Off to Ascension Island

Mark's birthday was celebrated in style, before we left St. Helena, as we invited all the other yacht crews aboard for drinks. I bought slices of cake at the Centennial Hotel and the owner, Hazel, very kindly lent me a plastic cake box to get them safely out to Tin Tin. She was amazing, casually lending us her car to drive our load of shopping down to the quayside. She had come from Botswana ten years before hoping to buy a home but, finding nothing on the market, bought the hotel. It has a wonderful atmosphere with its main room cool and dark after the bright sun outside, and hung with masses of old paintings of Napoleon, ships and scenes of St Helena. The long counter presents a row of glass covered cake stands, from which I made my selection for the party. Hazel also gave me party hats and blowers to add to the occasion. Unfortunately the promised flood of 30,000 tourists a year has not been realised because of the shortcomings of the new airport, and The Centennial has strong competition from the Government subsidised Hotel across the street. But, thanks to her farming friend Peter, Hazel's hotel is the only place that one can get eggs and fresh lettuce, some of which she kindly gave us.

The elegant lounge of the Centennial Hotel

The crew of Saba II outside the Centennial Hotel, Jamestown

We must have had 20 people on board to celebrate Mark's birthday, new friends and old, Claudia and Juergen from "La Belle Epoque" brought a cake she had baked, Matthieu, Anne-Laure and three children from "Saba Deux" presented a T-shirt which we all signed and Mark got a couple more hats for his collection. I produced chilli con carne with rice and then Emma, fresh in from her single handed voyage from Tristan da Cunha in "Caprice", played my ukulele and we sang French drinking songs. It was a rare occasion!

White signpost on an enticing lane through hillside meadows, St. Helena

The following morning the anchorage seemed quiet as we set off, but the crew of "Saba Deux" came out to wave goodbye. The wind was good and we set our twin headsails and set off on the 700 miles to Ascension Island. Later that day "Saba Deux" could be seen far behind, her white sails against the dark slab of St Helena as she set sail for Brazil.

A day later and the wind died, and the forecasts show a big wind hole to get through. Now at midnight on the 27th of March we have been motoring steadily for 2 days and hope to arrive on Saturday 30th.

The sea is an unbroken circle of blue, reflecting the endless blue of the sky punctuated by little white clouds at regular spaces. We trail two fishing lines, but every bite seems to result in the wire being snapped and we lose the lure. There must be some monsters out here!

South Atlantic sunset

Inevitably there's a lot of reading, and I have resumed Jack London, discovering that he was an ardent socialist, writing novels about the overthrow of capitalism in America. Surprisingly he also went to London and disguised himself as a poor American sailor to live in poverty in the East End. His account of life in London in 1902 is absolutely shocking, and he denounces the Government and wealthy aristocrats of Britain for mismanaging the economy so badly. The awful thing is that I suspect that his description of the poverty of that time now applies to the poverty of the majority in South Africa, from the little that I heard from my talks with Sibusiso in Cape Town.