St.Helena touch and go

It is always a most wonderful experience to step ashore at St.Helena. After two weeks at sea, watching the remotest island in the world appearing on the horizon, is a rare pleasure. Up to three years ago, the only way to get to St.Helena, was by water. In 2018, a long debated airport was completed at a cost of three hundred and sixty million British pounds. It is not a touristy island with palm trees and white beaches. It has a rich maritime history, and the most famous passenger that stepped ashore; Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, lived his last days here. It is a huge expense to build an airport for an island of 4500 people. There are obviously some advantages to the airport for the people, but I think it is more a strategic stronghold for the British. Falklands has huge oil reserves, and Argentina claims it as theirs for various reasons. The British have to be able to defend their ownership of the Falklands.

We arrived on the 26th, exactly four months to the day I arrived here last. We had to stay aboard and quarantine for two days, had covid swabs done early on the second day, and on the 29th we were allowed ashore. We met Port Control, Customs and Immigration at the Customs House where we cleared in and had our passports stamped.

We booked accommodation for the night at the legendary Consulate Hotel. We had fish cakes and chips at Anne's Place for early lunch, and for dinner we had pork belly strips. It was a quiet night and we retired to our rooms early. Friday we took on fuel, paid our Port and mooring fees, and had our passports stamped out. I climbed Jacob's Ladder to freshen up some graffiti on step no.428. At last I managed to count how many steps up to this particular step where my daughter and myself sat and scratched her name 13 years ago.

Don and Jane had their laundry done, and caught the last ferry back to the boat at 6pm. Thomas and myself stayed for another night at the Consulate. At about 7pm we went down to The Mule at the wharf and ordered two pizzas. We had a drink or two and moved over to Donny's for a drink. From there we made our way up to the Standard and had a final drink there before we went back to the hotel for an early night again.

Saturday morning had a nice shower. On sea we have short showers to safe water, on land it's a luxury to shower for a few minutes. Had a cup of ground coffee, said our goodbyes and popped at Anne's Place to also greet our friends there.

9am we took a ferry to our boat as our plan was to depart at 10am. We hardly arrived when we noticed that the boat closest to us is now much closer, and in a flash realized our shackle on the mooring bouy had come loose and we were adrift. Just in time managed to start our motors and safely worked our way between the mooring bouys and the yachts tied up there. We were extremely fortunate to be there at the exact time and managed to avoid any mishaps. We rigged our bowsprit again, and soon we were flying our gennaker and making good way towards Brazil. The wind was slightly more than predicted and we made good ground. Sunday and Monday light winds predicted, and we are doing our best to keep on sailing and doing OK. We have limited fuel on board, enough to motor for ten days. We thus have no option but to sail whenever we can, even if we are going a bit slower. Running out of fuel is not an option we want to contemplate.

But here we are, back at sea again. Peaceful, quiet, slowly making way towards Brazil.

I hope you are having a good weekend, and will touch base again tomorrow.

Paul





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