[p]kudzuu1114

[s]
pos: 15 55.0S 005 43.0W
d: 23/02/2019 1230 GMT+0
w: classic trade winds South Atlantic high weather, warm & breezy

St. Helena has a quaint charm that is completely unique to anyplace else we have been. It's only been 14 months since their airport was completed and opened. Can you believe it!? Until the beginning of 2018 if you wanted to visit this place, you'd have had to book an 8-day passage on a ship from merry olde England. Now THAT is splendid isolation like we've seen it nowhere else!

Today planes arrive from Johannesburg, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday, bringing tourists, nearly all of them Saints, for so the locals call themselves, who have relocated elsewhere and are coming home for a visit. Besides returning Saints, the only visitors to St. Helena seem to be a few brave and hardy British expats and visiting yachties who come to St. Helena at the rate of about 280 yachts each year. Most of those, the yachts, visit during the months of January, February and March. We are number 86 for 2019 and have been here for the past ten days in the company of about 8 other vessels, including Explorer, Wakanui, XE, Egalite, Capensis, Peristera, and since yesterday, Farr Flyer and Balakcil.

Not one of us has dropped a dinghy in the water, the preferred, indeed the only, way to reach shore being via the St. Helena Ferry Service. Since taking the ferry is a highlight of one's stopover, I'll add pictures when I can of the ferry, the landing steps with manropes dangling above as from a gallows, and the rollers that wash the steps sending the little ferry boat first up above the landing then crashing down a meter or two below it. Each ferry passenger chooses his favoured moment as the boat rises and falls, crashes into the concrete steps then washes away, for a death defying leap of a meter or more from ferry to shore or the reverse. Parcels and backppacks are handed across to anyone who'll have them while each passenger times his leap, then all the belongings are sorted after the people have arrived safely on the landing or on the ferry, eggs receiving particular attention in hopes they'll arrive unbroken on the moored yacht to which they belong. "This one has eggs!" "Eggs, got it!"

I've taken lots of pictures. When we reach acceptable Internet (that will NOT be at St. Helena) I'll post some of those pictures here.

James Hearn and his family left St. Helena in 2012 in their own sailboat, Bavaria 38 Carpe Diem, and circumnavigated until their December 2017 return. Now James operates St. Helena Yacht Services during the week, assiting arriving boats with moorning lines and answering all the typical questions. Where do we go to clear in? What about trash? Where is the bank, the grocery store, the nearest beer? James is a font of helpful information. A cruiser himself he understands all our needs, and his contact with sailors like us keeps him connected to the cruising lifestyle that he, Hannah and their 3 kids enjoyed so much. (St. Helena Yacht Services, VHF 16, except on weekends.)

Freight services are better here than at, for isntances, Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas. The Aranui III arrived at Hiva Oa once every three months in 2012 when we were there, whereas the St. Helena makes a run to and from Cape Town once every three weeks. (More anon about Aranui III and Hiva Oa, believe it or not!)

When Mersoleil pulled in to James Bay on Valentines Day, the Captain of the departing island freighter, St. Helena, bid a fond VHF farewell to Port Control, offered his thanks for the Saints' hospitality, and announced, "I guess I'll see you again in June." We thought St. Helena must receive only three freighters per year, but further inquiry revealed that the Captain on board must be going on leave, probably three months on/three months off, and HIS next visit will be in June. The St. Helena, however, will be back in three weeks time with additional onions, carrots, toilet paper, batteries and more. As we strolled from the landing steps into town on the afternoon of our arrival, big burly blue-shirted Allen bemoaned the absence of potatoes, "That's two in a row with no potatoes, we have yellow onlions, red onions, pickling onions, but no potatoes. Again!"

St. Helena is almost entirely rock, rising some 423m to Diana's Peak, one of several high points on this steep and mountainous island. Many steep, narrow valleys run down to the sea, too, and one of them on the leeward northwest coast has grown into the bustling village of Jamestown, crowded into the narrowing upper reaches of the valley as it climbs up from the sea. There are many shops, at least half a dozen selling groceries, an abundance of tea rooms, some small hotels, the tourism office, and other amenities one might find in any small town. At the bootom of the town is the sea, the local fresh water swimming pool, the wharf facilities, and Jacob's Ladder, an unbelievably steeply inclined stairway of 700 concrete steps that connects the residential community of Ladder Hill with Jamestown. More photos coming, I promise.

No we did not. Are you kidding!? It made me dizzy just looking down from the top!

