St Helena

The passage was pretty good from Walvis Bay, Namibia to St. Helena.  It took us almost exactly 8 days and only the first day and a half was bumpy.  The rest of the trip had less than 2 meter seas and 15 to 20 knots from the aft port quarter. We had our sail up and secured off to starboard and it stayed filled the whole time.  I’m still not sure how much it helps, but any fuel saved is always welcome.

We ran the water maker on day one and filled 2 of our 4 tanks, but on day three the water maker refused to start and is still not running.  We changed to showers every other day and arrived with some water in our last tank.  Since arrival, we have been sightseeing and doing normal engine maintenance and using borrowed jerry jugs to fill our tanks.  Since we hold about 300 gallons with all tanks full and water here is free, Tom has not been too worried.  Even if we can’t get it working again, the 300 gallons will last through our upcoming 12 day passage to Brazil where we have reservations at a marina dock.

We also have not been able to send in position reports with our SSB radio.  Other boats are reporting the same problem, so we are hoping it’s a propagation problem rather than something wrong with the radio.  I back-filled a couple of red dots after our arrival at Yoetreps.

There were no fireworks. There was no parade. And we didn't keelhaul anyone. But along this passage we crossed the Prime Meridian, that line on the globe that divides the eastern and western hemispheres. It is just a line on a map, but being back in the Western Hemisphere makes us feel like we are that much closer to home.

We arrived in Jamestown harbor at 9AM and picked up one of their brand new 50 ton moorings.  Customs and the harbormaster officials came out to the boat to welcome us and to fill in some paperwork.  We had to check in with Immigration on shore since one of the two staff members took a day off.  

The only way ashore is with a small ferry boat that drops off at a concrete jetty for £1 each way.  At the jetty, the water swirls and rises and falls about six feet.  At the edge of the jetty there are four or five 1.5” diameter knotted ropes hanging down.  As the boat nears the jetty, you wait for the surge to raise up the boat and at the top of the swell you grab the rope and swing ashore as the boat drops away below your feet…not for the faint of heart!  This was made even more interesting as we made about 10 trips with 5 gallon water jugs! 

St Helena has a fascinating history. The eroded remains of a long extinct volcano on the middle of the South Atlantic, it was discovered by the Portuguese back in 1502, but after a couple of hundred years of the usual colonial shenanigans the island ended up in British hands. In sailing days, it was a vital link for ship trade and over a thousand ships a year stopped there for water and food, keeping several thousand inhabitants busy farming and guarding the island. Its isolation and fortifications made it the ideal spot to host Napoleon Bonaparte after his defeat at the battle of Waterloo although that period only lasted for six years until his death in 1821. Subsequently, the island was used to house a number of prisoners including 6000 Boers, a Zulu chief and a pair of Arab princes.

With the coming of steam driven ships, the importance of the island as a resupply point declined so the island started a flax industry for manila rope and linen. Again, the islanders' luck ran out with the coming of synthetic fiber ropes and cloth. The final straw was when the Royal Mail, the sole customer for parcel string, decided to go synthetic in 1966 leaving the islanders with only a small amount of tourism, sales of stamps and a few fish. 

 

Now, the four thousand islanders are largely supported by the UK Government which also funds the sole method of commercial access to the island in the form of the elegant Royal Mail Ship St Helena as there is no airport on the island. The "RMS", as she is known, sails on a regular route from Cape Town to St Helena to Ascension and back about once every two weeks. She brings in shipping containers of whatever is needed, the mail and most vitally, passengers. This is the only way on and off the island for the locals and any intrepid visitors. However, the winds of change are bearing down on the island as the UK Government has decided to fund a £200 million airport in an effort to make the island self-sustaining with tourism. This, as you can imagine, is a matter of immense import to the islanders and a subject of much debate. The airport is scheduled to be complete around 2016.

We enjoyed the once-a-week rush into Thorpes where the locals push and shove for fresh fruits and vegetables that come from the local gardens.  We gave the locals a head start but still ended up with lettuce and cauliflower.

Jamestown and the harbor are at the bottom of a very steep and deep valley but there are more dwellings at the top of the southern valley side. Back in the days before the introduction of the internal combustion engine, the easiest and quickest way between the two areas was a steep ramp up which carts were pulled by a donkey powered windlass. These days, the 699 steps of Jacob's ladder are just used by foolhardy tourists to test themselves. The time record is 5 minutes 30 seconds and we have yet to find the gumption or desire to climb it.

After exchanging some American dollars for British pounds (£), we enjoyed a lunch at Annie’s and used the internet to send a S.O.S. to the water maker service guys.  We also made arrangements to take an island tour with the crew of Theis.

When Napoleon first arrived on the island with his entourage of 28 he was shown his proposed accommodations.  I guess they weren’t to his liking; it was a converted barn in much need of renovations.  On his way back to town he glimpsed a house and requested to be allowed to see it.  The owner graciously offered the front room to him, while his permanent residence was being fixed. 

 The first house where he lived for 6 months is situated overlooking the harbor with gardens surrounding it. We were shown the front room and told that he lived there with one general interacting with the family that owned the property and lived in a nearby home. He also had a tent that was erected on the front lawn so he could rest there in the shade.  It was unclear to me why they afforded so much freedom to a prisoner.  We were told that the British gave him the rank of General with all the accordant privileges.

We then drove to Longwood House, the damp home in which Napoleon resided at the time of his death. During the long, boring years of his exile on the island, the diminutive emperor apparently spent much of his time laying on a chaise, reading, or soaking in a tub, reading. In his more active moments, he channeled his energies into designing and constructing classical gardens around Longwood House. We finished the house tour and wandered a bit around the gardens.

