ST.HELENA
April 21, 2007 (updated
02-01-20210
For the photo album go
to: St.
Helena
At this writing I am
about 375 miles from making my first landfall on the N.E. Brazilian coast after
a nearly 4000 mile crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean, from
the Cape of Good Hope. I left the American continent from Santa
Barbara, California on April 28, 2005 and at this rate I
will be setting foot on shore again
of the same
continent on April 25.
At Bali, I had
accumulated roughly 12,5000 nautical miles;
from Bali to Brazil an
other 9,900 miles were added. That is just slightly
more than the circumference of the earth at the equator, 360 degrees x 60
miles per degree equals 21,600 miles. On about 100 gallons of diesel, you
figure out the mileage for me. The church count has gone up to 35 and 19
countries are added to the passport since leaving the U.S.A.
In the previous log
section on South Africa, I bragged abut having chosen
Simon's Town over Cape Town, for my departure point from the Cape of Good Hope.
The one disadvantage
turned out to be the fact that it is difficult to sail out of False
Bay against the predominant S.E.winds,
which tend to accelerate at the end of the bay, at Simon's Town. It took me an
extra 5 days to finally manage to not be beaten back into port by the wind and
waves. I left on Friday the 16th and rounded
Cape Point in ideal conditions.
But that Saturday night a cold front blew in from the South with winds of 40
plus knots per hour. It lasted through Sunday afternoon.
The wind vane gave up
under these wind strengths and the boat laid ahull, drifting sideways in the
right direction. All I could do is take all the sails down, lock the companion
way and lay and listen to the scary vibrating of the rigging and the waves and
wind trying to out shout one another.
Now that I am 25 degrees
closer to the equator I am slowly starting to unthaw. The cold currents flowing
up the South Atlantic from the Antarctic make this ocean many degrees
colder than what I had been used to in these latitudes in the Pacific
and Indian Ocean.
The S.E. trade winds
have seldom dropped below 20 knots. Other boats on this route have encountered
much lighter winds. Because the wind is dead aft, the ideal sail configuration
is "wing on wing", with the main on one side and the head sail poled
out the other side. But with my light displacement I cannot carry more than one
sail with winds over 15 knots. With just one sail one has to be slightly above
the wind direction, which means that I keep on gibing over the rhumb line.
The distance from
Simon's Town to St. Helena is 1800 miles and I managed to sail this
in 16 days, not withstanding the laying ahull for one
day and making an unexpected course correction to avoid the Valdivia Bank. The
current leg from St. Helena to Cabedelo is
also 1800 miles and it looks like it will again be done in16 days. I caught one
Mahi Mahi close to St. Helena and one Tuna
close to Brazil, on this leg.
I arrived at St.
Helena on April 1st., Palm Sunday morning. From the ocean the
steep volcanic rocky shores make a stark, inhospitable impression. A good place
to keep a resourceful prisoner like Napoleon Bonaparte. There are no beaches
anywhere. The anchorage in front of the main town, James Town, is over 60 feet
deep. I used my 25-lb plow anchor for the very first time. One of the cruisers
describes my Danforth anchors: "Jack can put his main anchor in his pant
pocket and his reserve in his shirt pocket"; it was one heck of a
chore to pull that plow anchor up from 60 feet, by hand.
Because the shore and
landing stairs are steep, you cannot pull your outboard up on shore. You either
take the motor off and row or take the water taxi at $2.00 round trip. I only
have oars for my inflatable dinghy anyway. There are thick ropes strung overhead
on the landing stairs and the trick is to swing up the shore on the height of
the surge. Everyone visiting the island has to ascend this way. Once, when
Prince Phillip, came this way, the island's governor, in full regalia, extended
his helping hand, slipped on the wet landing and took an undignified dive into
the bay. There is no airport on the island, everything has to be brought in by
the R.M.S. (Royal Mail Ship) "St. Helena". During my one week stay
certain items, like welding acetylene gas, were no longer available. The
government subsidized vessel was in dry dock in England for an
unscheduled engine repair. This vessel is also the main link for the islanders
to take passage to the nearest airport on Ascension Island or to sail
to England or South Africa. A change in the English immigration
laws makes it easier for the islanders to lave St. Helena for a new
life in England.
Most of the younger
households have taken advantage of this and the depopulation and high average
age is very apparent.
