St. Helena was much more hilly that I expected, and had a lot more people. Expectations were a little bit far-fetched in terms of isolation, but it was still pretty cool in terms of ‘smallness’.
In Jamestown itself, it was extremely hot and humid (compared to what I’m used to, anyway – not looking forward to Rio in that respect). Further into the island (roads were very winding, and often you could only see up to 6m of road at any one time). It was much greener, and also cool, as the wind could reach you better. The roads in the middle of the island were cool – little open roofed tunnels with black floor and green sides. The vegetation would cover the sides of the road, and often grow twice as high as the car on one side, and at least the height of the car on the other.
Jamestown (from my point of view) gives off an air of dilapidation. It’s not that the town is devoid of activity, or that the people look different from any other place . . . it’s just the buildings themselves look old. Old and tired. They’re still used for a multiple number of useful things, but though they seem to be bustling with useful motion, it’s as if the soul of the house isn’t interested anymore, and couldn’t care less what happened to it.
We were very fortunate to be able to find a good, Baptist church on St. Helena, and we could therefore have immediate contacts. The pastor and his wife were extremely friendly, and we were invited to their home quite a few times. Their house is very interesting – the walls inside the house are almost as thick as the length of my arm!
Eggs are very precious, as they are hard to come by and expensive. We got a few for our trip to Rio, as our stash had run out with, what we now realise, was vigorous use. We are now in ‘egg saving mode’, eating scones for breakfast, (no eggs) and refraining from using eggs too excessively in general.
One of the days Pastor Greame had offered to take us to the graves of the Boere who had died on the island while imprisoned there. We had to walk to their house (next to the Baptist church in Jamestown) from the water, and bought a few grocery items on our way up. We left the stuff at the house while all six of us and Pastor Greame piled into the tiny car: Pastor Greame driving; my dad in the passenger seat; Franci, I and my mom in the middle and Karin and Sophia in the boot. It was tight, but we all fit in. Luckily the poor car was still able to drive on the steep roads and up the hairpin turns with the heavy load!
One of the strangest things for me, is that we’re not going home now – we’re going to Rio! We had a wonderful ten day holiday – nice weather, we swam in the water right next to the boat, everything lovely and warm, nice fish, edible and otherwise – now that it’s over, it feels as if we ought to return to our normal life. But we’re not. Weird thought . . .
Okay, I’m done for now. =)
Jan 15
What St. Helena was like . . .
Jan 15
Birds – by Franci
For all those who don’t know me, I am very interested in birds. I am the kind of person who will look up at every chirp I hear, and it is literally a reflex now to look up whenever a shadow passes over me. So you can all expect at least one reference to birds in my bits of the blog. I have also decided to include the scientific name of each bird I mention here, in the hope that if I write the names out I’ll be able to remember them. Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to read every single Latin name I throw in here.
One of the first things I realised that I had missed most while at sea, were birds. They are beautiful creatures, each species with its own particular characteristic. The Cape Sparrow (Passer melanurus), chirpy and cautiously bossy, the Red-eyed Dove (Streptopelia semitorquata), with their fly-away-fast-at-any-sudden-movements-even-if-it-is-10meters-away attitude and so many, many more.
My birding instincts went to sleep a bit on the voyage to St Helena, because there aren’t many birds to see and they also all look so much the same. There are only slight variations of white, brown and black so that they look pretty much the same, making it very hard to impossible, to identify different species. My birding instincts opened a sleepy eye when the island became more than just a blob and then became mildly interested as the bird activity increased the closer we came to the island. It woke up and became completely aware of its surroundings when I was able to identify the terns and some brown birds flying around us as ‘I have never seen them before’.
St Helena’s bird population is a very far step down from South Africa. In any Southern African bird book there will be at the very least 800 bird species. St Helena’s bird book contains exactly 20 birds, of which 9 are seabirds. All the seabirds come here to nest like they have always done, but unfortunately 9 of the 11 land birds are introduced species. These unfortunately also include India Mynas (Acridotheres tristis). All the seabirds are pretty cool, but my favourite is the Fairy Tern (Gygis alba rothschildi). This whiter-than-snow little tern has a completely appropriate name. Its beak, legs and eyes are black, contrasting beautifully with its white feathers; a small black ring around the bird’s eyes makes them look even larger. They are the only sea birds that nest inland. They find a suitable hollow in a branch and lay a single egg. The chick when it hatches has sharp claws to help it hang on in high winds. When we can post photos again I will be sure to include my best Fairy Tern ones.
