BLOG Passage to St Helena
Oceanpearl
Wed 8 Feb 2023 12:52
PASSAGE TO ST HELENA
After our 16 day delay at Cape Town waiting for our replacement shroud, we were very relieved to recommence our voyage.
It was wonderful to see the excitement of our ‘Dream Team’ crew as we set off to cross the South Atlantic via St Helena.
Nico tells us he has been reading accounts of Ocean passages for 30 years and dreaming of one day sailing across an ocean himself, so this passage on Ocean Pearl truly represents his dream come true .
David at 23 has set his target to be a marine engineer on a super yacht - so Ocean Pearl is the starting point of his dream - and sailing from Cape Town across the South Atlantic is the first time he will have left South Africa.
Paul has had many extreme physical adventures - skiing the Norwegian fjords with a boat providing accommodation and transport to the next fjord, to …….
As an owner of a motor day boat on Lake Geneva and a 40ft Beneteau motor cruiser on the South Coast, sailing across the South Atlantic represents a double challenge of long distance ocean travel under wind power.
Their excitement is infectious providing a boost to the enthusiasm of the inveterate globe trotters who have already sailed around 25,000 nautical miles and are bracing themselves (well Mary is) to embark on the 6500 mile sail back to Antigua in 4 passages - Cape Town - St Helena c1790 miles, St H - Salvador c1990 miles, Salvador- Grenada 2550 mikes, then a final 300 miles island hopping from Grenada to complete the Oyster World Rally in Antigua, planned arrival around the 4th April.
We have enjoyed our few days in St Helena, an extraordinary ‘country’ with a charming diverse population , all speaking perfect English and living a life of middle England a century ago. The ‘supermarket’ has wooden dresser like shelves, selling a variety of tinned and packaged ambient groceries with little or no fresh or chilled products. Two of the supermarkets had no refrigerated goods at all and just a few long life fruit and veg like carrots, apples and the like.
We are thankful for the good stocking up we did in Cape Town.
Meanwhile, a restaurant called Annie’s Place became our headquarters. Here they sold internet packages for £3 per 30 mins, which ticked by relentlessly as we tried to do all the communication we want to do - but it is also intermittent so please excuse continued poor cooks.
Yesterday we had a highlight of our circumnavigation.
Paul, my nephew and temporary crew, spent New Year with the friend of a friend. His mention that he was about to sail from Cape Town to St Helena generated an excited ‘we have a strong family connection with St Helena’. His great, great, great grandfather, Doctor Arnold had been a governor and known as the best friend of St Helena. He wrote a letter to the new governor which he asked Paul to present to the governor,
We were presented to him yesterday and had an ‘audience’ of 40 minutes with him.
He gave us some really interesting insights to his life as a governor, including his attendance at the Queen’s funeral at which all UK ‘heads of state’ took precedence over foreign heads of state, including the US President. And he is looking forward to the King’s Coronation on May 6th
In the afternoon, we visited Plantation House, the Governor’s residence to see Jonathan, St Helena’s 190 year old tortoise.
We are now preparing to leave St Helena, have visited Immigration, Port Control and Customs to check out of the country and get all necessary clearance documents needed to get into Brazil, our next destination.
Enjoying the last bit of internet at Annie’s where we will have lunch, return to Ocean Pearl for final preparations, including rescuing the laundry which had been out to dry on the guard rails all morning - but it has rained heavily since we left!
C’est La Vie on Ocean Pearl!
We are anticipating a 12 day passage to Salvador. Next blog on arrival in Brazil.
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