St. Helena was
discovered by the Portuguese on May 21st. 1502. May 21 is the feast day
of St. Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who declared
himself the first pope of what became the Eastern Rite of the Christian
churches. The reason the Portuguese would honor a schism saint has to do with
the fact that the Portuguese had close maritime ties with Greece and their
trading ships often carried a number of Greek crew members.
Co-incidentally, I
happened to be on the island during Holy Week, which this year, as a rare
occasion, coincides with the Orthodox calendar.
"Stella
Maris", with Gjalt and Corrine, who I had met
in Richards Bay, had been here more than two weeks. I was surprised
that this "rock" could keep one's interest for that long. But they
had explored the small island by rental car and walked many of the trails and
raved about their experiences. Above the lower elevations of steep red brown
rocky slopes sparsely covered with Prickly Pear Cactus, Yucca and wild
Geraniums the one lane switch back roads take you up to Pine and Eucalyptus
shaded ridges and green meadows and valleys. The higher elevations are often
shrouded in the clouds that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean.
The trails lead you to
exotic sounding places like: “Lot’s Wife’s Pond, Old Woman’s Valley, The Asses
Ears and The Gates of Chaos”. Most of these hikes offer beautiful vistas of the
coast line and the Atlantic Ocean.
In these cool highlands,
in the small community of Longwood, is where Napoleon spent his last years from
1815 till his death in 1821. I made my pilgrimage to his grave and last exile.
His body was re-interned, under much pomp and ceremony, in Paris, in 1840.
The grave and Napoleon's home have been purchased and are being meticulously
maintained by a private French foundation. The home was specially built for
Napoleon, he lived here in comfort and surrounded by several of his former
staff members. It has little or no association with a prison for the defeated
European conqueror.
The signs in the Longwood
home, giving details of the individual histories of the rooms, are only in
French. There were no guided tours that day and the Anglo
tourists from a
visiting cruise vessel wished there were English translations. When I visited
the Jacques Brel grave and his museum on Hiva Oha, in the Marquesas, all the signage was also strictly in
French. "Vive l'independence"...
The island held another
discovery for me.
In the family history,
from my mother’s side, there is a story recorded by my great aunt about her
great grandfather, my great-great-great grandfather, Sybolt
Ottes de Vries who went to war against Napoleon. With
my limited knowledge of the Napoleon period in Holland, where I was born,
I had always assumed that he fought Napoleon’s invasion of the low lands. But
comparing the dates and spending time in the extensive library on Napoleon,
here in Jamestown, I now realize that he fought in the final battle
against Napoleon in 1815 at Waterloo.
Sybolt Ottes was born in
1769 in Woudsend, Friesland. His folks were
dairy farmers but he opened a mast and block making business in 1805 in Woudsend. This same business stayed in our family for six
generations, almost for 200 years, until my cousin, Carol de Vries, closed the
company in 2002.
The old aunt wrote: ”Their marriage was blessed with 10
children but after the fourth child was born Sybolt Ottes was drafted to fight Napoleon. He returned safely and
was awarded the Citadel Medal.”
In the library I learned
that the Dutch king William of Orange II led 85,000 Dutch soldiers under the
overall command of the British general Lord Nelson against the advancing French
armies. The Dutch king together with his son, Prince Frederick, set up his
field headquarters in the small town of Braine le Compte.
This is just 2 miles
away from the neighboring town of Ittre where
our family lived from 1966 till 1970, while I worked for an American company in
their Brussels office. As it turns out the decisive battle was fought
about 15 miles south of Waterloo at La Belle Alliance. The Dutch
troops retreated initially to Halle, this is the
town our daughter Jeannine was born in 1969. This was all very close to Ittre and I had to come to St. Helena to learn
this.
Had it not been for Sybolt Ottes’ career change, I
probably would have never ended up in a life-long career in the wood business.
As a small child we
would play in the piles of wood shavings from the Pitch Pine and Douglas Fir masts
and we would fill gunny sacks full with the heavy shavings to sell to the
bakers, who fired up their ovens with the dry shavings. The smell of pitch and
turpentine stayed with me from that time forward.
Our grandfather would
take my twin brother and me by the hand when we were barely able to walk and
take us to the water’s edge and teach us the names of all the different types
of commercial sailing barges.
If it had not been for Sybolt Ottes, I might be milking
Frisian Holstein cows instead of roaming the Seven Seas in a wooden boat.