Turtle Island by Sergio Ghione

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.