The Delights of St. Helena

We timed our arrival at dawn, and found the forbidding cliffs of a barren volcano rising steeply from the sea under dark clouds and rain.

St Helena at dawn

As we rounded the island towards the sheltered side we saw no vegetation whatsoever but then Jamestown came into view in a narrow cleft In the rocks where a stream had carved out a valley. There were suddenly green trees, a gleaming copper church spire, and a shaft of sunlight picked out the Union Jack on a white flagpole.

Jamestown

TinTin moored in St Helena

The moorings in St Helena

 A mess of boats surged to and fro on a tangle of moorings, but Port Control directed us to the mooring field of neatly laid out lines of 22 substantial yellow and red mooring buoys where about a dozen boats were at rest.

James, from Yacht Services, came over to greet us from his boat "Carpe Diem", registered in Gosport. James is a "Saint", in other words a resident of St Helena.  When working with Oyster in Southampton, he bought "Carpe Diem" in Mylor and sailed her home to St. Helena before circumnavigating the world with his young family, finally getting back in December 2017. He then decided to set up his yacht support service and is amazing at arranging anything one needs, whilst continuing to live on board.

The ferry collecting crew from the anchorage

Getting ashore is a challenge in the swell, so we use the ferry service which comes round the yachts. At £4 return it's not cheap, but it's very congenial to meet other people. We found friends Matthieu, Anne Laure and children and Aude from "Saba Deux", Dirk and Gretchen on "Peregrine" (who ran the radio net across the Pacific) and new acquaintances of Wavy on "Hayward Davies" (550,000 miles and 39 Atlantic crossings!), Whistler, and Emma, a new arrival single handing up from Tristan da Cunha, in her 32 foot "Caprice" (towed in with engine failure).

Ashore we arrived on a dock stacked with containers, and a line of white sheds with blue doors built under the overhang of the cliff. Two big cranes on caterpillar tracks are regularly lifting fishing boats out for repair. Further along there are black cannon poking out of the sea defence wall, but a cheerful blue swimming pool has been located in the moat.

 Across the drawbridge and through the town gates we found a charming little town, with church, castle, and a main street reminiscent of the West Country in style of buildings with a couple of old hotels. On the left there is a green and shady public garden by the long white-painted building that houses the Police Station, Courthouse and Library. Here we found a plaque commemorating the 1895 visit of Joshua Slocum, on the first solo circumnavigation. Overlooking the garden there is a long verandah overhung with flowering creepers, which is Anne's Place. Here we were able to get lunch, beer and an advance of £60 in cash on tick until the banks opened the next day. Everyone here is so welcoming and relaxed!

Jacob's Ladder climbs 700 steps straight up the cliffs at about 45degrees or more to reach the garrison at the top. We climbed it, of course, discovering that it was wise to stop to look at the view every 50 steps! It feels very vertiginous. However the two handrails help one up. School boys used to slide down at great speed to get home from school, or to retrieve a football kicked over from the playing field above. When there was a garrison here the soldiers would pay a boy to run up to get their lunch. The boy would be back in about 8 minutes sliding down with the soup tureen balanced on his tummy, shoulders and arms on one rail and feet on the other! I don't know how long it took me to climb up, but it took me at least 8 minutes to come down the 700 steps as fast as I dared.

The awesome descent to Jamestown down Jacob's Ladder

Whilst here we have taken our ailing batteries out and had them recharged ashore. Two turn out to be effectively dead, which is shocking after only a month of service. However the remaining ones seem to behave better now so, if they hold out, I trust we will be able to function for the rest of the trip.

We hired a car through the tourist office from Brendan Motors at £15/day and enjoyed exploring for two days. Once up the narrow single track road hugging the rocky volcanic cliffs, one emerges on top to find residential areas and vegetation which gets much greener in the rainforest interior. It felt so surprising to drive along little winding tarmac lanes often sunken in the West Country style, with road signs and white finger-signposts, and other hints of Britishness. Great trees, dense stands of ginger plants, or sisal leaves lap the banks. Often there are steep green meadows grazed by red and brown cattle.

