A View of Georgetown, Ascension Island

Photos

It is 9:20 am and we have played Louis Armstrong and set out for Dakar. Now instead of a stretch of 3 sea days to reach the coast of Africa again, we'll have 4. We arrived at our Ascension Island anchorage on schedule at 7 am. We were at breakfast at 8 am. Saturday, so eggs for me. Around 8:30 am we were in Palm Court watching the big white breakers ashore at the natural stone outcropping with the tender dock on the other side. The Captain came over the PA and said his safety officer had radioed him from ashore on the tender dock saying he was one wave up to his knees in water and the next wave the tender was a meter below the dock. There was no way for them to tie up. We had been warned when the Captain read the marine forecast yesterday at noon of over 1 meter swells.

Which brings me to further background on the price of Ascension Island landing permits for Crystal passengers. $13 to 14 USD was a surprise but did not seem unreasonable. Crystal wasn't charging us, the government of Ascension Island was. It said so right on the form. (Cool Arrival stamp, btw!) So, after the 1st letter saying how they'd charge our shipboard accounts if our keycards were scanned here, there was the red card saying that Crystal would pay the fee at no cost to any passengers. Then we read Reflections arrival information that said in not one, but 2 places, quite clearly that passengers would be billed if their keycards were scanned here. So, now we are sure the first letter was not in error and Reflections was printed before the change occurred. We can only imagine the string of irate complaints that must have occurred over a 12 to 24 hour period between the delivery of the 1st letter with the landing permits enclosed, to generate the policy reversal and red card printing and delivery to every cabin. Clay said he knew when he read the red card last night that meant under no circumstances were passengers going ashore. He's more cynical than I am. The whole thing is mystifying to me that it happened at all, much less that it could have happened as we are interpreting what has occurred. Every passenger aboard must be paying at least $500 a day to be here onboard Serenity and they are going to worry about a one time fee of $13 or $14? It is incomprehensible. And now it is also moot.

The Captain did sail along the North coast of Ascension Island as he headed almost due east for Africa. That meant we had an excellent view from our starboard balcony for about a half hour. We saw birds, a blowhole, a stone arch at the shoreline, a wind farm, volcanic peaks, sandy beaches, rock cliffs and an immense quantity of antennae, satellite dishes and radar. We know from our visit to Exmouth, Australia that some of the radio arrays we saw were for submarine communications. But there was a lot more than that. We were sorry to not set foot ashore, but we were well prepared for the disappointment plus we'd had a wonderful experience at St. Helena. Also, we got the very official landing permit with the stamped seal for Ascension Island, so I'm map-pinning it!

In preparatory research for our visit, I found this blog entry. So I had some idea what to expect. We didn't get any visitors from ashore and we both hope this doesn't mean extra time in Dakar instead. It doesn't sound like a pleasant place to spend extra time as well as having Yellow Fever and Zika virus. I was already planning to try to minimize sun and insect exposure there so I definitely won't benefit from extra time ashore there. We'll see what happens, as usual we're just on for the ride and we're going where the ship is going.

The CD has updated the day's schedule of events, though the new schedule has not yet been delivered. I think I understood from the CD's announcement that it consisted of a 10 am Hollywood Theater showing of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and 2 lectures today. I checked again and found the updated page delivered and it has a bunch of bridge, golf and piano lessons added. We have reservations tonight at Silk.

Per the Captain's noon announcement, we are now heading almost due north and will continue on this heading and speed of nearly 15 knots to reach Dakar, Senegal on our original schedule. So, that's it except for the CD adding a noon announcement of afternoon trivia which didn't make the printed agenda update.

I'll post this now and assume nothing else newsworthy. If there is, I'll just come back and update or else talk about it tomorrow.

Photos