A DAY IN ST. HELENA (UK)

Welcome to the middle of nowhere!! This is what their sign should say!! It is the most remote place we have ever been!!

Apologies before you start reading this. We used two cameras and I did not go through all the pictures and sort them before I uploaded them. The process is so slow I would miss afternoon trivia if I recreated it. Bear with me while we jump around the island. By the way we are 6 hours ahead of Central time now. The beautiful shot of St. Helena was as we were leaving the island!

Kathleen and Nicholas on the top deck of the ship with St. Helena in the background. We had to board "tenders" like the one in the picture with Nicholas to go over to the island. It was rough seas and we were lucky to be able to port. Many times ships are not able to port and don't get to stop! I can't imagine living on that island and seeing a ship full of supplies only to see it have to leave without stopping!
The island depends on shipments that may only come once a month. The orange ship is a fuel ship that was anchored while we were there. We were very happy our captain did not back up into this ship as we were leaving!

St. Helena's capital, Jamestown. It sits in a valley. No need to get a taxi if you are staying in town. You can walk to everything and there is not much there. A few shops, a police station, one B&B, the post office and St. James Church, the oldest Church of England, in the Southern Hemishpere, built in 1773.

The city gates you have to walk through to get to the city of Jamestown from the port area. They can actually "close" the city from the rest of the world if they want! The Yacht club. It was Sunday, they were not open. I'm sure they would have wanted us to join! I'm sure our pontoon boat at Lake Martin would qualify us for membership!!

St. James Church was small but beautiful. No pictures allowed inside. If any of you have ever been to Gadsden, AL, it looks a lot like the St. James Catholic church there on the outside! It is the oldest Church of England in the Southern Hemisphere!

This is a picture of our beautiful limo that took us around the island! The kids had never been in a car that had hand cranck windows! That was funny to explain. Especially since this vehicle was so old the plastic knob that you normally would crank them with had long fallen off! It was hot and no air conditioning. Kathleen, Nicky and I got the backseat! We were 4 American sardines touring St. Helena! The roads are extremely narrow and the driver had to honk his horn before turning any corners so an oncoming vehicle could pull on to the shoulder! Charles was in the frontseat and his door did not close well. We thought he might fall out on any curve the driver took too aggressively! He never did, thank goodness!!

This is the top of Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder was built to enable the people at the bottom of the stairs to send manure up to the top of the mountain, out into the country. It was later used to carry all kinds of goods up the mountain. There used to be rail lines on either side of the stairs with small carts on them. The carts were driven by mules at the top and were controlled by winding a rope around a capstan.


This is a side view from the top of Jacob's Ladder.

A spectacular view from the top of Jacob's Ladder. This really shows how steep the incline is. There are 699 steps to get to the top and they are like a size and a half of a normal step. Very difficult to climb and the way down is dizzying! It was built in 1829. At the botton is Jamestown.







One of the vistas from our tour. This is a picture of the area on the island called Sandy Bay. We never saw any sand but it was beautiful.

A rocky mountain high like John Dever would sing here! This was an amazing sight on this tiny island!





NAPOLEON!!! The famous Emporer of France was exiled to this tiny island in 1815. This was after he lost at Waterloo. When he was sent there by the Brits, he was sent with an entourage of 30 people to tend to him He had temporary housing until a house he planned was completed at a place called Longwood on the island.

Some people think that Napoleon died of arsenic poisoning. Some think it was stomach cancer. In today's dollars it would have cost 9 million dollars to "keep" Napoleon on that island! They had to keep a certain amount of military security to make sure he did not escape the island and at the time that was cheaper than running the risk of him escaping and starting another war somewhere! It worked. He never escaped. That would make you think that the poisoning was true, as maybe they were tired of spending money on him! Most people belive the cancer story. Regardless, he died there. He was smart too. He chose his own resting place in the event he did die on the island. The spot he chose was exceptionally beautiful. It was a long hike into a forest and it was cool temperature wise and had so many different types of vegetation. The trees were enormous and like I'd never seen. The area of Napoleon's tomb and the area where his house is in Longwood are now owned by France. The French flag flies at both spots on the island. The rest of the island is a British territory. Very few people of their 5,500 population can speak French though! Napoleon's tomb is unmarked. The story goes that there was an argument of how it should be marked. Some wanted it to say Emperor and some just wanted Napoleon. There was never a decision and he was dug up in 1840 and sent back to France so they never saw a need.

The gardens around his tomb are beautiful. They were not as fabulous as Versailles, but a shocker to find such a beautiful serene spot on that rocky island!




These are some of the magnificent trees surrounding the grounds of his tomb. Amazing.



This is Longwood and Napoleon's house. It was very large compared to the regular houses on the island. Touring inside the house was a bit dark and they would not allow a flash. Some of the pictures are not great but interesting nontheless. This is a side shot of the front of his house.

There were many of Napoleon's personal items in showcases in the house. This is a picture of his death mask.




Napoleon's Lazyboy! This has Napoleon's famous hat and one of his coats. This is a small room were he could "lounge".

