Day 17: starry night

Last night after watching a film, about 6 of us went to a remote part of the island to do some star gazing. It's the first clear night I've seen since I arrived so we thought wed make the most of it. 

It was stunning and the Milky Way was so clear. My photos don't do it justice obviously.

Day 15: ugh

So yesterday was Monday, and the alcohol ban was officially lifted. 

My alarm was not kind when it went off this morning. I glanced out the corner of my eye, when they eventually opened, and saw this scuttling along the floor:

Yes, I know you don't want to see that, but neither do I. 

It certainly got me out of bed anyway. 

Today I'll be cracking out the strength 12 on the Nespresso machine. 

Day 14: NTR

Not much going on today. Still windy and raining but it should improve tomorrow if our excellent forecasting skills are to believed. 

Went for a jog along the beach after lunch, and then to the American air base mess for dinner with the air traffic controllers. Love it there, just look at this:

After dinner I watched the boys play basket ball, in the rain. 

Then we watched a film. On a day shift tomorrow doubled up with the new guy. Blind leading the blind...!

Day 13: Triple phys, lava, clinker and scree.

So the flight back to the UK last night was delayed. That meant Helen had to stay an extra night in temporary accommodation with all her bags already loaded on to the plane. Not great. It also meant getting up at 5am to catch the re-scheduled flight. To save another guy from having to get up at 5.30 to take her and another to the airport I suggested they just drive the car and leave it there then I would run up and get it this morning. 

I woke up at around 8am shocked (and a little let down) to see that it was dry and sunny. Yesterday I had issued a heavy rain and low cloud warning for this morning. Only a weather forecaster can be upset about it being sunny... I rang the office who said the rain had just slowed down, but that it was coming. I took the met window and started jogging. It took me 40 minutes to get to the air terminal, which isn't so shocking. I started driving back to Traveller's Hill and the heavens burst. Luckily it wasn't so bad that it ruined anyone's day, but was bad enough to not have to come under fire from military met banter round the dinner table later. 

We went for lunch at 12, then set out to do one of the letter box walks. We drove to the start point, and i looked on in fear at the "level 3" mountain that stood in front of us. We had had a gust of 38 earlier that morning, the rain was coming down hard and we couldn't see the top of the hill due to cloud. Thankfully the guys decided on a different walk, so we drove to the start of the bird cave, which is a level 2 walk. 

We set off and to be fair most of it was flat. Compared to the view of all the various hills and mountains I mean anyway. It was moderately drizzling for a good proportion of the walk too. Ugh!

At this point I thought I would explain to the group what a "Further" is. I announced that I had invented a new unit of distance, that varies depending on how far you have travelled. Chris stopped in his tracks, turned round and gave me a "oh god, here we go... Another gem from Emma..." It's really quite clever and has revolutionized my "are we there yet" dilemmas. One further is precisely equal to however far you have already travelled. So you would say "two more furthers" and you would know exactly how much further you have to go. Genius. I don't think the people who create SII units will necessarily agree, but I still keen campaigning for it to be a thing. 

With about three furthers to go we came face to face with a field filled will black stones/rocks/boulders/sharp pointy bits. These are called clinker and are not to be confused with lava. Clinker is horrible to walk on, especially in the rain with blisters and a bleedy foot (D list injuries, not worthy of blog status). It looks heavy and that it would weigh the same as a rock, but it's mostly air so it's as light as a fly. Very tricksy. It makes a sound like you're breaking plates if you step on it quite right. Saying that it still hurts when you stub your foot on it. A lot of it was stealthing between the grass too, sneaky. 

There are all these types of land surface that I am learning about for the first time. Another is scree, and on one of the walks you have to scree run down a mountain...! Surely that's not a difficultly level 2 walk?!

We scrabbled over the clinker and after about an hours walk in total we arrived at the bird cave. You had to almost slide down on your bum to get to the opening, which was just a hollowed out little cave thing, obviously. The birds had relocated years ago apparently, and all that was left there now was a few bones, skulls and animal carcasses from critters that fell in to the hollow and couldn't get out. 

In the hollow there was another small tunnel, which the letter box book said you could go down, "provided your waistline is not too expansive". We had heard rumors that a sheep had wondered in, and obviously couldn't make it out. Chris stuck his head in and said the stench confirmed this was probably true. Also the amount of flies backed this up. 

