A Family of Saints - James Bay, St. Helena
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 12 Jan 2013 11:08
| 15:54.993S 05:43.099W January 7, 2013 - January 11, 2013 First, a bit of history. Uninhabited St. Helena was first discovered by a navigator on a Portuguese ship on his way home from India in 1502. The Portuguese did their best to keep St. Helena (so named because the island was discovered on St. Helena's feast day) a secret for most of the 16th century, using it as a convenient provisioning stop for ships traveling to and from India and Southeast Asia. Unfortunately for the Portuguese, the Dutch and English eventually caught on, and after a few struggles between the three nations, the English East India Company (spice traders) annexed the island for their own provisioning purposes in 1659. Since then, aside from a skirmish or two with the Dutch, St. Helena has remained in the hands of the British. Today, St. Helena remains a British colony. About as remote as one can get. Said to be one of most remote inhabited islands in the world, St. Helena is basically in the middle of the South Atlantic - 600 miles southeast of Ascension Island (owned by the British, but leased by the US for a military base), and 1,200 miles from the African coast. There is no airport here, no cell phone service, and only 4,000 people. Most of the people, who prefer to be called 'Saints', are descendants of a unique mix of Europeans, English, Africans, Indians and Chinese - an excellent example of how well diverse cultures can meld together over time. Heavily supported by the UK government, St. Helena is solely supplied by a fuel ship, and one of the few remaining British Royal Mail Service (RMS) ships, aptly named the St. Helena. The RMS St. Helena runs between Cape Town, St. Helena and Ascension Island, bringing all manner of goods, supplies, food and passengers every two weeks. Pretty much everything shipped to and from the island is transported by the RMS St. Helena. It is the only way to travel to and from the island with the exception of private yachts like our own. St. Helena an idyllic place, but maybe not so much for the seriously ill. There is a small hospital in Jamestown, the tiny capital city, but any illness beyond the local doctors' abilities means a potentially long wait for the RMS St. Helena to arrive, and a five day trip to Cape Town. St. Helena is definitely a throw back to an earlier, less complicated time. The pace is slow, the workday extremely civilized (8:30am to 4:00pm as far as we can tell), and no one taps on their cell phone, tablet or laptop while you are trying to hold a conversation with them. Ah yes, a world without instant communication or interruption. What a pleasant place to be (as long as you're not sick). Change is coming - for better or worse. The British government is footing the bill (and it's a very large bill) for the construction of an airport with a runway long enough for large passenger and cargo jets. The justification, in part, is an increase in tourism, which will start St. Helena on the road to economic independence from the UK government. Scheduled for completion in 2016, a South African engineering firm has been hired to build the airport. It's no easy feat - one year into construction and the needed infrastructure is only partially finished. Three additional (very large) fuel tanks and a new jetty for the fuel tanker have been put in place, a completely new road leading over the mountains from the new jetty to the airport construction site has been completed, housing for the South African engineering team has been built, and the blasting and earth moving needed to flatten out the airport construction site has been started. Our unofficial poll of the Saints indicates a division in the population between those who are in favor of the new airport, and those who are not. One Saint is looking forward to increased tour guide business, while another feels the airport will bring unwelcome change - an influx of too many of the 'wrong' people, the possible introduction of racism to Saints society, and irreversible change for the worse. Another suggests the airport is long overdue, citing the overwhelming advantage of an airport as a means to improve medical care (faster transport to Cape Town). We can understand both sides of the argument, but in the end, we have to say we are really glad we're here now, before the airport and all the inevitable change it will bring. If not anything else, this is still a place where there is no need for a lock - hopefully the same will be true after the airport is built. The Saints seem more like an extended family (and in some respects, they probably are) than simply an impersonal collection of 4,000 people. We asked Adam, the refrigeration technician, if everyone knows everyone on St. Helena. He said he may not know everyone, but he probably knows someone who knows the few people he doesn't. He also said that more often that not, people are known by their nicknames (Blossom happens to be his, and when asked why, he blushed and said it probably had something to do with his blushing chubby cheeks). The problem with this nickname society is it then becomes difficult to look up someone's number in the phone book as only proper names are used there. We kind of like the concept of a nickname society - it sounds way more fun than using stodgy old family names, and it allows you to make fun of everyone without really making fun of them or causing offense. For me, it brings back memories of growing up in a very large family where we all had at least one nickname (some still do). The Saints have an excellent sense of humor, which seems a necessary trait when living on a very small island in the middle of the ocean. We get the sense that as much as they enjoy the company of yachties like us, they'll be just as glad to see all of us go come winter when the visiting yacht season is over. Jamestown's bustling city center. Ok, maybe it's not quite a city center, let alone bustling. However, when 4 pm approaches and minibuses line the street waiting to take everyone home for the night, the place actually does bustle, but only for about ten minutes, and then it's very, very quiet. Aside from the four o'clock rush, Jamestown is a friendly place where most everyone says hello, shops open and close at will, and if you want something other than ancient onions, potatoes or carrots, you'd better be in the know because there are certain times of the day and days of the week when everyone flocks to one or the other of the two small grocery stores to buy up the good stuff. Jacob's Ladder. Built in 1829, this was originally an inclined plane, used to convey manure up the rock cliff and out of the teeny valley Jamestown resides in, and vegetables down from where they were grown to the town below. The system was powered by donkeys, who together with cattle, comprised the island's main (and only) transport system until well into the 20th century. The ramp has been turned into a stairway - merely 