The three of us first headed into Georgetown. I may have been the reason – one of my biggest problems on the island was in dealing with a caffeine deficiency. I wasn’t staying at the Obsidian Hotel or its affiliates. I wasn’t stationed at the American or British bases, working for one of their contractors, nor working for one of the other outfits on the island, like the BBC, which had a cafeteria for workers. Thus, I had no easy access to coffee, and unless I were in the right place at the right time – mid-morning was NOT the right time – I was screwed.


I found some overly baked coffee at one of the restaurants in town. Like a homeless person digging cigarette butts out of the garbage, I took it and was grateful for what I could find.


We left Georgetown and headed toward Green Mountain. This was our first opportunity to get a really good look at the interior of Ascension. In some ways, the landscape reminded me of the deserts of southeast Arizona – it should have, for the bulk of the greenery visible was mesquite (Prosopis juliflora) and prickly pear cactus (Opuntia vulgaris) introduced from the deserts of North America.


For the most part, the green was but a garnish. The most prominent color was a rusty red mixed with ashy gray of the cinders, ash, and lava from the numerous volcanic cones and vents of the island.


As we passed Two Boats, however, the volcanic desolation gave way to forest. Steve and I have spent lots of time in forests – we’ve worked together since 1992 in studying the forests of Virginia and West Virginia, for example, and we’ve both seen our share of tropical forests. The forest on Green Mountain, however, was much, much different from anything we had ever seen.



OK, there were trees, shrubs, grasses, herbs, vines, ferns, mosses, etc., like you would find in any mesic (moist) forest. But this forest was completely artificial, consisting of species from around the world thrown together in a haphazard fashion. And it works! It is healthy. It is maintaining itself. It is modifying the surrounding environment, for good in some ways, for ill in others.



On the good side, Joseph Dalton Hooker, a botanist, friend of Charles Darwin, and one of the earliest supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution, proposed the planting of an artificial forest on Ascension in a report to the British Admiralty in 1847 for the purpose of enhancing the climate – in other words, increasing the rainfall. He recommended that certain types of species in certain areas: shrubs in ravines, trees up on Green Mountain, tropical crops in the wetter areas near the mountain’s summit.





Hooker’s plan seems to have worked. The forest, consisting of species from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific, seems to have taken root. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that rainfall has increased, at least on Green Mountain.

The problem is, however, that some native plant and animal species have been adversely affected by the introductions – some have gone extinct, others are on the verge of extinction. The groundwater regime has been disrupted. Historic springs, such as Dampier’s Drip, on the flanks of the mountain have gone dry as the trees have pumped the water out of the ground and into the atmosphere via a process called evapotranspiration.



MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Sunday, July 8, 2007) – Near the summit of Green Mountain is the colonial administrator’s residence. Higher up is Garden Cottage (now part of the Obsidian Hotel) and an abandoned barracks for the old Royal Marine Garrison. The Garden Cottage is aptly named. It has long been the site of a garden for the British personnel stationed on the island. Ascension conservation staff manage several greenhouses and open-air gardens there. Someone takes care of a number of ornamentals on the cottage grounds. The gardens there used to be so successful that the British would sell surplus produce to passing ships.

When we arrived at the Garden Cottage, I went ahead to meet with Stedson Stroud in the greenhouses. There I ran into Dominique, a woman returning to England with her husband, Mike, and son, after working several years as a conservation officer in the Falklands. Steve and Tom had mentioned an interest in going there (as I am), so I introduced them to Dominique when they caught up with me.



While I waited for Steve and Tom, Stedson spotted an Ascension land crab (Gecarcinus lagostoma) on one of the greenhouses. He measures them as part of an effort to monitor the populations health, and asked me to help catch it. I had the hard job – catcher. Stedson used a pole to knock it loose from the mesh that covered the greenhouse. Somehow I, whose baseball career is marked with a lifetime fielding percentage of .000, managed to catch the crab unharmed. Stedson measured it, I photographed it, and we let it go.



When Steve and Tom arrived, I introduced them to Dominique. They had quite a conversation. As they talked, I began walking up to the summit. Steve and Tom would join me before long.



Just below the notch where Breakneck Valley reaches the crest of Green Mountain, I found Elliot’s Path. I followed it for a bit to the east, and saw the southeast shore of the island for the first time. I turned back verily quickly and tried to core three Norfolk Island pines (Araucaria excelsa) along the trail. Working along the slope was pretty damned difficult. One particularly hard part was crawling through the bananas (Musa spp.) – they didn’t offer too steady of a handhold as I slipped on the moist leaf litter.



Steve and Tom eventually caught up with me – Tom drove up to the abandoned marine barracks in a notch at the crest of Green Mountain. I joined them as they headed up. When we reached the barracks, we were greeted by a stunning sight – Breakneck Valley, a cleft that runs along the southeast slope of the mountain from the crest down to just above sea level.



