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A Lady - Sailing around the World



Wednesday, 19th January 2011
 
Skipper and Aileen went to see "Plantation House" yesterday on our travels, a very attractive georgian house where the Governor resided along with his tortoises. Meanwhile back in Jamestown, the remedial works on the quay walls is impressive, and the size of the cranes would impress the owners of Libherr... Of course we had to walk past all this stuff every time we went ashore.
 
Our first visit today was a call to the "Briars Pavilion". This was Napoleon's first residence for 3 months when he arrived in St. Helena. He had to stay here while the "Longwood" premises was being repaired and extended. He became very friendly with the 12 year old daughter of the family who owned the Pavilion, the Balcome Family. Betsy, even at 12 was a fluent french speaker and therefore hit it off with the great Napoleon.
 
From there, we went to "Longwood" where he resided for 6 years until his death, the house was damp and cold and his conditions there were not good. In fact, his generals and staff had much better conditions to live in...... The story of his life is fascinating, and we all agreed that we would have to read the story of his life at some stage. Another interesting fact is that the population of the Island doubled from 3000 to 6000 after his arrival, creating a hugh business bonus, and has remained ever since. We spent a long time wandering around the house, and examining everything we could.the colours of the walls were all primary colours, Reds, Greens, etc. 
 
After Longwood, we went just around the corner and played 9 holes of golf. This golf course is supposed to be the most remote golf course in the world, no wonder, but then the fairways were more like paddocks than fairways, and the greens were like badly cut lawns........ but it was golf, and we enjoyed muddling around the course. When finished there, we traveled back to Jamestown and Skipper returned to the boat to do the blog and catch up with all the emails.
The others went to Annies for coffee, and eventually made their way back to the boat.
 
Later, that's after the washing was complete, and the blog was finished, we relaxed for a while before going for a swim off the back of the boat. The water was cool, so the swims were brief, brrrrrrrrrrr.

18.30hrs We all went ashore in the ferry, met up with all the other boats, had a few pints of canned guinness before going to the Asian restaurant for the dinner. Another good night was had by all.
 
After some singing and general laughs, we wandered back to the ferry and got a lift out to A Lady. The washing got hung out to dry, and other items got attended to before hitting the scratchers.

It was great to meet the "Bubbly Bev" again tonight, they arrived on Tucanon earlier today, and were happy to be ashore.
 
That's enough for today,
 
Signed :-   Stephen Hyde   (Skipper)

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