View across the silver sea to a distant curved horizon from St Helena

Reaching the windward side, the trees are all windswept into an aerodynamic shield up the cliff face, and it's here that most of the rain falls as the air is forced upwards and cools. The temperature is delightfully warm, with cool breezes, and not much humidity.

We visited the places that Napoleon was incarcerated, first at the charming Briars, where he stayed with a family for 7 weeks before moving to Longwood House

Longwood House - Napoleon's last home

Contemplating exile

Napoleon's bed and death mask

Both properties are now owned by France.

We had excellent tours of both with Trevor Magellan as our personal guide at the Briars, and very good audio guides at Longwood.

Napoleon did his best to maintain his Imperial standards here, despite his isolation.

On his death he left a considerable fortune (£50million in 2016 value!) to his faithful retainers and generals who had stayed with him.

Later we strolled down the leafy green lane to Napoleons's Tomb, in a wonderfully peaceful spot by a spring surrounded by flowering plants.

The grassy lane to the tomb

Napoleon's Tomb - now empty

The other exciting thing we did was to go on a whale shark watching trip. The sharks, up to 60 feet long, come to circle a reef that rises steeply from the depths and brings nutrients and krill to the surface. Our skipper, Johnny, found the sharks circling a fishing boat and we had to stand off until they came over to us. Then we were all allowed to jump in and swim with these placid giant fish. I found one circling up towards me from the deep and flippered hard to get out of its way, only to find another one right behind me so that I was in a whale shark sandwich!

Whale Shark coming in close!

We hunted for the elusive Wirebirds - saw one, but too elusive to photograph!

Dramatic volcanic landscapes

Jonathan mowing the lawn at Government House

 Yesterday we drove out to see the Governors residence at Plantation House, which is a delightful mansion painted pale blue with white trimmings, set on grand lawns in a wooded valley looking down to the sea far below. The grass is kept cropped by Jonathan the 200 year old tortoise and his friend. Beyond the green railings is the Tortoise Viewing Corridor, which we were allowed through, and below that were laid out impeccable vegetable gardens. We went on into the woods beyond, which immediately felt tropical with giant trees and massive stands of bamboo. Here lie the Butcher's Graves, headstones from 1777 for two slaves, one still legible to the wife of the butcher.

Fairy Tern

Beyond that the path rose steadily to Big Rock, with a great view over the valley, where the fluttering white Fairy Terns came and hovered round Mark as he stood near the edge.

We could easily have stayed longer here as it is a great island for walking, with the Post Box trails which take one through spectacular scenery with the objective of getting a stamp on one's card at each Post Box.  We also visited the excellent Museum where James has a big exhibition about their family circumnavigation.   (I later raised £70 for Church funds by asking people to pay a £1 to guess where the ducks were left on my round the world trip.  The prize was won by a Saint living in Portsmouth!)

Two yellow plastic Trotton ducks got left there by mistake, after a photo shoot to promote the Trotton Fete Duck Race.

Tomorrow it is Mark's birthday and we will set sail for the 700 miles to Ascension Island, where we will be over Easter.

I have re-planned our next legs with provisional dates as follows, deciding to miss out Recife and Natal.

29 March-1 April.   Ascension
11-13 April .            Fernando Do Noronha, Brazil. Steve arrives?
17-20 April.             Fortaleza, Brazil. Justin flies home. Meet Marli and Hur Ben!
27 April - 1 May.     Belem, Amazonia, Brazil. Richard et al arrive.
8 - 14 May               Cayenne, French Guyana. Anne arrives. Richard et al depart.
16-19 May               Paramirabo, Surinam
24-28 May               Trinidad and Tobago
2-14 June                  Option to head to ABC islands to lay up in Aruba.
14- 21 June               Aruba - laying up Tin Tin until December?