After waiting close to a week for the winds in Cape Town to
settle down, we headed out on January 31st. Our next stop would be the island of Saint
Helena, 1,700 miles to the northwest.
The strategy for this leg of the trip is to wait for a few days of light
winds in Cape Town and make it as far north as possible before the next big
blow comes. In the case of Cape Town,
light winds usually mean 20 – 30 knots.
This passage is normally quite boisterous for the first few
days, and our trip was no exception. We
had S to SE winds at 20-25 knots for the first four days, with a sizable SW
swell, and Saviah carried us along at over 6 knots, knocking off 150 miles a
day. At this pace, we began to think we
could reach Saint Helena in 11 days.
On our fifth day out, the winds lightened, which typically
happens near the tropics. We did
everything we could to maintain our speed, but our average daily run over the
next six days dropped to a disappointing 109 miles. We sailed with our big spinnaker for two days,
until one night a very mild squall with gusts up to 15 knots swept
through. This sail was already near the
end of its life, and a little bit more pressure from a gust caused the sail to
rip all the way across, about four feet from the head. No
longer held on top, the sail went forward and into the water.
This happened around 2 am, when Di was on watch, and she ran
forward and pulled in all 500+ square feet of sail and piled it on deck. It was good that she got it out of the water
quickly before we ran over it, which could have created a tangled mess under
the keel. By the time Andrew woke up and ran up top, the whole thing was pretty
much over.
We discussed switching out to the smaller gennaker, but the
halyard was stuck at the top of the mast, along with the head of the
spinnaker. So we did our best with the
poled out genoa, although this is our favorite sail and hearing it luff for
days on end is very frustrating. By day
11, we had almost no wind at all and averaged only 60 miles for the following
three days. It seemed that the current was
likely responsible for at least half of those miles.
During these periods of very light winds, we tried to be
patient and wait it out rather than motor.
We were uncertain of refueling options in Saint Helena and decided to
save our diesel for crossing the ITCZ (doldrums) on the next passage. This made for some very long days, but at
least the seas were flat.
On day 14, the SE trade winds filled in at 10-12 knots, and Saviah
was finally moving along a bit faster. We
approached Saint Helena at night after 16 days at sea on what ended up being one
of our slowest passages, averaging only 106 miles per day. We opted to heave-to for the night and sailed
around to the leeward side of the island the next morning after sunrise.
Saint Helena is an island of
volcanic origin, measuring approximately five miles by ten miles. It was
originally claimed by the Portuguese and then later by both the Dutch and
English and was an important stopover for ships going from Europe to Asia before
the opening of the Suez Canal. The
English were the first to fortify and colonize the island, and it remains one
of the oldest British colonies and one of the most isolated islands in the
world. There are currently about 4,300 residents
living here, mostly descendants of the original English settlers, soldiers and
their slaves.
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| James Bay, Saint Helena |
Approaching the city of Jamestown, we were a bit nervous as
the information we had showed the primary anchorage in 90 feet of water with a
very steeply sloping sea floor. In order
to anchor in water that deep, we would need to put out all 250 ft of our chain,
at about a pound per foot, in addition to our oversized 55 lb anchor. Our
windlass is still broken and the thought of pulling up all of that weight by
hand when it was time to go was daunting.
We also read that because of the steep ocean floor many boats have
problems dragging off to sea.
As we neared the anchorage, we were pleasantly surprised to see
seven other cruising boats there, and all were tied up to moorings with another
15 available nearby. We called the port
on the VHF and got permission to tie up to one.
Apparently they were installed just a few months prior, which was a big
relief.
After Saviah was moored, one of the small ferry boats
stopped by, and the driver said he would pick us up in an hour. There is a wharf on the other side of the bay
with a concrete wall where it is possible to land a dinghy. Even when the winds are light and the ocean
swell is minimal, there still seems to be a sizeable swell that rolls into the
wharf, making a dinghy landing very wet and often dangerous.
Fortunately, the port provides a ferry service that runs
cruisers and the local fisherman from their boats to the wharf and back again
throughout the day. This means you can
arrive at shore dry and with your dinghy in one piece, although it still takes
a bit of coordination to get on and off of the small ferry boat as it rises and
falls in the swell. Near the wall, several
lengths of knotted rope hang down for you to grab and swing onto the concrete,
while the boat drops from under you.
Once ashore, our first priority was to clear in with the
officials in Jamestown. This is the
primary town and capital of the island, sitting at the bottom of a long and
narrow valley with steep, bare cliffs rising up on both sides. We asked for directions to the immigration
office and were told to cross over the moat that leads into town, and look for
the police station across the street from the castle. There were many old colonial buildings lining
the narrow streets, and it was interesting to imagine all of the history that
has taken place in this remote island since it was settled 350 years ago.
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| Jamestown |
Our next stop was the bank.
There aren’t any ATM’s on the island, so we needed to exchange our US
dollars. The island has its own currency,
the Saint Helena pound, which is on par with the
pound sterling. We then stopped at the
local grocery store to stock up on fresh produce. The supply ship apparently hadn’t been in
port in a while, and most of what we found looked a bit tired. The only produce
we ended up buying were a few potatoes and onions. They did have fresh bread, eggs and cheese,
which we were happy to see.
The next day, we took the ferry back into Jamestown, to
explore the city and get a bit of exercise.
The first thing we did was to climb Jacob’s Ladder. This is an inclined plane that was built in
1892 to haul manure up to the fort on Ladder Hill and to bring goods back
down. There are 699 steps to the top,
and after sitting on the boat for the last 16 days, it was not easy.
