We said goodbye to the beautiful, rugged and very remote (no airport-yet) island of St Helena and its very friendly, welcoming people (pop c 4000) last night (Sunday) at about midnight. The winds are good at about 15 knots from South East and we are now on a course of 283° to Recife, Brazil 1774nm from St Helena, we are sailing on a broad reach.
What a wonderful time we had in St Helena. We arrived early last Friday and checked in with Customs, Immigration & Harbour Master in the morning after which we explored the lovely little town of Jamestown and climbed up Jacobs ladder - a very steep (not far from vertical) old rail cart track which has 699 big steps; our leg muscles are still sore!
That afternoon by VHF we called the captain of the ship Arctic Lady which is at anchor in the bay waiting for their next job, to see if we could have a tour of this huge & impressive looking Norwegian owned Natural Gas tanker, the biggest in the world at 288m long. At 6pm they collected us and we didn´t leave the ship until 10am the following morning! The chief engineer gave us a fascinating 2 hour tour of this steam turbine ship which has 4 gigantic spherical gas tanks on deck, each 60m in diameter. This was followed by drinks & snacks in their bar with captain Knut and his officers, Irish dancing(!) and lots of fun until the early hours, after which we were shown to our big ensuite cabin for a very comfortable sleep (the anchorage in St Helena was very rolly because of a particularly big swell so we were very happy not to be sleeping on Freefall!!).
Saturday was our day for exploring as much of the island as we could but we had a bit of a late start after our leisurely big breakfast on Arctic Lady consequently missing the only morning bus, so we decided to hitchhike. There are not many cars on the roads but a very nice chap in the 2nd car to eventually pass us, picked us up and ended up giving us a 4 hour tour of the whole island! The island is only 10k x 17k but because its so hilly the distance travelled is much greater. We had a great day out visiting Napoleon´s house - a nice large rambling cottage which was his ´prison´, the Governor´s mansion where the oldest St Helenian resident, 170yrs old Jonathan the tortoise resides (given to the Governor as a present 150 years ago!!! Axel), and driving through the islands many hills and valleys, some lush green and others barren and desolate - a stark contrast!
Saturday evening we returned to Arctic Lady with 4 loads of laundry which all fitted in their industrial washing machine, followed by a lovely steak dinner with the captain & officers and then all ashore to listen to an excellent live band in Donny´s pub. After another comfortable nights sleep onboard Arctic Lady we said our goodbyes, loaded with ship souvenirs (mugs, shirts, hats).
Sunday we spent a few hours on rolly Freefall doing a few essential jobs in prep for the next half of the Atlantic. Two of our friends had sailed in that morning, Cisnecito & Gypsy Soul, so we all ate Gypsy Soul´s catch of Tuna & Mahi Mahi on Sun evening before saying goodbye & weighing our anchor at midnight...
Em x
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