Last Tuesday, almost a week ago now, we rounded Sugar Loaf Point, the most northern part of St Helena, and lay eyes on James Bay with the historic Jamestown in the background, the capitol. Steep cliffs on our portside with very well-preserved walls and fortifications from centuries passed.
The island measures roughly 10 by 5 miles of volcanic rock and has a population of about 4,500 people. I don’t know what the workforce is out of that 4500, but I’ve been told, that just over a thousand people in the workforce are employed by the government. I just find that amazing, although understandably.
Ken was in contact with Port Control, an officer named Steve, who told him to pick a mooring buoy, a yellow one, not an orange, then call the water taxi and come ashore for the formalities.
Turned out Steve, who hails from England, married a St Helenian, and now heads up Harbor Control on the island, happens to be, like Ken, a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, which made the wheels of formalities even turn smoother than we had hoped for.
Steve took us to immigration where we each had to pay twenty pounds for a temporary visa. To be paid in pounds, dollars, euros, or rands. No credit card accepted. And not just there, no credit cards are accepted anywhere on the island, everything is cash, and if you don’t have a British bank account with an accompanying debit card, and don’t have cash, you are out of luck. Oh, and no ATMs on the island either.
The bank happily changes the above-mentioned currencies in St Helena pounds, St Helena pounds is one of those made-up currencies, it’s tied to the British Pound, one to one, but absolutely useless outside of St Helena or Ascension Island. When exchanging money at the bank you can ask for British Pounds, a perfect legal tender on the island, but there will be a two percent commission on the exchange.
Anyway, after immigration came customs, a breeze, as the customs officer had brought the wrong forms, something for importing tires, and he pretty well let is off the hook for any formalities at all.
We followed the seawall to a gate in the old fortification wall and we enter Jamestown. It’s very quaint. The first building on the left is the castle. A castle by name only as it has no resemblance to one whatsoever. Next is the courthouse, with the jail across the street. And then we have the castle gardens that also run behind the courthouse.
It’s a pleasant little green space that also functions as the entrance to Anne’s Restaurant. A place I come to visit quite regularly, as it is one of the three places in town where one can purchase internet time. £6.60 for an hour, regardless if it is working or not. You can log out and save the remaining time for later, but you need to be connected to log out. I have seen £6.60 run to zero without checking a single email.
It is a beautiful little town crammed in a valley. Behind the jail is Jacob’s ladder. 699 steps to the top of the cliff. The record for running up the stairs is something like five minutes and 22 seconds, held by a Scotsman since 2013, a record I fully intended to better upon arrival, but unfortunately, Jacob’s ladder is closed for repairs. My name will not live on here in history.
St Helena was sighted in 1502 by a Portuguese Armada. Where have we heard that story before? It was uninhabited and had an abundance of trees and fresh water. They imported livestock, fruit trees, and vegetables. It became an important supply stop on the East Indian trade route. The Dutch claimed St Helena in 1633 but lost interest in the island after establishing a colony at the Cape of Good Hope.
In 1657 Cromwell, granted the East India Company (EIC) a charter to govern St Helena. The walls were built, the canons were pointed outwards and the planters were imported from Britain. The Dutch took over for a little while again, but English reinforcement restored control for the EIC and fortified the island with over 200-gun turrets. And many still stand today.
In 1723 the island recorded 1,110 inhabitants of which 610 were slaves, mostly from India, Madagascar, and South East Asia.
In 1815 the Brits selected St Helena as the place for Napoleon’s exile after his defeat at Waterloo. He died here in 1821 at the age of 52. Tomorrow I hope to trace Napoleon’s footsteps and visit the places where he spent most of his time, The Briars and Longwood House. I understand he was free to roam the island and apparently visited every corner of it.
At the start of the nineteenth century, the island was extremely poor. The only industry was the production and export of flax fiber to New Zealand. That industry, and it wasn’t much to start off with, closed down in 1966.
In 1981, by a brilliant move of the British Government, all islanders were stripped of their citizen of the United Kingdom status. Just like that. We’ll show those islanders, we have no use for you any longer. However, in 2002, full British citizenship was restored.
There is just no sustainable economy in this place. There is no fresh food in the abundant small supermarkets, no fruit but some locally grown bananas. Get this, we reserved, yes reserved, a cauliflower in one of the stores, but the damn plane yesterday didn’t carry any. But we have some limp carrots to show for. There is an abundance of canned food on the shelves and I did see potatoes and onions. And fish, of course, lots of fish.
The downtown is always full of extremely friendly retired people. All on government pensions. Very few young people of high school age.
Most likely we leave on Wednesday morning for Ascension Island, supposedly even further back in time than St Helena. Probably only a few days there before setting sail from there to Cape Verde. A challenge, because of prevailing winds and currents very much against us.