St Helena Island

Hi one and all. 

Well, we have arrived safely in St Helena Island. We sailed the whole way, travelling about 2100 nmiles to go 1700 nmiles! We found we could run with the wind behind us under headsails alone provided the wind stayed above 15 knots, but had to crack off the wind if it dropped. We rolled the whole way with a following sea, and I remained slightly seasick the whole way. You did well not to come, Lea! My computer decided to update (I now found it was “flashplayer update service”, and I don’t even have adobe flashplayer on the computer! I have no idea why this happened, perhaps Tony could advise!) in any event, I exceeded my monthly limit on satellite and was cut off for a month, 3 weeks to go still before reconnect, and haven’t been able to “blog” We communicated by HF radio email (sailmail) but are very limited in the time we can use it, and now can’t communicate with Maputo, as there transciever is rather limited. I am told we can sort this in the Cape Verdes, our next stop , so no running commentary on the next leg.

We didn’t see much sea life until very near St Helena, when we saw a whale, 2 turtles and a pod of large bottlenose dolphins. The weather  is now warm to hot. St Helena is about 10x7 km, very high cliffs all round with only one landing place, Jamestown, in a small valley, Landing was spectacular, as it is King tides! No way we could come close with our dingy! The ferry watches the waves, and dashes in between “sets”, everyone scambles like mad to load water, bags, and themselves in the few seconds before the next wave crashes in! Apparently Ascension Island is worse, with no ferry service, and tides will still be high, so we will bypass it as we can’t land safely. We are carting water and fuel by jerry can.

This Island is the most friendly place I have ever been to. Immigration opened especially for us on Saturday afternoon so we could legally land.  The banks are closed till Monday so a lady at the local hotel gave us 100 pounds with an i.o.u. without even checking our identity. She says they do this all the time for the yachties! Tomorrow “Robert” is taking us, in his car, on a tour of the island to see Napoleon’s last home, his grave, the oldest tortoise on earth, at Plantation House, the Governor’s residence, the Boer Prisoner of War graves and internment camp and the forts on the mountaintop, old (and many!) defences of the island.  We leave again on Tuesday for Cape Verdes, our longest leg so we will have little contact for the next three weeks.  You can however, follow us on www.skipr.net.

 

Best wishes to you all.

 

Dimitri & Arti