Late report on Ascension

Ascension Island is a principal nesting place for green turtles.  We had a night-time tour organized by two Ph.D.s from the University of Exeter.  The turtles, which average 3 feet long and 400 pounds and live to be about 100 years old, crawl out of the sea at night onto the beach, dig enormous holes with their flippers, lay about 100 golf ball size squishy eggs, and then cover them with dry sand before returning to the sea.  By next morning, the eggs are rather like large ping pong balls.  One can tell this, because a few are accidentally improperly covered, and birds circle the beach the next morning looking for eggs to eat.  The birds eat the contents and leave the ping pong ball shell.  The thousands of turtles that come to Ascension swim back to Brazil after laying several batches of eggs and spend the rest of the year eating sea grasses off the coast there. The best food on the island may well be at the Village Takeaway in Two Boats.  It's just a kitchen with a postage-stamp sized inside area for customers to give their orders, and a few tables outside.  Run by Phyllis, a friendly St. Helenian, we had tuna fish cakes one night and goat curry another!  We had pizza (what else!) at the public cafeteria at the USAF base and went to a Friday night fish fry (including eel, grouper and tuna) at the NAAFI on the RAF base. Petrol (gasoline for you Yankees!) is 98 p. per litre.  We'll let you convert to $/US gallon.  Considering the location, it seems cheap!