Despite obsessing for a period of time about fishing Ascension Island, and watching just about every YouTube video on the topic, I thought I had gotten the urge out of my system. Between the distance, the cost, the pandemic, the airlines and the fishing regs, it seemed like I should turn my energy elsewhere. I was ok with that, but then Google got in the way.

They targeted me with reports from National Geographic’s Atlantic Isles Discovery tour, a 37 day jaunt from the Falklands to Madeira, which allows you to “Explore the legacy of Napoleon on Saint Helena and snorkel in the sparkling waters of Ascension Island, home to a large colony of green sea turtles.”

I started to get my hopes up, and then also saw that the island’s airway had reopened last August 31st. In May, the RAF flights were set to restart.

For all sorts of reasons, the island continues to capture my interest, perhaps at least part for its remoteness and the difficulty of getting there, but also because of those incredible fishing videos. Google fed that obsession by offering up the following painting of a yellowfin over a nautical chart of Ascension by artist Amadeo Bachar at Studio Abachar. It’s so good it was almost cruel to show it to me.