Guess these guys didn't make it out...

The letter box with inside the main cave, so we each took our stamp and had our selfie. 

The walk back seemed quicker and less craggy. Maybe I've progressed from beginner already, who knows. 

We arrived home with just enough time to shower before dinner. 

After dinner we had a group insanity session in the gym. 

Redders. 

That's a pretty successful day off I think. Triple phys and a letter box walk. I'm now sat in the ponda about to watch a film with everyone. Nice :)

Day 13: it's still raining.

Harder today. And more of it. 

Day 11: Rainy days and saying goodbye

So it's been raining. Quite a lot. The temperature also got down to 20.6 the other night - freezing!!! Today was another rainy day. But the sort of rain that's really fine and you don't notice, and that blows sideways in the wind and soaks you through (technical term: drizzle). 

Today Helen and I squared away the last remaining pieces of our handover and as of lunch time she was officially done. I spent the afternoon sorting out some paperwork and then drove home, in the rain, and went for dinner. 

Today is Helen's last actual night on island, and although the alcohol ban continues, we had some leaving drinks in the mess bar. It's not exactly what I was expecting on a military detachment, that the last place I should find is the mess bar, but after almost two weeks I finally made my debut. It's actually very nice ...And the diet coke was lovely. 

At around 8pm I could hear the distant warblings of someone singing Niel Diamond's Sweet Caroline beckoning in the distance. I told Helen and her response - head over to the naafi bar early and get cracking on the karaoke! 

The naafi bar is just like the one in the Falklands. Except obviously that's not in the tropics so it doesn't have open sides and palm trees on the terrace... Most of the military guys couldn't face a night in the naafi without a beer so they thinned out pretty early ...the diet coke was lovely there too. 

Sober karaoke is great!! Helen and I went straight for the book and put our names down for summer lovin'. I assumed there would be a wait of an hour or so while the hoards of other keen karaoke-ists queued impatiently and went before us, but within about two minutes our names had been called. It's fair to say we nailed it. She was John Travolta, and I Olivia Newton John. We had a good night and it was sad for Helen as she had lots of goodbyes and had clearly made some close friends out here. 

Legend of our star-like talents had spread, so without wanting to disappoint our fans we took to the stage again. This time I was helping Helen out with a fitting farewell nod to the end of her tour. After trying, and failing, to convince any of her male friends to duet with her, I stepped up and offered to be her Patrick Swayze. She said a little speech first, and then the crowd hushed into a stunned silence and admired in awe at our pitch perfect harmonies. The instrumental came, and of course, the epic part in the movie - The Lift. The crowd cheered as Helen ran towards me and I lifted her... about three centimeters off the ground. 

It was a bloody good night, though my account of the karaoke may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps it was the diet coke talking...

Good bye Helen, I will miss you xx

Day 10: So I'm out-doorsie now!

Last night was my final doubled up night shift. I think everything seemed to go ok...! So that's it, I'm on my own solo now. 

I slept until lunch time, then after lunch in the mess here me and two of the girls planned to go for a walk. 

"Ascension heritage" have set up a series of 42 letter box walks, with difficulty ratings of 1 to 5. You buy a book from the conservation centre and on each page there is a map and space for a stamp. When you get to the letter box there is obviously a stamp kit and a book to write a message. 

The two girls I went with today have done just over half the walks, and decided to pick a difficulty level 2 walk, which the book said would take about two hours. 

The walk was called "Shelley Beach" and involved a walk through desert looking gravel stuff and spurge grass first with locusts everywhere. Their little wings and quite sharp and they jumped up and down all hap-hazard ish. 

After about half an hour we approached a lava field that I assumed we would walk around, but the book instructed up to walk through it. I thought this was crazy but for the other two it was business as usual. 

I had never been on a hike before, so the fact that this was only a difficulty rating of 2... That doesn't bode well for me and the rest of the walks!!!

It took us about an hour to reach the beach, which as the name suggests had lots of pretty shells on it. And loads of dead black fish. And yes, they have human teeth!! Very small ones, but still gross!!

We found the letter box, had the compulsory selfie, then wandered back.

 

I was pooped when we got back to the car but had really enjoyed the walk. My walking boots still had the tags on this morning, and look at me now!!

One stamp down...

