Before HMS Beagle left St Helena for Ascension Island in 1836, near the end of her five-year circumnavigation of the world, the locals warned Charles Darwin:
“We know we live on a rock, but the poor people of Ascension live on a cinder.”
And while similarly remote Juan Fernández in the Pacific inspired a classic of world literature – The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe – Ascension’s contribution is Sodomy Punish’d, derived from the diary of a Dutch sailor who was cast ashore here for the said crime in 1725.
So, when we were on our first crossing of the South Atlantic in the late 80s, it was with low expectations that, after a warm trade-wind sail of a week in the Beagle’s track, we dropped anchor in the uncomfortably open roadstead that is Clarence Bay. We introduced ourselves by VHF to the Port Captain. He spoke with a noticeable American accent; the conversation was terse, but we had our lines rehearsed:
“What is the nature