699 steps from bottom to top. We know because we climbed them….most of them. View of Jamestown from Jacob's Ladder. The town is literally built wall-to-wall, with the cliff faces on either side forming many a building's back wall. View of James Bay from Jacob's Ladder. Harmonie is anchored just to the right of the other two-masted sailboat in the bay. See it there just beyond the harbor's break wall? What, you don't see a break wall? Aha! That's right, there is no break wall. Just a wharf, way over there on the right, with the two cranes nestled next to the cliff covered with steel rockfall mesh, and completely open to the swell. Yup, all that frothy white stuff is the result of breaking waves. This is why landing at the Jamestown wharf is very, very tricky. As boaters, we have the option of bringing our own dinghy into the wharf, hopping out onto the wall in sometimes nasty swell, then heaving our dinghy and motor up onto the wharf for safe keeping. Or, we can catch the water taxi going to and fro on their hourly run for 1.50 pounds each per round trip. We opted for the taxi, but even that was sometimes an adventure. It's good they've rigged up an overhead structure above the wharf edge, with heavy knotted ropes hanging from it which are infinitely handy when trying to disembark from a heaving water taxi in the few seconds the driver is able to hold the boat in place, near enough to the wall for the semi-agile to step ashore without falling in. It's even more of an adventure when lugging laundry or groceries, or jerry jugs filled with diesel, or a broken boom like the one the French guy on the boat next to us had to transport from his boat to shore. Yes, but that's only half the story. The other half is the skill the water taxi drivers exhibit while picking up or dropping off boaters from their severely rolling boats. Yes, severely rolling. We did think it strange that first (very calm) day when the taxi driver asked us to put fenders down on Harmonie's starboard side so he could drop off the immigration, port control and customs officials. We thought he was just being extremely sensitive to a boater's desire to keep his/her boat completely pristine, free of all marks and scratches (a completely hopeless desire, by the way). Not so, as we were to find out later. The fenders are there to make the water taxi driver's life easier - he hangs on to them while you scurry aboard at just the right moment when both boats roll together, and there is five seconds in which to get aboard, turn around, grab the backpack and canvas bag full of groceries from your waiting husband before he also scurries up the side of the rocking boat before losing a foot between the water taxi and one of Harmonie's deployed fenders. Just to give you an idea of how bad it can be, there is photo in the Jamestown museum which shows a huge wave crashing up and over the crane on the wharf. That picture can strike fear into a boater's heart. Both Don and I were uncomfortable just glancing at the thing. The first day we made an appointment with the refrigerator guy to come out to Harmonie with all his equipment (large freon bottle, vacuum pump, pressure gauges, toolbox), we were disappointed when he didn't show up. It was rough that day. We were feeling like we were still at sea as Harmonie rocked vigorously from side-to-side in between wind bullets that blasted into the bay packing a full 30 knots - each blast only a little more than a few seconds, but long enough to get both ours and Harmonie's attention. When we went to the refrigerator workshop the next morning, Adam just shrugged and said he went down to the wharf with all his stuff at the appointed time on that day, but did not like what the sea was doing, so aborted his mission. When he and an assistant arrived at Harmonie's doorstep the following (more calm) day, they were fully decked out in life jackets and wore expressions of slight alarm while handing over their precious equipment and scrambling aboard. We warned both that they may feel seasick down in Harmonie's cabin due to the constant rolling motion. Adam was fine, but his assistant spent all three hours sitting alone and looking very pale in the cockpit. The first two nights we were here, the conditions were not so rolly, so certainly it isn't this bad all the time. At first we said, "This isn't so bad, we've had worse.", but after three relatively sleepless nights, we are looking forward to going back out to sea so we can get a decent three hour stretch of pure, uninterrupted sleep. New this year, the port of St. Helena has installed about 23 very hefty moorings on the south side of James Bay, and it's possible conditions in that area of the bay are better than where we are anchored. Unfortunately, we arrived in St. Helena too early, as the moorings were still monopolized by the Governor's Cup race boats (Cape Town to St. Helena race). Friends of ours passing through here a month from now will most certainly get a chance to try the moorings out, so we're sure to get the full report on the comfort we missed out on. Longwood House, Napoleon's prison. Not so bad, you might say, but the pretty blue flowers, and most of the garden didn't exist when Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena in 1821 (? can't remember the exact year) after his loss at Waterloo. He spent six years here, enduring the boredom of captivity and the damp and supposedly rat infested house, before dying of stomach cancer (academics' best guess as to the cause of his premature demise). Napoleon wasn't the only prisoner to be held on St. Helena. Over the years, St. Helena's nearly perfect isolation meant the British used it as a prison whenever the need arose. Zulu were imprisoned here as well as 6,000 Boers from South Africa. The Boer's were kept three years (1903-1906) before their release and shipment back to Africa (minus 96 who died on St. Helena). Napoleon's tomb. Unadorned and now empty. The French exhumed his body and brought it back to France twenty years after he died. Napoleon's body now resides in a tomb in Paris, surrounded by much fanfare. The French government continues to own and maintain both Longwood House and Napoleon's ex-tomb on St. Helena. St. Helena's interior. Admittedly brown around the edges, St. Helena is green and quite pretty on the inside, even on a cloudy day. The RMS St. Helena at sunset on arrival day. The RMS St. Helena preparing for departure at sunset the following day. The Governor's Cup sailboat race was just finishing when we arrived last Sunday. Of the eighteen or so participating yachts, three are sailing on to other destinations (Brazil or the Caribbean), one is sailing back to Cape Town (an ugly, 1,600 mile slog into the prevailing wind), and the rest are riding the RMS St. Helena back to Cape Town. Eight yachts were loaded onto the St. Helena today, and the rest will be taken back on the ship's next round. The RMS St. Helena has departed, and so must we. Details on our planned 3,750 mile voyage to the Caribbean to follow. Anne |