Turtle Island: A Journey to the World's Most Remote Island

by Sergio Ghione, Martin L. McLaughlin (Translation)

Ascension Island is a wilderness of volcanic rock, land crabs, and stray donkeys in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It erupted into existence about 600 years ago and was discovered by the Portugese in 1501. However, it was only when Napoleon was exiled to nearby St. Helena that the island gained strategic importance and was snatched up by the British. It went on to become a crucial "node" in both world wars and the Cold War. The 1960s saw the building of a NASA base which was crucial to the Apollo missions. The thousand or so people who live on this island now do so because they have been brought here by their work for NASA as fishermen, or simply to service the existence of the colony. Ghione's work was to travel there to study Ascension's most famous the extraordinary sea turtles that arrive each year to lay their eggs. Combining history, science, geography, and journalism, this quirky and charming book is a wonderful tale about a very peculiar place - a tiny piece of Britishness absurdly at odds with the reality of its bleakness and isolation. Ghoine has a sharp eye for the curiosities of island life, such as the single grocery shop that sells Christmas goods year round, the ritual of throwing paint at a particular curbstone, and many more. Come and experience the strange world of Ascension Island first-hand!

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Nature, Geography

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy, entertaining, informative travel narrative/novella describing the people, ecology and geography of this bizarre, remote island.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't really about the turtles. Author Sergio Ghione, an Italian doctor, tags along on a trip to Ascension Island with two friends who are studying the migration of sea turtles. The island is one of the most remote on Earth, and certainly the most remote land in the Atlantic Ocean. And while Ghione writes about the attempts of him and his friends to glue satellite transmitters onto the shells of giant sea turtles, the book is really about his overall experiences on this odd bit of land and about the island's geography and history and its people. It's a nicely written, infotaining little book, easy to read and kind of charming. Somehow, the knowledge that the book was translated from Italian informed the way I experienced it. Maybe it was just the wonder that somebody decided that this modest little book was worthy of being translated. Whoever made that decision was correct.

[Susan Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting look at one of the “lost islands”. It is only 37 square miles. At the time the author visited the island helping some friends with a sea turtle tracking project, the island was closed to tourism and it’s still difficult to visit. He gives a lot of the history and the current and past conditions on the island with a description of the places and the activity on the island. A very curious and interesting place. The reason it took so long for me to finish was that I mislaid the book for awhile - not that it was not interesting.

[Kikyosan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Affascinante diario di viaggio sull'isola di Ascensione, un puntino sperduto nell'oceano Atlantico.
Pensavo che il libro fosse più incentrato sulle tartarughe verdi e sulla spedizione scientifica per studiare le loro rotte migratorie, ma l'autore è un medico che si è aggiunto all'equip di biologi, e che quindi ha interessi diversi, in particolare l'isola stessa e le sue vicende. Devo dire che anche così è risultata una lettura molto gradevole e interessante, leggera e spigliata, che ha stimolato la mia curiosità e un irrefrenabile desiderio di andare in qualche posto tanto remoto. L'autore riesce bene a catapultare il lettore in quella landa desolata e particolare.

I capitoli raccontano vari aneddoti personali e sugli abitanti dell'isola, sui personaggi che hanno avuto a che fare con essa (esploratori, scrittori ecc), racconta vicende storiche, militari, descrive l'atmosfera che vi si trova, le abitudini dei locali, la geografia e la topografia, nonchè ovviamente le caratteristiche della flora e della fauna, tartarughe in primis. Un ottimo mix socio-antropologico-storico-geografico-biologico-militare-culinario-e qui mi fermo ma potrei continuare!

Un libro di viaggio gradevole che mi ha lasciato una piacevolissima sensazione.
Qualche difettuccio ce l'ha, spesso è un po' approssimativo, ma alla fine forse lo scopo era proprio questo: leggero ma informativo.

Ah, una cosa che ho apprezzato molto: alla fine del libro sono elencati i siti internet utili per vedere i luoghi dell'isola, o per leggere documenti citati, o anche solo informazioni utili presenti nel libro, ben divisi per capitolo (purtroppo alcuni ormai risultano inesistenti).

[Julie Goucher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating account of an Italian doctor who travels as a companion to his friend, an academic who was travelling to what is described as the remotest inhabited place on earth to study the amazing sea turtles that arrive each year, with the sole purpose of laying their eggs.

Turtle Island or its formal name of Ascension Island is truly remote with a population of around 1,000 people who live on the island because they are involved with working for the RAF (Royal Air Force) or NASA. Some people are fisherman and others work providing a functional service to the island.

The island is described as quirky, because this island exudes Britishness despite being in the Atlantic. Ascension Island is recorded as being a British Dependency, along with Gibraltar, the Falklands and St Helena.

The book is not laid out in diary format, but written in a comfortable and easy to read style recording simply the events that happened (or not) and why over the course of the month Sergio spent on the Island. By the time the author had completed his book in October 1999, the island was less sleepy with some limited tourism and legislation was going through Parliament that would change the dynamics of the residents of the island.

At the end of the book is a fantastic webography and bibliography and I spent several hours reading and looking at the various web pages mentioned.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not a very theme driven book, it's insights into not only sea turtle research and studies along Ascension island but the overall history of the island's progression into colonization and civilization are interesting and unique.

[Alison Sloggett · Rating 3 out of 5]

a small read, interesting , good bit of background history to the island