Jan 14
St Helena – Shopping
We are sailing away from St. Helena at the moment. The last internet access we had was in South Africa. This means that you’ll have to wait for the photos until we get to Rio. Sorry
The St. Helenian people call themselves “Saints” and so will I. Saints are very friendly people. They do not wave, but shake at each other. The six of us looked distinctly un-saintlike as we ventured into town each day. (We couldn’t even pass off as British). Everyone greeted us as we walked up the street and even the drivers of cars would often shake at us in passing. They all speak English but often with such a pronounced Saintish accent that is hard to follow.
Shopping is interesting. There is one bank on the Island and it is situated in James Town: The St. Helena Bank. The exchange rate worked out to about R20 for One Pound. Nothing on the shelves is guaranteed to be there next time you come. Fresh vegetables and fruit sell out quickly. Things are not where we would naturally look first. The hardware store sells some kitchenware and we found fishing lures at a giftshop.
At the Take Away place, there was a black board outside with the menu for the day. Some things were crossed through. As I ordered our Tuna Curry, the man gave me a piece of chalk and asked if I could please cross it from the menu. We have just ordered the last one.
If you want a specific cut of meat, you have to order in advance on a Wednesday. On Thursday morning you can shop for meat and produce, but have to be there at 9:00 or you might miss out. The RMS St. Helena docked while we were there, which meant some fresh stuff from South Africa. (So, Lindy and Karl, we did manage to find eggs) Everything sold at more than double the price, though. I kept on wishing that I bought more of everything in South Africa. A Canadian couple we met, told Frans that South African wine and beer were some of the best and the cheapest that we would find anywhere on our travels. He is VERY sorry that he didn’t buy more.
The place that sells the best milkshakes in town, (which are also the only milkshakes on the island), is a little hidden video-hire store. Inside the store, as a side business, they have a soft serve machine (the only one on the island). Flavours for Milkshakes included Carribean and Mango&Passionfruit. Not too bad at R30 a shake.
Jan 14
St Helena Island – Karin Jnr.
Hi everyone!!!!
The St. Helena experience was very nice but now we are back on the ocean and are going to start school tomorrow . We will have to face school some time anyway. (humungous sigh). Anyway, back to the subject: St. Helena has extraordinarily high mountains and from the anchorage all you can see is a tiny little bit of town. A huge parking area makes up most of this and the rest just cliffs. The first sighting I thought: “Oh no! How many people live on this island again?” Well, a lot of people and I discovered this the next day. There’s this steep staircase that is not impossibly steep. There are 699 steps in it and it is not the easiest of staircases. We did it two times in the whole visit. It was quite cool but exhausting. I did it taking 36 steps at a time then resting for 5 minutes, then tackling another 36 steps that might have turned into 34 by accident. The town was awesome but small. We went on a tour and saw a little more of the island. We could even catch fish in the anchorage place and since we didn’t have much luck on the trip to St. Helena it was awesome cos u literally (at night) just shone the light onto the water and with the half of the fishing rod that we own and an old reel we caught loads of fish, they weren’t big but they weren’t small either. The place is perfect for picking up new coins. I picked up three Pounds and three Penny’s which is about sixty Rand and I don’t know how much Rand a Penny is worth but I got it. Not any more cos I spent all of it but I still have the three Penny’s
Ps. No matter what they tell you, there is more than 3 800 people on the Island.
Jan 13
St. Helena
So many things to tell. The people, the places, the experiences. We loved it all! We are very privileged to have been able to visit St. Helena.
The children wanted very much to “land” as soon as possible. Especially Sophia. She was so scared that if we slept overnight in the harbour, we would lose our sea-legs and she wouldn’t feel wobbly when we stepped on land. Well, she needn’t have feared. We all felt distinctly awkward and quite dizzy and tired. We spend most of that first day “Clearing In”. Customs to Immigration, to the Police, to the Bank, to Customs and back to the Police. We shared two “Tuna Curry” take-aways (R120.00) with some rolls and fresh tomatoes we bought. Someone at the bank told us where to go for the tomatoes: ”The Rose and Crown just got some in. They are in the little fridge in the back.” Also, if we didn’t jump, we were sure to lose out on the bread. “The Star has bread today, but it sells out quick.”
