Saint Helena
Tartar Rock

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    • Day 122

      Georgetown, Ascension Island

      April 15, 2015 in Saint Helena ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

      We spent tax day sailing to an island of 800 people that is about as far away as you can get from anywhere. The folks here are either military, BBC or researchers as the island has no permanent inhabitants. It is basically an airport in the middle of the Atlantic that can be used for such strategic things as a refueling station for the Falklands Islands War back in 1982 and with it's 2 mile runway it was a backup landing strip back with the space shuttle was flying since it could actually take the Shuttle.
      Now it is a bunch of satellite towers and sensors that are probably pulling all the internet traffic that we are using right now into the NSA computers. :-)
      Unfortunately the waves were too high to safely get on land with all the old people we have aboard but the researchers brought some slides and a video onboard which was very informative. Probably better then walking around the little island but I was hoping to get a sighting of the green sea turtle as this was one it's nesting areas and they set up to 300 a night coming up and laying eggs.
      Now for the big slog across the ocean. 6 days at sea ending in the little prison island of Devil's Island off French Guiana. The weather has been good so far so we are expecting bad weather as we just can't be this lucky the entire trip so I will let you know if we start rocking and rolling. :-)
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    Tartar Rock

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