St Helena
05 April 2012 | St Helena
Johan & Francina
14 March - 31 March
We have successfully completed the first leg of the journey half way around the world. I must admit that it was not always fun being pushed from one end of the boat to the other as we go through the huge swells typical to the African coast.
We had a few incidents that caused us to loose some ground because we sailed towards Luderitz instead of inland to St Helena. The first incident was the seal on the propshaft that came loose. Luckily Johan was below deck and saw the water streaming into the boat. He reacted immediately and stopped the leak within minutes. It took quite a while to get the boat dry and on track again.
The next incident caused actually more drama. Fred (flippen ridiculous electronic device), the Simrad - our autopilot is a very valuable crew member. This device is amazing and is doing most of the steering for us, even taking leeway into account. The pin on the tiller broke off and there was no way to connect Fred to the tiller for steering. Neither Johan or I felt like steering by hand for 14 days to St Helena and we decided to change course to Luderitz for repairs. Whilst I was steering, Johan manufactured a new pin from a bolt and connected it to the tiller. It was quite scary because he replaced the tiller with the emergency tiller whilst I was steering. It was successful, but it started to bend after two days. Johan had to remove the tiller again whilst I took over from Fred. He reinforced the steering arm with off cut stainless steel on board. This was successful and it is now better than the original.
On the very first day leaving Cape Town Johan caught a nice Tuna. We were however a bit seasick and could not face cleaning or eating the Tuna. We tried again but only the remains of a fish were pulled out of the water. We struggled to catch anything after that and Johan then remembered about the bait that Gilbert mentioned in his book "And the wind carried us". He took the silver from an old wine box and made the bait which caused him to catch a tuna within 30 minutes. An hour later we ate fresh sushi for brunch. The evening we feasted on fried tuna. All on Isabel birthday....
I have learned a lot during this voyage. I am still experimenting with the food, but it is getting better. There are a few dishes that Johan rated 9/10. I need to preserve water for drinking and obviously use as little gas as possible and are therefore using the pressure cooker for most of the dishes. I am also experimenting with one pot dinners in the pressure cooker. You won't belief it but pasta, rice and even mieliepap is delicious cooked in the pressure cooker.
There are a few items on the boat that I regard as very important. The first is Fred, the autopilot. He only needs a few amps to keep him on track. The wind charger is charging the batteries for Fred, but it is not always enough and we had to start the engine for approx 1 hour and a bit per day. Without the wind charger, we would not be able to use Fred, which is reason enough to regard the wind charger as important as well. Johan fitted a high performance, heavy duty alternator which would reduce the run time of the engine by hopefully 25 %. Our fuel consumption was 20 liters for the 17 day journey.
Our water consumption was less than 100 liters. We only used the water for cooking and drinking. I filled the solar shower bag in the mornings with sea water and then showered in the afternoons in warm water. We used Colgate shampoo, drip dry and then rub the salt off. The dishes are also washed with salt water. The one thing that I really miss is having running hot water to wash my hands, especially after visiting the bathroom.
The night of 30 March, we started slowing down to ensure that we do not arrive at the island in the middle of the night. AT 6h00 on the morning of the 31 March we got sight of the island. It looked like a big black rock in the middle of the ocean. It is with the help of the chart plotter (another important device) that we were able to find this piece of volcanic rock. On a return journey from India, Joao da Nova commanding four caravels sighted St Helena. The island was uninhabited when the Portuguese sailors landed on 21 May 1502 - an anniversary day for Emperor Constantine's mother, saint Helena and named the island after her. Constantine is the Roman emperor who changed Sabbath day to Sunday.
Napoleon Bonaparte was imprisoned on Saint Helena after he surrendered to the British at Waterloo. He died on the island at a young age of 52 from what they speculate, could be cancer. The symptoms were apparently the same as his Dad, brother and sister. The island people regard Napoleon very highly because he made the island famous. There are only 4000 inhabitants on the island and they are now focused on developing tourism seeing that the British are funding a project to build an airport. Basil Read from South Africa is the contractor allocated to the project. There is currently 45 staff from Basil Read on the island, which contributes towards 1 % of the population.
Jacobs Ladder was built in 1829 as an inclined plane, which was used to haul manure up, and goods down. It is 600 feet high stretching from Jamestown to the top of Ladder Hill and has 699 steps. The record for climbing the steps is less than 6 minutes, but it took me 45 minutes (Johan 40) to get to the top. We have however made it and qualified for a certificate.
We met Mike and Geraldine from Saint FM. It is a family business and they are dedicated to provide independent news and opinions on the island and are exposing Government to the public. You can image that they are not very much loved at the moment due to the criticism against the building of the airport. There music on Saint FM brought back lots of memories from our youth. It also reminded me of Sunday evenings with my Dad, listening to his LP's.
We had a very interesting tour of the island with Robert, aged 76. We were 9 people on a 1984 Datsun 1800 bakkie. Robert is very respectful towards his mother, aged 94 which he referenced as "Mommy". The island has contrasting areas - green with savanna, dense forest, volcanic rock, dry. We visited Napoleon's houses and grave, schools, Governor's house where the oldest tortoise is kept, the campsites of the Boer war prisoners, etc. Johan recalled that his Grandmother told him about her brother or close family member that was taken to Saint Helena. We searched for familiar names in the Boer graveyard and found GJ van Zijl as well as a few Botha's. Robert was very proud to mention that they slaughter 5 cattle per week to cater for the needs of the islanders, whilst 1200 - 1400 cattle per day are slaughtered at Karan beef alone in Gauteng.
We are enjoying our time on the island and were grateful to see some of the yachts that were with us in Cape Town, arriving safely in Saint Helena. Karinya, the New Zealand yacht skippered by Bruce and Gina, Hokus Pokus the Swedish yacht, New Horizon a RSA yacht, Baker Street, and a few others. We are forming lasting friendships with fellow yachties and would surely meet them somewhere in a harbour again.
We plan to leave Saint Helena for Ascention on Good Friday with Baker Street. The rest of the yachts will either follow later, or are taking a direct route to Brazil.