James Town is a little town built in a gorge. It is nowhere very wide and all lies uphill. There are no stop signs and no traffic lights. On the sides, hemming in the town, are two cliffs. On the side of each of the cliffs one can see a road winding its way to the top through many, very steep, hair pin bends. These roads are very narrow and only have some places in which to pass. The right thing to do, it seems, is for the uphill car to hoot as it nears the bend. Any car coming down can then give it right of way. It is very hard for the uphill car to stop, as it would lose momentum and stall.
It was impossible to find a car to rent, they had none to spare over their busy season. After driving with other people on the island, I’m quite glad that we never had to drive ourselves around .
Jan 02
St. Helena – First Landfall
JAAAAYYYYYYY! What an amazing thing!!! To see land after 16 days on board.
After seeing nothing but blue ocean in every direction, suddenly there it was. A black smudge on the horizon. All of us just had to scramble on top to see. By the way, it is possible to see land at 35 nautical miles away. That is, if it is as high as St. Helena.
We kept staring at it as it got closer. Took us about 7hrs to reach it. It was the same as zooming in on a picture – just VERY sloooowly. First you see only the outlines, then some colour. After a while difference in colour and then the 3 dimensionality of what you are seeing. We ended up going left around the island instead of the more usual right. There are so many “Smuggler’s Coves” around the bottom of the rock formations. All the kids agreed that Enid Blyton would have had a field day here. We passed Speery Island and Egg Island – really only little rock formations that seem to stand away from the main Isle.
After a very long day, we eventually motored into James Bay. Our first radio contact with St. Helena reminded us very much of the British influence here. A lovely, proper crisp voice: “Yacht Shang Du, Yacht Shang Du, Yacht Shang du, This is St. Helena Radio, St. Helena Radio, St. Helena Radio. We hear you loud and clear.”
We could not go ashore that night, but in the morning Port Control would come out to our boat to sign us in. For the first time in forever, we could all go to bed at the same time. No watches, no rolling, no noises from either “Sterk Gert” or “Slim Gert” and moored in only 18 meters of water!
We were safe. Thank you God for Your Mercy! And thank you all of you for your prayers.
Dec 29
Karin’s Blog =P
The first week was the part no one enjoyed cos we all just felt sick, we didn’t have much of an appetite only ate like half a meal a day but then we started to feel better and actually started to eat down at the table two meals a day and everything. One thing I find is that the appeal to read does not reach out to me so much on the sea so just imagine my boredom when Sophia found a book on her Tablet OHH YESS!! (= for Christmas our dad got us each a phone except for Sophia who is still too young for a phone she got a mini tablet, I can’t wait till we get to Rio cos then we will have internet and my Whatsup will work. =) time passes quickly on the boat but then again slowly cos time drags if u don’t have anything to do but then again quickly in the sense that if I look back at the days I can’t really remember what day I did what, it’s just sort of all meshes together, its hard remembering the date but some days get titles like “the day we got flying fish for the first time” I don’t remember when it was but it was somewhere before Christmas. =D
Dec 29
Franci’s point of View
My Mom has informed us girls that we each need to write something for the blog; my only problem with this is that she only informed us just before she expected us to start writing. I managed to dodge the task for a day or two as I tried to think of something to write, but as you see, I no longer had any more room to dodge.
It’s just amazing how many small animals God put into the sea. At night there are the ‘Red reflectors’ Marike wrote about in her blog entry, sometimes they are everywhere in the water and sometimes they are nowhere. When they are there you can shine a light anywhere on the water and see several reddish-orange lights twinkling back at you as they dance in the waves. But no matter how close the dots get we have never quite been able to work out what they are; tiny fish seem to be the favourite opinion as the lights often jump out of the water and plop back down again; that the lights are more than one type of animal is a close second.
Yesterday the water was smooth with barely a ripple in sight and with only half-hearted, tiny swells, perfect for gazing into the sea. I sat for quite some time on the bowsprit watching tiny jellyfishes float by until they were thrown about by the waves our yacht made. I am very sure that I saw quite a few bluebottles, their tops looking like bubbles on the smooth waves. There were also tiny pinkish jellyfish of whom the biggest was the size of a really big grape, but mostly they were only specks. Then there are also these weird transparent things with a red ball of something in the middle of them; a few days ago one somehow managed to get hooked by our fishing line, and it either did not have a very definite form, or was dragged along for quite a while, because when we reeled it in it was no more than a pulped transparent yuckiness with a red ball of something in the middle, maybe intestines?
