The time has come

Today is the day! Ascension has officially moved from preventing COVID-19 from entering the population into 'Living with COVID-19'. The monthly flight from St Helena arrived yesterday and departed around mid-day today and when it landed in St Helena all the passengers that were transiting through St Helena from elsewhere in the world were allowed out of isolation here on Ascension. There was confusion in the community yesterday as the passengers who boarded the aircraft in St Helena were not required to isolate on arrival, creating the possibility of one of them contracting COVID-19 from one of the passengers who were already onboard and introducing it to the community a day early. That has probably been the only uncertainty through the whole build-up to today, everything else has been communicated clearly and early enough to allow everyone to prepare.

For ourselves with a 2-month-old and youngest resident on the island, it is very worrying. Although we are aware that COVID-19 does not seem to affect younger people most of the time, it doesn't stop us from worrying. Hopefully, we can get him to at least 4 months before he contracts it when he has grown a little stronger and developed a bit more.

Runway news, I was lucky enough to have a site visit during the early hours last month. I was there from 04:30 to 08:00, getting photos of all the work being carried out. I've posted them on our Facebook and Instagram pages if you would like to see them. Since then the asphalting has been completed and they are now completing the hard shoulders, lighting and painting. The latest information I have been given is, that the first half will be completed in September. I'm not sure if that includes test flights and signing off, I'll work on that information for next time.

Winter has also arrived, we now have rain showers several times per week, the winds have picked up and at night it can get a bit chilly in Two Boats and Travellers Hill, although most people reading this off the island would love to have 22-23 degrees Celcius which is what we're calling cold during the night :)

To finish off, a quick update on parenthood, aside from our COVID-19 concerns, everything is going great. He's meeting all of his milestones and these past 9 weeks have flown by!

Until next time, catch you all later...

What a month!

Apologies for not checking in during May, but it was a very busy one for myself and Shelly, I'll tell you more about that a bit later.

There is big COVID-19 news on the island. We spent the whole of May at Level Orange on the island’s COVID-19 threat scale, meaning there were positive cases on the island but contained in isolation. I believe there were two cases onboard the runway project aggregate vessel and then there were two more that arrived on one of the military flights. The real news, however, that has raised alarm bells for a large proportion of the population is that Ascension is transitioning to 'Living with COVID-19' from the 1st of August. New arrivals will no longer have to isolate on arrival and will only have to test themselves before their flight to the island if the airline they are travelling on requires it. If you are not feeling well when you arrive you will have to notify the island's medical services who will provide you with a Lateral Flow Test, if you are then tested positive you would be asked to isolate until you return a negative test. Although if you are seen as a key worker for your employer and feel well enough to work, they will have measures in place for you to continue working safely. The initial guidelines are for a 6-8 week period where it is expected that most of the population would have caught and recovered from the virus. 1st of August was chosen as the date for 'opening' the island as there will be almost a third of the island's population leaving for school holidays which would make the outbreak more manageable. Islanders will be advised to follow good hygiene and wear masks but it will not be enforced by law. The fine details are still being worked on but the island government will provide guidelines for the employers to interpret to suit them and their business needs. The hope is that the island will have another round of boosters before the 1st of August to try and keep the symptoms of the virus as mild as possible. The Senior Medical Officer has started to hold meetings with the different organisations so their staff are kept informed of the plans, I'll keep you updated with what is being planned as and when the public is informed.

I've not managed to get much info regarding the runway project for a few weeks. I am hoping for another tour as I believe they have started asphalting. Unloading of the aggregate vessels is still taking place, they are now coming to the end of this part of the project with only a few more vessels to arrive.

Today is a Public Holiday and the island is recovering from 4 days of Platinum Jubilee celebrations, with the finale being a Street Party in the town square with a brilliant firework display in the evening.

Thursday, there was the lighting of the Jubilee Beacon up at what is now known as Jubilee View, to you older readers you will probably know it as the Governor's Lodge or Scouts Lodge.

Friday, the Chuch held a Thanksgiving service. There was an Art and Craft exhibition at the Saint's Club Hall (Georgetown Cinema) and then a Float Parade around the island, the effort that was put into making the floats was amazing and looked even better during the night when they were all lit up.

Saturday, the Administrator held a reception at the Residency for the Queen's Birthday and then Sunday we saw the Street Party rounding off an amazing long weekend.

