Tuesday, 18th January 2011
It was A Lady turn to do Radio call today, but had to hand over to Eowyn as we were too far away from the fleet and also behind St. Helena which made reception very poor.
We were so looking forward to going ashore again today, our brief visit last night gave us a great feeling about the place. The St Helena supply ship was in harbour when we arrived and all lit up like a Christmas tree. This always helps the activity in town, when the ship is here, and they carry the passengers to and from Cape Town as it is the only connection with the Island.
09.30hrs We went ashore and headed up to the tourist office and then the bank, (no ATM's here) and their £ here has the same value as the £ Stg. We hired a Honda 4x4 at £20 per day was good value. However, before we went touring the Island, Emily, Aileen & Skipper climbed "Jacobs Ladder" This is an amazing set of steps ever, consisting of 699 steps in a straight flight, no landings of any description, all the way from Jamestown up to the fort on the hill over looking the harbour/Bay. Impressed! 602 feet high. Emily walked back down the 699 steps again where she met Sham and then drove the car up to collect A & S up at the fort.
Once we had familiarized ourselves with this fascinating place, we headed off in the car, up over the top of the Island and stopped a few times to admire the lush green interior. That plant called "Formiums" are everywhere here, and plenty of flowers and colour, including some spectacular birds. The views of the sea every where were great, breathtaking...
We headed down to Sandy Beach on the SE side of the Island and passed "Lots Wife" and the salt stone on the way, you must remember that storey from school days. Well, here they are. The beach was rough enough, not a place for swimming, but we explored the kiln and the sreams, which had lots of "Guppies" and tad poles, plus many other types of little fish. The landscape down here by the sea was almost lunar in looks, so different to the lush interior. Nothing growing anywhere except where the little river ran down to the sea. A little oasis in the middle of a desert.
We dropped Sham and Emily back to the town, and Skipper and Aileen drove off to explore the "Blue Hills". Ohhhhh, so hilly, green and dramatic, the corkscrew roads winding up and down the side of the hills were chilling stuff, one would not want to be suffering "vertigo".
There are plenty of Cocks wandering wild here on this island also, just like all the Islands across the pacific. But, but, we hardly saw a dog anywhere, Sham said he saw one and we saw a sign "beware of Dog" somewhere else, but no dogs...
When we returned to Jamestown in late afternoon, we found that Lady Ev VI had arrived, and we met Dieter and their gang along with the crew from Wild Tigris in the Hotel and of course had a few scoops there before going onto an Oriental restaurant for dinner. The food was excellent, and we had the full works, plus plenty of fine wine.
Later, we rerturned to A Lady and after a brief chat, all went to the scratchers as we have booked visits tomorrow to Napolean's places and golf afterwards. So an early start tomorrow.
That's all.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)