The climate is much more pleasant near the summit of the mountain. Temperatures are cooler. It is often breezy – to the extent that gale force winds can be considered breezy – as a result of the nearly constant southeast trade winds. Oftentimes it is foggy (cloudy), as the moisture-laden air carried by southeast trades is forced upward over the mountain, cooling as it rises and forcing the water vapor in it to condense to form water droplets.








The British took advantage of this to boost the water supply for their garrison there, paving over the head of Breakneck Valley. Condensed water was collected at the base and fed into a pipeline for transport of the water to the settled areas of the island.



MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Friday, September 21, 2007) – The summit of Green Mountain consists of twin knobs reached by the Dew Pond Trail, which winds gently along the contour up the marine barracks and around the south slope toward the saddle between the two knobs. The trail then splits, one branch leading to an antenna on the shorter western knob, and another up to the Dew Pond at the summit of the Eastern (and highest) knob.







MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Sunday, January 20, 2008) – On the northern slopes of both knobs, a lush forest – basically an artificial cloud forest – of mixed species, including Red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), Norfolk Island pine, mulberry (Morus spp.), screwpine (Pandanus spp.), Cape yew (Podocarpus elongata), and banana (Musa spp.). The southern and eastern slopes are covered by vast expanses of ginger (Alpinia speciosa); grasses, such as greasy grass (Melinis minutiflora), cow grass (Papsalum conjugatum), and dropseed Sporobolus spp.; and patches of Bermuda cedar (Juniperous bermudiana) and other tree species.





The top of the mountain is covered by one of the weirdest forests I have seen – a dense bamboo (Bambusa spp.) stand that surrounds the Dew Pond (itself complete with Blue water lilies (Nymphaea capensis) and a toy alligator). While walking up a boardwalk on the Dew Pond trail to the summit, I passed another land crab – at more than 2,800 feet about sea level!





The trail then drops down and winds precariously around to the north slope of the mountain. I did not follow it far enough to learn whether or not it joined Elliott's Path. I did drop into a clearing on the eastern slope, with views of the eastern portions of Ascension. As with most views of the island from Green Mountain, the scenery was spectacular. Somewhere in the distance was Africa. Waves like tiny strands of white thread bathed the shoreline below. Of more immediate concern, however, was the steep slope at my feet. A good gust of wind could have knocked me over and down -- with no chance to stop for hundreds of feet.

I preferred the shelter of the forest, so headed back up to meet Steve and Tom.









After my explorations along the Dew Pond Trail, I returned to the slopes above Breakneck Valley to core some Bermuda cedar. The wind beat the hell out of me on the steep slopes, making work difficult. I got little done before Steve and Tom joined me for our return to our lodgings on the American air field.





By the time we got back, I was pretty tired. I worked on trying to check my e-mail – that did not work – and later went out in search of dinner at the Volcano Club on the American air field. When I got back, I tried to read some of Frank Herbert’s Dune. I was supposed to write an essay on the ecology of Dune for a forthcoming book, The Science of Dune: An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science behind Frank Herbert’s Fictional Universe (BenBella Books, 2008). In my contribution to the book I managed to compare the terraforming of the desert planet Arrakis to the British effort to terraform Ascension. This night, however, sleep came faster than the end of whatever chapter I was trying to get through.

Ascension Island Expedition -- Ascension Island, Day Two: The Beach

MECHANICSVILLE, Virginia (Sunday, June 24, 2007) – I met Jacqui Ellick and a couple of helpers on Long Beach early Saturday morning.


Jacqui is a long-time resident of Ascension, the publisher of the local newspaper, The Islander, and a volunteer with the Ascension Conservation Centre. Besides leading turtle tours, she has been conducting her own research project on the nesting of the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas).



Green sea turtles are endangered. The beaches of Ascension Island serve as a major nesting area for the species. Jacqui’s research involves the monitoring of the numbers of new nesting sites throughout the season. She locates new nests by following turtle tracks from the shore inland, then looking for unsorted sand deposits that indicated burial of eggs – female turtles all-too-often give up on a pit before beginning the laying of eggs and will not waste effort filling an abandoned pit back up with sand.



When Jacqui finds a new nest, she records the location using a global positioning system, then she and her helpers rake over the turtle tracks that led to the nest. (This is how she can differentiate newer sites from older ones.) The work was hard – sand is not the easiest material to walk on. I cannot imagine how difficult it is for 800-pound turtles with flippers instead of legs.

The sand was littered with detritus from dug-up nests – as the nesting season wears on, it is difficult to find a patch of sand that has not been visited previously by another turtle. Seabirds and crabs, such as the Ascension Island Sally Lightfoot Crab (Graspus adscensionis), feast on the exposed eggs. Even when the nests aren’t disturbed, hatchlings that emerge after sunrise are easily picked off by predators. I observed Ascension Frigatebirds swooping down on the beach for tasty morsels, whether alive or otherwise.