Keep an eye on our social media platforms, we'll have pics up soon.

The last of the news we have to share before finishing this post is to tell you why we have been quiet on all of our platforms. Well, we have welcomed into the world, Ascension's newest and youngest islander. Mum and baby are doing great, he is just over a week old now and is everything we could have asked for. So keep an eye out, sometime shortly you will start seeing the newest member of the Into The Big World team make his official appearance on our posts :)

Thunderstorm - Take 2

Happy Easter everyone, keeping with tradition the weather is a little overcast and wet at times, keeping things interesting for all those Easter campers.

A few weeks ago it finally happened, after weeks of thunderstorm warnings from the MET Office the skies opened and we had almost a day of non-stop heavy rain, strangely Two Boats Village wasn't hit as bad as Georgetown. In Georgetown, there were rivers of water running to Long Beach and out to sea, a massive deep pool of water formed near the Georgetown Swimming Pool (Exiles Swimming Pool) and the main road through Georgetown was under water. I've uploaded a few videos on our Youtube Channel if you would like to see them. The result of the rain meant Needles road has been closed for about 2 weeks and only reopened today.

COVID is well and truly a part of daily life on the island now, although our strict isolation protocols mean it has never escaped into the general population, there are very few flights where there isn't someone who tests positive either on arrival or during their isolation period. I believe there are talks at a higher level on the island to decide if we should stop the isolation period. An unpopular idea in the Saint Helenian community on the island as it would mean isolation on the now shorter holiday trips to St Helena. As it stands there is a travel corridor between the islands with no isolation, providing certain criteria are met, one of them being the flight crew tests negative.

The sound of conveyor belts at the bottom of Georgetown, trucks rumbling along the roads means one thing, the Runway Project aggregate ship is finally back. The sea did its best to delay things by getting a little choppy when the jack-up barge was being docked which meant it took a few days longer before the unloading could start but once they did it has been running really well.

The Island's Conservation Department hosted the island's first-ever Marine Festival at the Turtle Ponds, a successful day with stalls, games, food and live music.

There's a new buzz around the island at the moment, as part of the Jubilee celebrations, there is a new competition for the newly created Jubilee Cup. A competition between all the companies on the island, which will see them compete in Darts, Skittles, Pool, Golf, a Quiz Night and finishing with Tug-o-War during the Jubilee Celebrations, collecting points along the way, the company scoring the most points will be crowned Champions.

On that note, it's bedtime, Easter eggs in the morning :)

Sharks are back

February brought us more Thunderstorm warnings and another COVID positive case, these are becoming the norm for 2022. Although we did get a few showers of rain with this Thunderstorm warning, nothing to worry about but much needed, the island is looking a lot drier than usual.

There were no aggregate ships, but the Pier is busy with Mitie working on replacing sections of the floating pipeline.

I was lucky enough to get a site visit to the runway project, they are working on installing the runway lighting, with about 3 weeks' worth of cable installation to go. I've put up photographs on our Social Media platforms if you would like to see them up close. Hopefully, I'll visit again when they start laying the asphalt.

The sharks are back, there were whispers around the island that they had started to retreat back to deeper waters, a few of the braver divers and snorkelers had begun entering the water again. There has always been a few that braved it but more had started to join them. Now the sharks are back circling the Pier Head day and night, I think those not so brave sea lovers will more than likely be back on land dreaming of what they could be doing. I guess instead of jumping into the ocean, they can hang out on the beach to watch the turtles coming in or some might've visited the North-Eastern beaches to watch the land crab spawning.

Until next time, have a good one....

Thunderstorm

January is over, and it flew by! So what's the latest on our rock?

We've had two Titan flights, taking islanders off the island and bringing them back, mainly people returning from their Christmas hols in St Helena and a few from further afield.

An A400 has been cancelled and then put back on again, arriving a week later.

The main excitement for the month came last week when the island received a possible Thunderstorm warning from the MET Office, but as the week went on, further updates indicated the possibility was decreasing and eventually it blew by without hitting us. Sandbags were deployed around critical buildings and several homes with memories of the downpour in March 2020 still fresh in many people's memories. Back then rain came non-stop for several hours, blocking the road near the junction to Catherine Point because a river of muddy water and large rocks was streaming across the road, the only way out of Georgetown was up Needles road! It wasn't just that road, all around the island there was damage and several buildings took in water.

