Leaving The Island Forever

Leaving the Island is a central fact of Ascension Island life. To remain on Ascension, you must either have a job contract, or be the dependent of someone who does. When your contract is up, you must find another job or leave as under British/Island law no one has a permanent right of abode on the Island and citizenship is impossible.

While the island is a fantastic place to visit, its remoteness, small population, lack of “real” world amenities, etc undoubtedly gets to a large number of contractors with the impact that they are glad to leave the island and when they do so hope they will never return.

A few hundred metres from One Boat (Georgetown side) is a rather garish looking rock on a plinth. It is covered in multi-coloured paints. There is a long standing tradition that if you are leaving the island and are keen not to return, you have to paint the rock, unseen, and at night. Given the freshness of the paint in the attached picture a number of people have obviously recently left hoping not to return.

Another leaving tradition whereby sports people departing the island place their trophies at One Boat is discussed under my separate One Boat tip.

Address: Close to One Boat

This blog entry is one of a group (loop) of entries on my trip to Ascension Island. I suggest you continue with my next entry – HERE.
To return to the beginning of this loop click HERE.