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| Jacob's Ladder |
Since we needed to start the next leg of our Atlantic
crossing in four of five days, we decided to do one of the local tours and see
as much of the island as we could during our brief visit. One of the local guides said he would show us
around, and five other cruisers were also interested. The next morning seven of us piled into a van
and headed out to see the island.
Our guide, Robert, was born and raised on Saint Helena and
since he is 70 years old, he had personally witnessed some of the local history. He told us about two shipwrecks in the bay,
including the tanker, RFA Darkdale, which was sunk in the harbor by a German
U-boat during WWII. The other was the story of the SS Papanui, a passenger ship
that caught fire and sank with 364 people on board. Everyone on that ship survived, and you can
still see the top of it sticking up out of the water in the mooring field.
After a quick tour of Jamestown, we headed out of the city
on the narrow winding roads. The barren
cliff walls surrounding the island quickly gave way to the lush green forests
of the interior, and Robert explained some of the traffic laws to us. Since Saint Helena is a British island, the
rules state that you are supposed to drive on the left hand side of the
road. This is mostly a moot point though,
as the roads that traverse the island are only one lane. When two cars need to pass, the one traveling
downhill must yield to the one going uphill.
There isn’t always room to pass, so when two cars come together often
one will have to back-up quite a distance before finding a place to pull over. Since
there isn’t a lot of traffic on the island, it doesn’t slow things down much.
Because Saint Helena is so remote, the British used it as a place of exile, most notably for
Napoleon Bonaparte. He was taken
here in 1815 after he was defeated at Waterloo and only a few months after he
escaped from his first place of exile at the island of Elba. Despite its remoteness, the British were
concerned that there could be another escape attempt so the island was strongly
garrisoned, including naval ships circling offshore.
Just outside of Jamestown, our first stop on the tour was
the Briars estate, where Napoleon spent his first two months on the island with
a local family. A
few months later, he moved into his residence, Longwood House, where he spent
the last six years of his life. They
did an interesting tour of the house and talked about his day-to-day life, and
we were able to view many of the artifacts from his time there.
The next stop was Napoleon’s
original grave, a few miles from the house in a location he requested. This is a beautiful area that he often
visited and is still very well maintained with lush gardens all around,
although the body was exhumed and moved to Paris almost 25 years after he
died. Since the French and English
couldn’t agree what to put on it, his tombstone is blank.
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| Longwood House, Napoleon's original grave site |
Later that afternoon, we drove around more of the island and
then made a quick stop at Plantation House.
This has been the official residence of the Governor since it was built
in 1792. There are five giant tortoises
the roam around the grounds of the mansion, including Jonathon, who is
estimated to be 178 years old.
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| views of the island, Plantation House with giant tortoise |
We also went by the site where the new airport is being
built. Since there isn’t an airport now,
the only way on and off the island is on the RMS Saint Helena, which runs back
and forth from the island to Cape Town, approximately 20 times a year. This is one of the last royal mail ships
being used today, and not only does it bring passengers, but it is also doubles
as a cargo ship, delivering supplies to the island.
The economy in Saint Helena is
quite weak and almost entirely sustained by aid from the British
government. Even tourism on the island
is insignificant since getting there involves taking one of the infrequent
1,700 mile boat rides from South Africa.
Having an airport is expected to encourage economic development and kick
start the tourism industry, with up to 30,000 visitors expected annually. They are even building several five star
resorts, and Robert talked at length about how this will change the
island when it is completed in 2016.
After all our sight-seeing, it was time to do a few projects
on the boat so we could be on our way.
The first priority was to figure out a way to rig Saviah with twin
headsails. Since our initial 2,000 miles
towards the Caribbean would likely be dead downwind, we decided that twin-jibs
would be much better than using either a single poled out sail or going
wing-on-wing (jib and main set on opposite sides). It would give us more sail area for the light
winds expected, as well as reduce the rolling motion, which can often be bad
when sailing downwind.
We planned to use our furled genoa on one side and the
gennaker on the other. Each would need
to be poled out, but we only had one whisker pole. So Andrew figured out a way to use the mast from
our sailing dinghy as another pole. He
made a connection for it at the mast and then found a way to attach a block at
the end for the sheet, as well as connections for guy lines and a topping lift
to keep it in place. It wasn’t perfect,
as the sheets would likely be subject to some chafe, and it was a couple feet
shorter than would be ideal, but it was better than nothing.
The next step was to go aloft to retrieve our spinnaker
halyard and the remains of our spinnaker, as well as to rig another topping
lift for the new pole. This would
normally be very simple, but there was a sizable swell in the anchorage. As the boat rocked from side to side, Andrew
was continually getting slammed into the mast and shrouds. What would have normally taken five minutes
took half an hour, and by the time he came down, he was pretty beat up and a
little sea sick as well.
Lastly, we noticed the gimbal pegs on our stove were wearing down again. We had already made repairs twice, but they weren’t holding. It would be big trouble if they broke at sea, with our 50+ pound stove loose in the cabin on a rolling boat. Andrew made another temporary repair with some epoxy and an o-ring that would hopefully get us to Barbados, where our new gimbal pegs would be waiting.
On our last day on the island, we filled up on water and
spent the last of our Saint Helena pounds on what little fresh produce we could
find. We also spent some time getting exercise
before our passage, which would likely be the longest we would ever do. We did another hike up the 699 steps at
Jacob’s ladder and walked around the dilapidated forts on either side of
town.
On February 21st, having cleared out with customs
and immigration the previous day, we slipped the mooring lines and set sail for
French Guiana, 3,100 miles to the northwest.