We arrived in St Helena, a little slice of England, in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is bucolic and charming with some fabulous history.

St Helena

Our 76 hours there were jam-packed exploring Napoleon’s home and burial site, climbing Jacob’s ladder, swimming with whale sharks,  visiting the oldest known living land animal,  meeting a prince and swimming in a beautiful 33m pool. 

Jonathan - the oldest known living land animal turns 191

Napoleon was banished to this island where he and his entourage lived comfortably in the charming Longwood House with its beautiful gardens and extensive wine cellar.

Longwood House

Two British ships constantly circled the island during his exile to prevent any French ships or submarines from facilitating an escape. Napoleon died in Longwood House in 1821 and was buried on the island. His body was exhumed in 1840 and returned to France.

Napoleon’s Burial Site

Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh arrived shortly after we did in order to officially open the new airport (completed 8 years ago). He was greeted with great enthusiasm by the people of St Helena and most graciously shook hands with as many as he could.

A public holiday was declared in his honor with the town extensively decorated in Union Jacks.

View of Jamestown

The public holiday provided a great opportunity for one member of the crew to climb Jacob’s ladder. This ladder is a grade 1 staircase leading from Jamestown up the side of Ladder Hill to Ladder Hill Fort.

View from the top of Jacob’s Ladder

The 699 steps were quite a challenge considering the dismal lack of exercise during the past year. The motivation for this ascent and descent was a certificate at the end. The lingering pain will apparently take a few days to go away and a supine position was needed for many hours after this endeavor. 

The highlight of our visit was swimming – swimming with Whale Sharks and swimming in a pool with black lines and the sweet smell of chlorine.

We were so lucky to catch the migratory whale sharks who are regular visitors  at this time of year but had only just been spotted the day before our arrival. We swam with three of these very curious and stunning creatures. The whale shark is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known fish species.

We have now departed from St Helena, heading to Ascension Island, a 700 mile journey and also a British territory. Ascension Island is governed as part of The British Overseas Territory which includes St Helena. It is located 7 degrees south of the equator and is about 1,000 miles from the coast of Africa and 1400 miles from the coast of South America. During WW II and the Falkland War it was an important naval and air station. Today it is an RAF base, an USAF base, and European Space Agency base, hosts a British-American intelligence facility and BBC World service relay station.

Ascension Island

The original plan to sail to Salvador, Brazil and celebrate Carnival with around 2 million people who participate in the parades, sounded like a bad idea to a certain crowd-averse person on this boat.

Note: While Fiona was climbing steps, swimming in the pool, diving with whale sharks and generally enjoying herself, Matt was doing boat repairs, getting fuel for the boat and doing boat prep work.