My first activity today is waking up. Life is so beautiful, lying about under
the sun until everything is spinning around me, gazing at the sky the horizon
nowhere interrupted by obstacles.
I decide to wait a little while before I go ashore at Ascension Island. The
pleseant idleness, dreaming I am Oblomov so I can go on believing I
am an artist causing a state of great agitation by my fantasies.
I take idleness for grant, it is a habit you don't have to apologize.
My plan to make a tour along desert islands in the Atlantic Ocean with
Ascension Island as the first landingstage looked glorious, the tour would
be one big fascinating ecstacy. I felt like the solosailor Moitessier a
romantic with a mystical love for the ocean. After his succesful trip around
the world (1968-1969), the Golden Globe Award already within his arm, he
refuged to go back to Europe. Driving the organisers to despair he decided to
sail around the world for a second time looking for a place where he wanted
to stay for the rest of his life. The organisers said he was mad. He wrote in
his journal: "I am going somewhere I can moor my ship just where I want. I
am feeling there is something that does not belong to the third dimension
but to the forth. Again, don't think I am mad, I am in perfect health."
The naked reality looked quite different. My hikingtour to Ascension Island was made up of following countless threats guiding to nowhere and neglecting mapped out routes. I was carried away by information about shiproutes liked to know everything about Seawifs and the universal time code. I was desperately searching for information about islands and at the same time I hoped nobody had heard of it before. Travelling is exhausting. Information mislead you and your brains get deformed. My trip to Ascension Island was a challenge ending in a fiasco.
When you listen for month to the rustle of the wind you don't like to return
to human company, you are afraid you have to take part in unnescesary
conversations.
Back in the Atlantic I got a lot of pleasure out of the sharp shout of the
porpoise and I completed it with reassuring tones of my mouthorgan.
When porpoises are shocked they can move away 150 metres in
three seconds, but they always come back to take a second look at you.
Because I did not speak to people for a long time I started talking to
myself, the pronouncing of words helps me to define my thoughts in a manner
I can't do it in my mind. Again, don't think I am mad, I am in perfect health.
What I need now is a fresh adventure to compensate my disappointment. Lying
on my back fantasies are passing by already. I will change course in search
for a new challenge. In some weeks I will send you a new report.
Robert
On Ascension Island ,88 square metres surface, in 1501 discovered by the
potuguese Joao da Nova Castella on Ascension Day, was not what I hoped it
would be. I was repelled by the buildings on the island. Except the rabbits
wild goats and the barren land with one arable top, de Green Mountain
859 meter, there was the Wideawake Airfield build by the American army
during world war II. The airfield took a big part in the convince of Britain
in the Falkland war in 1982. In Georgetown the only city on the island I
saw big mast for the communication of BBC NASA and the British and American
Navy. There are about 1400 people who operate and maintain the hardware.
Situated near to the 0-meridian the island is also used by Britain as a
checkpoint for the universal timecode (UTC). I stayed on Ascension Island
just for one day.