Touring St. Helena
25 February 2016
Bill/sunny and windy
We headed in on the morning ferry to do some more provisioning. We'd been told that thursday AM there was a "farmer market" in town. We knew where it was supposed to be and hiked nearly out of town to get to it only to be very dissapointed with not only what they had(darn near nothing)to the attitude of the owner(downright rude when she saw us waiting on the steps since they were no even open). We took off before they even opened. We'd looked through the windows and seen nothing much for sale on their racks. We hiked back into town to join the rest of the cruisers that were standing in line. Everyone was looking for fresh veggies and in particular, lettuce. A hard thing to find out here. When the store finally openned, everyone rushed to the veggie area a pretty much wiped it out. ONce we had much of what we needed, we hiked to the Tourist Bureau to find out about tours. We'd been told to get on a tour run by Robert, an 80 year old driver and guide that knows pretty much everything about St. Helena. At first, it didn't look like we would get on the tour today but as we happened to be walking down the street, we ran into Robert, or more accuratley, he ran into us. He'd been told yesterday that two cruisers wanted to take his tour(not us). Once he saw us he took us for being that couple of cruisers. We told him we were not but since the others hadn't shown up, well, he gave us their spaces and off we went with another couple. They were being taken to a trail head to do a few hours of hiking around the country side. Once he let them out, he took us all over the island showing us every sight he could, including Napoleons house and where he died. The house is in the midst of being renovated and much of what was in the house has been taken back to France for fixing and for use in an upcoming show at the museum. It was still a great tour and if any cruisers are headed this way, I can't recommend Roberts tour enough. I should be doing so well when I get to 80. We returned back to the harbor and caught the ferry back to Zephyr. I had a few things needing fixing and we still wanted to get some tanks of water to top off the tanks on board. Tracy stayed on board while I grabbed the ferry and got the tanks filled and returned to Zephyr. Tomorrow, we will get the tanks filled again and then lash them to the rails for later clothes washing. We have just a few more things to get done so we might be out of here on Saturday or Sunday. Five boats left today, some heading for Ascentioun Island and some for South America. The picture today is from high up on the hillside above the town. The boats you seen in the harbor are fishing boats. The cruisers boats are around the corner and not visable --------------040604020102070701030801--