SKP Guy
@skpguy.bsky.social
📤 3412
đź“Ą 1953
đź“ť 1436
Writer, Geographer, Traveller. Human human being
alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Digging into the archives
In the massive ranks of plan presses next to the record archive were thousands of survey maps; one a month, overlaid with strong tracing paper, the intersections of a few latitudes and longitudes …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/sand-in-the-sandwiches-digging-into-the-archives/
about 4 hours ago
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Capturing the Diversity -The struggle to survive
As well as heading to Wideawake Fair with Anselmo, Edsel and I also went on a tour with some tourists led by Ray and Stedson one time and visited the Mars Bay tern colony. The lava fields beyond t…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/capturing-the-diversity-the-struggle-to-survive/
about 4 hours ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/c...
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Capturing the Diversity – Wideawakes
Stedson had a right to grumble about the plants playing second fiddle to other efforts, especially on my earlier visits. Much of the conservation effort on Ascension Island had been focused on the…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/capturing-the-diversity-wideawakes/
about 13 hours ago
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Science against the locust
In terms of intervention in locust plagues, there were many aspects of research and activity. Some focused on lab work in locust biology; seeing how long they could fly without food, how they cou…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/sand-in-the-sandwiches-science-against-the-locust/
about 13 hours ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Learning about the locusts
Locusts, like a whole bunch of insects, have two distinct phases which are crucial for determining how much damage has been done. In their solitary phase, they hang around in small groups, spaced…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/sand-in-the-sandwiches-learning-about-the-locusts/
1 day ago
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Capturing the Diversity – say hello to the little plants
Accompanying us that day was an expert from Oxford University and his colleague in Bryophytes. These are those lower order plants like mosses, liverworts and algae. Much ignored in conservation e…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/capturing-the-diversity-say-hello-to-the-little-plants/
1 day ago
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Capturing the Diversity – Mapping the Vegetation
Kew had their own GIS section (whose members were also keen to travel to these amazing islands) so I never got a huge amount of work from these visits, but given I had helped Stedson over the years…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/capturing-the-diversity-mapping-the-vegetation/
1 day ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Getting used to the customs and the Great Locust Archive
Mauritania blew away so many of my preconceptions. Before my arrival, I had always had some concerns about visiting a devoutly Muslim country. Although I know how to check myself, I am prone to …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/sand-in-the-sandwiches-getting-used-to-the-customs-and-the-great-locust-archive/
1 day ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches -how to forget a bad journey
All the time, Ould Babah sat amongst the group absorbing the effect of his own benevolence. The talk switched from locusts to Mauritania to our own efforts at getting to Nouakchott. I had been s…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/sand-in-the-sandwiches-how-to-forget-a-bad-journey/
2 days ago
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Capturing Diversity – The Kew Connection
Stedson always grumbled that the other conservation programmes on the island got a lot more attention and resources – whether it be counting turtles or monitoring the birds. But I did see ov…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/capturing-diversity-the-kew-connection/
2 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/c...
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Capturing the Diversity – to the top of the Island
Edsel and I walked up beyond this planting site on our first trip, taking along Greggy from the Environmental Health Department. One path, called the Dew Pond, reached the very summit of Green Mou…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/capturing-the-diversity-to-the-top-of-the-island/
3 days ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Savouring the dinner
From one corner of the rooftop, bright lights emanated from a corridor no doubt leading to the kitchen. A whole host of people kept emerging from this hole with all manner of plates and bowls. F…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/sand-in-the-sandwiches-savouring-the-dinner/
3 days ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/s...
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Tea and an invitation to dine on a roof
It does not matter how exotic the location, within a couple of days everything becomes familiar and routine rules the whole day. I was not the only one. While working away at the locust centre, …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/sand-in-the-sandwiches-tea-and-an-invitation-to-dine-on-a-roof/
3 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/c...
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Capturing the Diversity – Stedson’s Kingdom
Debate rages amongst conservationists about how much you should do to rebalance the amount of native species with those which have been introduced. I don’t think anyone would like Green Moun…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/capturing-the-diversity-stedsons-kingdom/
3 days ago
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Capturing the Diversity – Invasion of the Mexican Thorn Trees
Of all the species that have spread themselves over the island, the most invasive is the Mexican Thorn Tree. Much has been done to try and stop this plant spreading , especially by the Royal Botan…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/capturing-the-diversity-invasion-of-the-mexican-thorn-trees/
4 days ago
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Sand in the Sandwiches – Another country – another routine work day
Ould Babah’s three tortoises never looked happy. Day after day we walked into the locust compound in Nouakchott, Mauritania, past the little grassy area in the centre whey they resided. Usually t…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/sand-in-the-sandwiches-another-country-another-routine-work-day/
4 days ago
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Liming – Settling – The View that became mine
If you want to see the first post on Liming – Click here. I got driven round Tortola on my first visit, but with more time on my second, I took to walking at weekends. Most people felt I w…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/liming-settling-the-view-that-became-mine/
4 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/c...