Neither of us has recovered from the sealegs with which we arrived. For an open roadstead anchorage, the James Bay mooring field is really quite comfortable, but we experience enough rolling and movement on the boat to keep us hopelessly wobbly every single time we go ashore. Climb 700 stairs? Not a chance.

Unlike many of the isolated islands we have called upon, St. Helena appears to have no poverty, though life is simple. All the roads are paved and the British government ensures that things move along smoothly here, posting her officials in a warm sunny climate and keeping many of the Saints employed productively.

Everyone in St. Helena is friendly and welcoming, something we often gauge by observing how many locals greet us before we speak to them. St. Helena scores very high on the 'Initiates Greetings' scale, and what little interaction we've had with locals apart from James was warm and pleasant. Virtually everyone is British or of British extraction some number of generations back. The Brits found this island uninhabited, so colonizing it was a simple matter of adding people and gun emplacements, which they did beginning in the 1500 or 1600s. There is little of historical note here except the existence of a couple of houses where Napoleon was stored, far enough from Europe to keep him out of further trouble. We did not pay ten pounds to enter either house. An old house is an old house and we know he's gone now.

On the wall in the tea room (formerly the bar and we're sorry it's evolved into tea room) of the Consulate Hotel is a huge collection of likenesses of the former General Bonaparte, on his rearing horse, standing with hand in vest, in bust or profile. His uniformed statue presides outdoors on the balcony above the street beckoning guests inside. Elderly British proprietress, Hazel, offers wifi service there, three pounds thirty for half an hour, during which one can just manage to log in and open email before the time expires, and she sells excellent tea and coffee along with a mouth-watering selection of delicious cakes under glass domes. It's impossible to go into the Consulate and indulge only in the Internet. Also fixtures at the Consulate Hotel are Nigil, Sheila and Geoffrey, three friends of many years who spend their leisurely afternoons at the bar with white wine, ice and conversation. Nigel and Geoffrey, both Saints, grew up together on the island. Sheila, Nigil's wife, is British. They spend six months on St. Helena and six months at home 45 minutes outside London. The three became Robbie's local political commentators and interpreters and he spent two or three happy afternoons in their company analyzing the ongoing Supreme Court case in which a local was accused of attempted rape and found guilty despite his Sainthood.

Robbie and I have completed all the TTDs on our St. Helena list, a simple litany, really, of refuel, tighten screws, replace consumable parts here and there and change the oil. NOTHING compared to the list with which we pulled into Cape Town reflecting the lack of autopilot, radar and sails! We're ready to leave and will do so early on Monday morning, destined for the Cabos Verdes Islands, about 2,200nm away. We'll begin by heading NW toward Ascension Island, though we'll not stop there, then will turn more directly N and motor across the doldrums. Sailing at average speeds and motoring about 140nm per day when there's no wind, we'll probably arrive in Praia on about March 13th. There's no hurry and we anticipate an easy trip in the general company of Wakanui, who left here four hours ago and are now about 25nm away (we're doing VHF radio tests to find ut how far our radio range will reach), and Sisu who left Walvis Bay, Namibia, the day before yesterday bound directly for Praia, their first ever blue water passage at the end of which we have offered to provide the champagne. 3,200nm on a first passage! Go Sisu!!!

We've made plans to dine this evening with Jerry and Carmel, Farr Flyer, at the new Mantis Hotel dining room, and will burden the Ferry Service, who normally ends the day with a six o'clock run, with a late return to Mersoleil. (They'll charge more than the usual one pound per passenger each way.) Tomorrow we'll laze around doing nothing, or nearly that, and in the wee hours of Monday we'll slip the lines and put charming St. Helena in the rearview mirror.

Oh! I almost forgot. From the small world department, the 'more anon' I promised above.... When we arrived in the Republic of Seychelles last April, there was an interesting white ship anchored in the Victoria outer harbour with a helicopter perched on the stern platform. We thought it might be a reasearch ship. We don't often look up the ships we pass, but we Googled this one, the MRII, online and discovered it to be the refitted Aranui III! Que milagro! We hadn't noticed it looked familiar, just wondered what it was! This is the very ship that nearly ran us down in the dawn's early light on a May morning in 2012 while we were at anchor in Hiva Oa! In another blast from that same past, the couple on SY XE mentioned to us on the ferry the morning after they arrived at St. Helena, "Mersoleil! We crossed the Pacific Ocean in 2012 with a boat named Mersoleil!" Of course, it was us and we had a good laugh at that, too!
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