[password] brucelaura
[position] 15 55S 5 43W
[status] Thursday, January 30, 8:00pm local
Our first day on St Helena was a blast. We took the water taxi ashore at 8:00 am (there is no place to land your dinghy and water taxi runs on the hour so very convenient). First order of the day was clearing customs and immigration. Then exploring the town which is basically one street of really old buildings that house guest houses, cafes, and small shops. Totally charming. St. Helena has a population of about 5,000. While the town is off the Harbour, most people live on the top of a plateau. That's because the island is bare, steep, crumbling rock for the first 1000 ft, and on the plateau there is water and soil and vegetation. There is a steep road going up from town, but we opted to climb the 699 steps (and each step is 11 inches high) up to the old cannons and stone buildings overlooking the Anchorage. The trip down turned our legs into a quivering mass of jello!
This may be the #1 site in the world for whale sharks, which show up in January and February. We've signed up to go on a boat tomorrow morning to see and swim with them!
There are a lot of pretty incredible hikes on this 47 Sq. mile island so we plan to do some exploring by car and foot over the weekend.
So we are pretty excited to be here, take in the sites over the next few days, then shove off for the 4,000 mile sail to St. John. All is well on board.
B&L

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