Napoleon's bed. It was very small. However, he was only 5'6" tall, so I guess he did not need a really large one. It was smaller than the twin beds we are used to an was very close to the ground. It did not look too comfortable!Coins in a showcase that had his likeness.


Goodbye to St. Helena! Don't know that we will ever be back but we are happy we got to see it. A charming island. We would not want to live there but it was nice to tour, even in our 1965 Ford limo! On to Africa..... We will be in Namibia on Wednesday morning at 10:00a.m. A friend of ours that lives in MN has a daughter that lives outside of Walvis Bay, Namibia. We will be meeting her there for a tour. So nice to have an American connection in Africa!!



This picture was taken on our arrival of the island! I'll get the hang of this sometime before we get back to Alabama. It was cloudy but turned out to be sunny and a warm 75 degrees for our day there. It was nice.

A day at sea, normal or abnormal?

Kathleen and Nicholas found two friends that were not over 50 to play faux volleyball with. They played for 2 hours and had a blast. The pool is saltwater. It is too expensive for the ship to produce that much fresh water to fill the pool. PLUS... the water slushes out both ends as we hit waes! Today is Bill Welden's birthday!! Nicky is sorry Alabama lost to Auburn in basketball only because he knows Bill loves basketball and Nicky loves Bill. So sorry Bill. Hope you had a great day today!!

We have told you about the games the kids are playing on the ship. This is called Skittles. It is a bowlng game. Both Kathleen and Nicky did well. Nicky won the overall. Fun for him.

This is a picture of the hallway going toward the gift shop area of the ship. That is to the left. The computer lab is to the right.

There is an excursion desk where you book all the things you do when you get to port. This is a picture of that area with Charles debating on what to do.

This is a picture of the mainstaircase of the ship. This is the 4th level where most of the kid games happen.

Kathleen on the mainstaircase. It is quite impressive. Beautiful hardwood flooring with marble. Very nice!

Kathleen met the patry chef that made the world map out of chocolate. He is from Hungary. Very nice but we had to show him on the map where Alabama is!!


The Compass Rose restaurant with a fine winery. This is where we celebrated Nicky's birthday and last night's dinner.

Bocce. One of the kids favorite games to play.







This is part of the pool deck. It shows the large "recievers" the ship has for the internet for us to have this blog.

The tall blone guy in the middle of the net is our ship's captain! Captain Dag! He is from Norway and a really great guy. He is very sweet to Kathleen as he has a daughter 12 years old. Kathleen thinks he is all that and a bag of chips! He is about 6' 6" tall, blonde and has a smile that would melt an iceberg! She is trying to plan a trip to Norway in the summer!!

More of the captain volleyball.







We have another full day at sea tomorrow! We will have more INTERESTING photos when we get there. It seems, from a friend that plays trivia with us, that there are turtles that are there that existed when Napoleon lived there! Plus, I will try to buy up as many post cards as we can write because it seems that the postmark from this island is the hardest to get. Hope you get one!! If you don't, I'm sure it got lost!!

Fun day and night at sea!

Outside the Compass Rose restaurant, on the ship, the chef had made a world map out of chocolate depicting our route thus far. It was amazing, we'd never seen anything like this before. We did not take a bite! At dinner Kathleen and mom pose for a photo.

Kathleen and Nicky have made friends with a Scotsman. John Robertson! He wore his traditional dress to dinner! The white thing in front of his kilt is a sporran which is a pouch that Scots are supposed to keep their valuables in. The kilt has no pockets so the sporran serves as wallet and container for other personal items.

A picture of Kathleen and the Baggo board. One of their favorite games to play with their new found friends at sea.

Nicholas waiting his turn to play Baggo. You can see their friends are not 9 and 11 years old! They are wonderful people and great to the kids though. Tough competition too might I add!

The first sight of land since Rio was this morning at 8:00 a.m. It is a SMALL island in the middle of nowhere that belongs to Brazil. The only thing there is a camp of sorts, that scientists go to for 3 months at a time to study the ecology there. All we could see from the ship were a few birds and some plant life, not much. It was formed from volcanic eruptions over a period of many years. Molten rock that comes from one layer of earth called mantle erupts through the earth's crust. This builds up over many years until the island is above the ocean. Birds deposit seed and eventually there is some vegetation. This Island is named Trinidad.
Hawaii was formed this same way.

There are "gents" hired by the cruise to teach people how to dance. This is one with Kathleen. This was from last night's dancing after dinner and she got a nice lesson.

Nicky has a new friend, Ms. Gail. She asked him to dance while Kathleen was getting a dance lesson. Very nice lady from Florida.

We had a fun busy day and it s almost midnight. Another full day at sea tomorrow. Will try to post some pictures of the ship so you can see our moving home on the water.

As I am signing off we are at Latitude 19 degrees 40' 41" S and 24 degrees 06' 05" W

Our next stop is St. Helena. This is an island controlled by the British. It is where Napoleon was exiled and died. However, he was dug up and sent back to France in 1840. More on that tomorrow.