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Capturing the Diversity – The Green Oasis
High in the clouds above the rest of Ascension island is a lush oasis of vegetation. From the west, Green Mountain looks like a sharply pointed peak, but in fact it is a heavily eroded ridge orien…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/capturing-the-diversity-the-green-oasis/
4 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/l...
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Life on Mars – The Space Station
Back on the NASA road, having negotiated the battalions of crabs we had the weather to contend with. The mist came rolling back in, but as the road twisted and turned its way around the back of Gr…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/life-on-mars-the-space-station/
5 days ago
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Liming – Settling – Time for the Baths
We drove back over the island, but instead of heading back to the ferry port, our friend had one more delight to show us on this amazing island. We parked in amongst the huge granite boulders on …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/liming-settling-time-for-the-baths/
5 days ago
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Liming – Settling – Trip over the fat virgin
I got further on my second trip. I invited a number of Vincentians to the training course in Road Town and although they were placed in a different hotel, we would meet up for the occasional lime …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/liming-settling-trip-over-the-fat-virgin/
5 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/l...
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Life on Mars – an exotic menagerie
The crabs are one of several strange species which exist on the land but are most probably endemic and evolved from a sister species being washed up from the oceans. The others were all introduced.…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/life-on-mars-an-exotic-menagerie/
5 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/l...
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Life on Mars – The Yellow (and Purple) Peril
Back in the Land Rover we drove over a ridge and dropped into Breakneck Valley. The vegetation increases here and the geology softens into the background for the first time. But it does so with a…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/life-on-mars-the-yellow-and-purple-peril/
6 days ago
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Liming – Settling – Nature’s Little Secrets
No place more evokes the tourist image more than the Virgin Islands. Like Timbouctou or Outer Mongolia, they are a myth of a placename. I doubt most people would be able to place them in the Cari…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/liming-settling-natures-little-secrets/
6 days ago
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Liming – Bathsheba – Feeling at Home
This keeps on happening out here. In Tobago, a long thin island with rolling plantations taken over by mass tourism at one end, rugged mountains and lonely fishing villages at the other, I could s…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/liming-bathsheba-feeling-at-home/
6 days ago
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Life on Mars – The Devil’s Riding School
The road reaches a T junction and most would turn right here down to the US Base, but if you turned left you were on the NASA Road (or A4 as I called it). The road passes by the Cable and Wireless …
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/life-on-mars-the-devils-riding-school/
6 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/l...
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Life on Mars – A claim to fame?
If you are back in Two Boats, you can get access to the other scenic road, the NASA road by continuing out up the hill towards Green Mountain and turning right.  Hidden away to the left in the Mexi…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/life-on-mars-a-claim-to-fame/
7 days ago
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Liming – Bathsheba – Chilling on the beach, Relaxing in the Garden
On the coast, the backs of the beaches are covered in morning glory, in a few places cleared away and grass laid to give a park like feeling – could almost be New Brighton. Just don’t lie under th…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/liming-bathsheba-chilling-on-the-beach/
7 days ago
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Liming – Bathsheba – Taking the Bus from Bridgetown
My favourite place is over that ridge and down onto the Atlantic coast. My first time exploring the island one sleepy Sunday, I took a cheap minibus ride into town from the Blue Horizons resort in…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/liming-bathsheba-taking-the-bus-from-bridgetown/
7 days ago
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Life on Mars – Out of town
Ray Benjamin, one of the Conservation Office team, lived up here with his wife, Sandra, and Edsel and I were regularly invited up for Sunday lunch. We’d grab a few beers from Solomon’s…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/life-on-mars-out-of-town/
7 days ago
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Life on Mars – One Boat, Two Boats
Weirdest of all is a rock on the roadside before you reach One Boat itself. Its origins lost in the mists of transience and forgetfulness, although some claim it was a cairn built in the naval per…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/life-on-mars-one-boat-two-boats/
8 days ago
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Liming – Bathsheba – Hidden roads of Barbados
“Unfortunately”  ( :-) ), Barbados is a busy node for people involved in the aid and development business, and I have usually passed through there on the way back from somewhere else or…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/liming-bathsheba-hidden-roads-of-barbados/
8 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – The Rockley Beach Bathers
So Dominica was for trekking and wildlife. Other islands were more suitable for bumming on a beach. There are fabulous beaches in the Caribbean: Savannah Bay in Virgin Gorda, Buccoo Bay on Tobag…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/liming-the-emerald-isle-the-rockley-beach-bathers/
8 days ago
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Life on Mars – Heading out of Georgetown