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it feels like the few times things fly around, they hit Karin. For example: once while we were looking at the dancing red sparkles we shone the torch a bit more horizontally and to our surprise saw the outline of a small Petrel hovering over the water ( a petrel is a small sea bird about the size of . . . an India Myna. They are true ocean birds as they only go to land when they breed and can otherwise not be seen unless you yourself can no longer see land). Anyway, so we pinpointed this petrel not so far from our boat, and the petrel proceeded to fly towards the light and straight into Karin. Not sure who got the bigger fright, Karin or the petrel; if noise was any judge then it was Karin, because she is not frugal when it comes to squealing. The poor confused petrel landed on the deck and then managed to go over the side and onto the sea, where it probably sat for quite a while trying to figure out just what happened back there.
. Only a few flying fish have landed on our deck yet, and none have been close to colliding with any of us; but I think that if just one fish in this entire trip would fly into anyone, that person will be Karin.
Dec 29
Marike
It’s taking too loooooong! When we started to get used to the boat, it was fun – we could actually move about doing every-day stuff without feeling drugged.. I baked some bread, we moved about and even started eating inside again. Now the wind has dropped, and the boat hardly rocks at all (no more game of ‘walk-around-without-touching-anything’). Can’t believe I’m saying this, but books are starting to run out, and the lack of exercise makes one lethargic.
Other than that . . . it’s fun to sit at the very front of the boat on the seat built into the pulpit. (Think Titanic.) Sophia’s image of us bobbing about on a circle of water is very realistic – I now understand why the people of old thought that the world was flat. When I look into the distance, I can really believe that it is possible to fall off the edge. You can literally see to the horizon. It’s not the same as seeing all around you where the earth meets the sky. Here, you can actually see the sun shining on the water where the cloud that’s over you (stopping the solar panels from charging the batteries) stops.
The cloud formations are beautiful, and so are the sunsets. (I tend to not be able to stay awake during sunrises.) The light is sharp though. You can’t go on deck during the day and just stare into space with the sun hammering down on the deck. I find myself screwing up my eyes when I try to look at the world.
At night, the sea around us comes alive with creatures. We can’t see anything in the dark water without a torch, and when we shine it onto the water, you see red dots (we assume these are eyes) of the creatures flitting in the water. We have tried to see what they are – they even jump out of the water – but it seems as though it is impossible to see what type of body the red reflector is attached to without actually taking it out of the water. (We haven’t figured out a safe way yet – they are very small.)
Okay . . . something else to write about . . . uhm . . . fish. Okay, we haven’t caught a big fish yet. We put the lines out, but we suspect the reason we don’t catch anything might be to do with the smooth sea. Just guessing here. We’ve had a few flying fish. Little things – I’ve never known much about them, and it seems as though the reason for this is that there isn’t much to know. Little fish with huge fins =)
There was a day that we had a few dolphins (about three – normal, striped ones, not bottle nose) that swam with our boat for almost half an hour. It was nearer the coast, and the sea was rougher. They surfed the waves coming off our bow (no, they didn’t come out of the water) Their fins pierced the water when they came up for breath, their skin is extremely smooth. There was a time when having the dolphin as your favourite animal was all the craze – seeing them now I don’t really understand that. How can you say the dolphin is your favourite animal, if you haven’t even seen it yet? I mean, really – living, not just a photo or a picture. (Btw, that’s what I did – I have now decided that the dolphin is my favourite animal . . . for now 😉
I think I have now written enough – it is a bit boring on the boat, so you now basically know almost everything. The days seem shorter, because you don’t fill them up with productive things you do. (My days tend to get labels, like ‘the day I baked bread’ or ‘the day we played Cluedo twice in a row’)
How’re you supposed to end a blog?
. . . . . . .
Till next time! =D
Dec 26
Sophia
No matter how the numbers on the screen might show that we are getting nearer to St. Helena,
to me it feels as if we remain in a big blue circle going nowhere, bobbing in the middle.
We haven’t seen anything else for 5 days, including boats.
I think that Flying Fish have very small mouths. They are quite tasty but have too many bones.
We had a “swim” on the back of the boat with a hosepipe on Christmas day. Karin dropped the bottle of Conditioner into the sea by accident. They say that the water in the Tropics is warm, but I disagree.
I can’t wait to get to St. Helena to get some exercise.
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