Around half four this afternoon as I drove into Georgetown I saw the 5th runway contractor aggregate vessel leaving, heading back to get reloaded before returning. Normally another one arrives straight away but there is planned maintenance for the floating pipeline soon so the next one will arrive when the maintenance is completed.

Friday we will see the FIRS anchored in the harbour, restocking the island's shops, companies bringing in their materials and equipment and islanders receiving their overseas goodies.

The island is once again COVID free, so we’re back in the Amber Alert status.

And just like that, we're into February, have a good one :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. We hope the new year is treating you all well?

We thought we would start the first entry of the year with a round-up of some of the highlights.

The two major things that happened was the start of the Runway Project and the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccinations.

It appears the Runway Project is going to schedule or to the best schedule they can when working with temperamental sea conditions that have caused intermittent delays when offloading the aggregate, but the hope is to have the first half completed in the first quarter of this year. This will then allow the flights to land there whilst the project switches to the other half.

When COVID hit the world, the island went into its own lockdown, we were cut off from the outside world until plans were put into place to control the island's arrivals and departures. Some companies carried out practice runs of how they would operate from home if a positive case found its way into the population, perspex screens were installed where customers would come into contact with workers, spacing lines were drawn on shop floors and strict quarantine rules were implemented. We have had several positive cases on the island over the last year and as I type two cases arrived from the last US flight a week ago but because of those strict quarantine rules, the island was notified, threat levels were raised to Orange Alert (positive case in isolation) and life continued as normal. Almost 100% of the island have now been double vaccinated with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and received their Pfizer-BioNTech booster with the rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech jabs having started for the 12-17-year-olds as well.

A travel corridor between Ascension and St Helena was opened, which meant isolation wasn't required when you travelled between the islands, providing the islands were COVID free at the time of travel.

Towards the end of the year, local football started again after a 2-year absence. 7 teams started the season, the most in over 10 years, 3 teams were represented by the runway contractors and RAF although they withdrew after the first round due to the worry of injuries could slow progress on the Runway Project.

Post 16 / 6 form studies started on the island from the new School year, providing school leavers who opt in the opportunity to continue their studies via distance learning in a dedicated Class Room at the School.

The Public Library was moved from the School premises to the building formally known as Tasty Tucker or The Galley for the older readers of this Blog.

Sharks! Sharks have been a constant presence in the shallows around the island for the last few years. At times in December, it was harder not to see a shark at the Pier Head than it was to see one. No one knows why they have moved closer to shore, two theories include food shortage further out to sea and following the sound of boats back to shore as they associate it with an easy meal when the boats are out fishing.

Well, those were the highlights from 2021, I'm sure there were others, if you can think of any why not drop them in the comments below.

We'll try our best to give a round-up each month to keep you updated with life on 'the rock'.

COVID-19

By now Ascension must be almost 100% fully double COVID-19 vaccinated, I think we would be in the top 5 countries in the world to have achieved this from looking at the stats I've seen on the internet. We both had our second jabs in the last two weeks of April, Shelly having hers a week before myself. Both of us had no side effects and from asking around it doesn't seem like many people experienced anything either. A bit different to the first jab when a lot of the population felt some effect. I had cold shivers for about an hour during the night following and Shelly didn't feel great off and on for about 48 hours.

Now that both Ascension and St Helena are fully vaccinated starting with tomorrow's flight from St Helena there will be a travel corridor between the two islands. Where, if certain conditions are met by both islands passengers can come and go without the need for a 14 day isolation period. To learn more click here.

It's the first step of normality in the South Atlantic and with the UK starting to relax their restrictions it seems we are cautiously getting back to normal. Let's hope that the nations that are now on the up will look to help those that are still struggling and bring our world back to how it once was. :)

In other news, this weekend is the Ascension Day Fair, this year hosted at Two Boats Club. Hope everyone enjoys themselves…

Welcome

We're about to try something new, we both dream of travelling and discovering new places, new cultures and making new memories but then COVID struck…. and put a stop to that, for now…

So instead of going out into the world, we have decided to share our world with you. If you are interested in seeing Ascension Island in all its glory then stick with us, we'll bring you photos, videos and updates on everything that is happening here.

You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram, we're working on a Youtube Channel but video editing is not my strong suit so it is taking me a while but I'll have it ready soon!

Until next time, hit the Follow button for future posts, find us on Social Media and we'll keep the content coming.