The last Napoleonic stop on our tour was his tomb, which is nestled in a lush, green garden. Because the English (who referred to Napoleon as "General") and the French (who referred to him as "Emperor") could not agree on an inscription, the tomb is unmarked. This is kind of poetic, as his bones have long since been relocated to France. Today the garden contains a grove of banana trees, a couple of majestic Australian pines and a fence surrounding a blank tablet marking an empty grave, over which the French flag occasionally hangs limply in the humid air.

 

We also saw the ongoing airport construction site, a secondary school, several forts surrounding the harbor, and the top of Jacob’s ladder.  The Governors’ Plantation House mansion was impressive and we said hello to 181 year old Jonathan, the oldest Seychelles tortoise in the world.

All around, this island was a nice stop.  The locals speak English and could not have been friendlier.  Emily could check out books at the local library and we all swam in the Olympic-sized fresh water swimming pool for £0.70 each.  Since there are no cell phones, it was nostalgic to see the old style phone booths that were quite busy.  We found free water to fill up our tanks and even a local boat to pump about 1600 liters of diesel directly aboard.   

After staying about a week, we decided to make the 12 day passage to Recife, Brazil.  There we hope to stay at a marina for about 4 weeks before moving North.

Tom

Quad Biking in the Namib Desert

The Namib Desert stretches for more than 1000 miles from the southern border of Namibia, the Orange River, up to Angola north of the Kunene River, the northern border of Namibia. A variety of landscapes such as huge sand dunes, beautiful mountains and plains form the Namib Desert.  The Benquela current flow at the western side of the desert brings the cold waters north from Antarctica and dries the air.  In general, the area is described as barren although fresh water, fauna and breath-taking landscapes are part of the desert.  At times dunes can be as high as 1000 feet. Namib is a word in the Nama language and means ‘’wide open spaces".

 

The Namib is a desert on top of a desert, which with petrified dunes buried beneath the sands of the top. The forerunner of the present desert was formed 180 million years ago on the super continent Gondwana before the break-up of South America and the African continents took place. About 130 million years ago, the continents separated and the Atlantic Ocean developed. The western border of the Africa continent, the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern escarpment then were formed. At the time of the separation, this area was fertile and huge herds of animals roamed this area.

Five to eight million years ago the Benquela current was formed. The Benquela then carried sand, brought by the Orange River from the inland to the sea and then washed out on the western beach where a strong Southwestern wind took it to the land where the Namib was developed. 

Fanie du Preez, the owner of Kuiseb Delta Adventures picked us up in his car at the Yacht Club and drove us to the edge of the desert and the waiting quad bikes. 

Fanie has been guiding these quad tours, almost on a daily basis, for more than 11 years. He knows the Kuiseb delta like no other. He is passionate about Namibia, but more so about this unique part of the Namib desert.  He had a small building where he described the geology of the Namib Desert, explained about the ancient Khoi people that lived here and did a short safety briefing.

The Khoi were originally part of a pastoral culture and language group found across Southern Africa. Originated in the northern area of modern Botswana, the ethnic group steadily migrated south, reaching the Cape approximately 2,000 years ago.

The Khoi initially came into contact with European explorers and merchants in approximately AD 1500. The ongoing encounters were often violent. Local population dropped when the Khoi were exposed to smallpox by Europeans. Active warfare between the groups flared when the Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century the Khoi were steadily driven off their land, which effectively ended traditional Khoi life.

We all donned shaded goggles and Fanie, Emily and I (in that order) zoomed into the dunes for our private tour. Along the way, we stopped several times and Fanie explained that there was underground fresh water aquifer at some places less than 2 feet below the sand.

He showed us the desert fruits, the !Nara and the Sirub, explaining how the plants adapted to this particularly harsh environment. The !Nara (the ! denoting a palatal click in the Nama language) performs the important function of stabilizing the dunes, collecting sand around it to form hummocks. It is leafless to reduce water loss by transpiration and photosynthesis takes place through its stem and long paired thorns. We sampled what the fruit tastes like and how it is harvested and used by the Topnaars (descendants of the ancient Khoi inhabitants) as well as by the animals. 

Fanie showed us several species of beetles and explained how the Tok Tokkie beetles get their water from the fog, and how quickly the Namaqwe chameleon has to run in order to catch these beetles, which are his source of water. He also showed us how the sidewinder snake hides away in the sand to catch the dancing lizards. 

 

We drove down and stopped on a low barren area. These flat areas where called middens (old living places).  I suddenly realized that we were standing in the middle of a graveyard of the ancient inhabitants of the delta - the Topnaars or ‘People of the !Nara.’ These historic human skeletons have been exposed by the wandering dunes and within years will be reduced to sand by the relentless desert winds.  Fanie informed us that the Topnaars buried their dead exactly where they lived. “Look carefully and you will see pieces of their pottery, the different kind of beads they wore, as well as stones that they used as tools,” says Fanie.

We were shown numerous fossilized tracks at the site - not only of humans - but also of nearly all the land animals of Namibia, including elephant, rhino, buffalo, eland, kudu, blackbacked jackal, and so forth. It was clear that this delta was a paradise before the dunes of the ‘Sea of Sand’ crossed the river 4 million years ago, and killed all the vegetation on its way up north. Today, the only desert animals found in the area are the oryx, springbok, ostrich, brown hyena and jackal. He also showed us an old ostrich eggshell that was used to hold water.

These old skeletons of the ancient khoi people are exposed and covered again, from time to time by the ever shifting dunes. We decided that before we dried up and got blown away, we should head back. 

It was a blast to speed along the desert sands and up and down the big dunes. We learned how to break/slide down the steep faces and Emily charged over without fear.  Another memory to log away…

Tom