Georgetown was where Edsel and I worked, slept, ate and for most of the time partied. I even exercised around its environs.  Despite Ascension’s tiny size there is still more to it than just…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/life-on-mars-heading-out-of-georgetown/
8 days ago
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Life on Mars – And on to a Comfortless Cove
If I felt even more energetic, I would not divert along to the end of the beach, but follow the track up into the lava fields at the back. You head up a small hill and enter a valley containing a …
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/life-on-mars-and-on-to-a-comfortless-cove/
9 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – Searching for parrots
Dominica exposed me to new Caribbean experiences. Whereas other islands were heavily touristed, and offered beaches, yachting and other water activities to tourists, Dominica had little to offer i…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/liming-the-emerald-isle-searching-for-parrots/
9 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – Soufriere and Scott’s Head
The last stop of the day was at Soufrière. The name is common in the eastern Caribbean as it is French for Volcano. Many of the islands I visited had been influenced by French at certain times an…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/1444/
9 days ago
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Life on Mars – On to Long Beach
Beyond the Pier Head, and past Fort Thornton, the coast indents once more where the largest sweep of sand on Ascension, Long Beach sits. It is also the biggest of the turtle beaches, where females…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/life-on-mars-on-to-long-beach/
9 days ago
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Life on Mars – Fishing with Noddy
The other use for the Pier Head is as the focus of the island’s fishing industry. On our first full day Edsel and I were looking around Georgetown and ended up at the Pier Head just as a cou…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/life-on-mars-fishing-with-noddy/
10 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – Surveying the West and South Coasts
Jullan took me out on another trip one weekend. Ostensibly to check the sediment in the rivers, it was really just an excuse for him to drive the van and me to see the country. We went up and dow…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/liming-the-emerald-isle-surveying-the-west-and-south-coasts/
10 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – The Layou Landslip
We saw where the road had been completely wiped away by the slip, and carefully stepped over several wide crevasses where the tarmac had been shredded by the force of the mass movement. We veered …
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/liming-the-emerald-isle-the-layou-landslip/
10 days ago
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Life on Mars – Georgetown discovered
The stone buildings down by the pier head have survived much better. The St Georges Tank pokes up above the rest, where water from Green Mountain was stored for use in the town. And the Main Stor…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/life-on-mars-georgetown-discovered/
10 days ago
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Life on Mars – In Gentle Decline
And so the island’s infrastructure, where not directly fed from outside interests, tends to decay. Ascension’s history is lying all over the place. The bric a brac of ruins is the leg…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/life-on-mars-in-gentle-decline/
11 days ago
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alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/l...
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – Andrew takes me around
Andrew took me out again the next day, his last night in the country. I was humbled by his generosity, as I was sure he should be with his family, packing or at least getting some rest. But he to…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/liming-the-emerald-isle-andrew-takes-me-around/
11 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – Roseau and Drinking to forget Chantilly
Unlike any other Caribbean capital I have been to, Roseau looked more local than touristy. It had some remarkable architecture, hundreds of neat cobblestone and wooden houses with ornate balconies…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/liming-the-emerald-isle-roseau-and-drinking-to-forget-chantilly/
11 days ago
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alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/l...
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Life On Mars – No right of abode
This whole issue of Ascension being a working island makes for a bit of a quandary. Everything seems so temporary on Ascension. Nobody owns any property, everything is leased through the US or UK …
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/life-on-mars-no-right-of-abode/
11 days ago
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Life On Mars – Business and Rights
The Conservation Office where Edsel and I would work was on the main strip coming into town, so very little escaped us unless it came down the hill from Two Boats Village down the one way ro…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/16/life-on-mars-business-and-rights/
12 days ago
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Liming – The Emerald Isle – First island transit
Andrew Magloire did the same in Dominica. Although during my long visit there the following year, he was hardly around. He was planning to go and study in Halifax, Novia Scotia for a year, and had…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/liming-the-emerald-isle-first-island-transit/
12 days ago
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Liming – St Vincent and Bequia – A Perfect Little Island
We had lunch at a little beach bar in Spring Bay and then headed over to a lovely bar in Princess Margaret Beach in Admiralty Bay. The Mule, which had struggled along all day ( we had had to have a…
https://alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/liming-st-vincent-and-bequia-a-perfect-little-island/
12 days ago
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Life on Mars – Consumers and Customer Relations
Attend any of the events and you would get a slice of island life. Often you saw the same partygoers at any event. The exception to this was the Volcano Club. Some of the contract workers in the…
https://alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/life-on-mars-consumers-and-customer-relations/
12 days ago
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