Days 6 and 7: first weekend on Asi

Last night was Helens leaving party. We were meant to have drinks and pizza down at the Pondarosa, but given the alcohol ban it seemed more like a children's party!! 

Helen had stocked up on sugary fizzy drinks for everyone, rather than putting money behind the bar which would have been normal practice. 

The pizzas were great and we all played card games and drank Mountain Dew :)

Today was awesome. After a trip to the gym and lunch in the mess, about 15 of us went down to English Bay. It looked even more stunning in the sunshine.

We lounged around on the beach for an hour or so then I went to test the water. It was so clear you could see the bottom and there loads of fishes. Black fish and ball jack mostly apparently and also some silver thin long things. I was feeling brave so had a go on a spare snorkel and it was awesome. Helen took some photos on her waterproof camera so I'll upload those when I get the chance. 

Further down the beach there's a rock pool and a sort of gap called the washing machine. It's high enough for people to dive off the rocks, if guess it's only about a 3 metre jump off the rocks into the washing machine. My bravery was not faltering so I climbed up the rocks determined to give it a go. From the bottom it didn't look that high, but it certainly felt it stood at the top looking down. The side of the rock were very sharp and I started to doubt myself, worrying that I wouldn't be able to jump far enough away to clear them. I had seen for myself with my snorkel that the water was deep enough so I wouldn't hit myself on the bottom. I wanted to change my mind, but instead I just went for it. I didn't dive or anything, obviously, I've never even jumped into a swimming pool before so I can't believe I actually did it!

After that we had a barbecue on the beach with some tuna the guys had caught and frozen a week or so ago. 

Amazing. 

Day 5

So this blog has been quite boring so far. Since I arrived Helen and I have been in work every day so it's been very work heavy. The evenings have been different to how they normally are due to a alcohol ban that is currently ongoing. So it's a been a little quiet. 

Anyway today we at least went off base, briefly, so I got to see one of the other tourist spots for days off. 

After lunch we headed to English Bay with two of the other forecasters. It's a small ish beach with white sand and crystal blue water, with rock pools and fish. It was quite cloudy, but whenever the sun did poke out it was very strong.

 

I will take some nicer pictures when the weather is better!!!

After that Helen and I went to the gym while the others played badminton. 

For dinner we went over to the American air base, where they have a diner. That was fun, and they only give change in dollars!!!

Saturday is Helens leaving do. It won't be quite as she planned it, as we will just be on fizzy pop all night, but we'll have a great time anyway :)

Day 3: Land crab!!

This little fella came into the office today!!!

(Zoom in, he's only a baby and I didn't want to get too close!!)

Day 2: first day in the office... And the beach.

Wow what a day!! I'm shattered now but it's been amazing. I'll keep this short as I want to go to bed and I haven't even unpacked yet I've been that busy. 

We went for breakfast at around 8am in the mess. Very different to in the Falklands, everyone eats together whatever rank you are or who you work for. Prob because there are less of us?? Anyway. There was loads of fresh fruit which was brilliant!!

We then went for our meeting with the Administrator at 9am, in the Capitol City of George Town. He heads the government here so he's quite important. What a nice chap! The rest of the morning was then spent meeting various people, filling in forms, and dealing with minor IT disasters. 

The Met Office is as I would expect, just surrounded with Palm trees and mountains!! Here are a few pics of the office, and the view to the front (Palm trees) and back (mountains). 

I met the rest of the team and they all are lovely. I've met them all before anyway but you know what I mean. 

I took a few pics on the way to lunch, of our drive from the office to the mess, so you can see what it looks like. 

The afternoon was filled with more form filling, meeting people, and dealing with IT. We left at around 4.30, went to the gym and had dinner. The food here is awesome. Loads of fresh fruit and veg - way better than the Falklands!!!!

After dinner Helen suggested we head to Long Beach to try and see some green turtles. It's the very end of turtle season, so we weren't expecting to see much. Long Beach is, as expected, a long beach with white sand and sea that is too dangerous to swim in. It looked beautiful and very inviting. Especially as the sea is around 27 degrees at the moment. The sun was setting which made it look even more beautiful. 

We walked along for a while, and then I spotted one little solitary turtle!! All alone!! Probably the last one of the season, I thought... Very cute. 

We then swung by the hotel in George Town for a quick drink. That place really just feels like a holiday resort it's very strange!!!!

Well I have two day shifts and then a night coming up, so id best get some rest!!