Blue Pearl - St. Helena

Blue Pearl arrived in St. Helena just before midnight on Sunday January
20th, our arrival was announced on St. Helena radio! The passage from
Cape Town to St. Helena had taken us 11 days and 13.5 hours, a very
respectable time given the relatively tranquil sailing conditions. We
were the first Rally boat to cross the finish line but after taken our
"rating" into account we took second place in our division. The "rating"
is a handicap system based on various aspects of a boat's physical
properties. We depart St. Helena tomorrow, January 26th, on the way to
Salvador in Brazil.

The time we spent here was interesting and comfortable. St. Helena is
essentially one very large volcanic rock with only one area suitable to
approach by boat, Jamestown Bay. It is not surprising that the Brits
chose this place to imprison Napoleon after his defeat at the battle of
Waterloo. We toured the Island, including all the properties connected
to Napoleon's imprisonment as well as his burial site, many of us,
except Blue Pearl's Captain, explored the underwater sea life. The
whale-shark is the big attraction here and is observed while snorkeling,
not scuba diving. Unfortunately when I finally gave in to all the
plaudits about this fish and the urgent need to observe it , I jumped
on the snorkeling boat, toured around for 2.5 hours but the snorkeling
boat captain never found the fish. I guess St. Helena is just not my
underwater Island..!

The Island also spent about 5 years constructing an airport runway at a
cost of about 400million pounds, only to end up with a runway
orientation almost perpendicular to the prevailing wind making it all
but useless under most weather conditions for larger planes to land.
This happened because of environmental concerns about a colony of rare
insects , whose survival was considered more important than a functional
airport. Whatever..!

The people of St. Helena are a pleasure to be around, very friendly,
very patient and very helpful. Not like some of our more "hectic" home
countries.

Brazil is next and about 1900nm's from here, we expect to arrive there
around February 10th and enjoy a stay in the country of about 4 weeks
before embarking on our home leg back to St. Lucia. We'll keep you posted.

Captain Ruud