St Helena to Ascension Island

Ascension Island

Heart shaped waterfall  in St Helena

Napoleon's House

Jacob's Ladder with 699 steps (took under 15 minutes)

Transit Van go as fast as you can... a 1960s model?

On our previous passage from Walvis Bay to St Helena Island, we crossed the Greenwich Meridian and passed from the Eastern hemisphere into the Western hemisphere. I was on watch that night and celebrated with a glass of brandy and a shortbread biscuit, which I shared with Neptune. Two days later, on 3^rd February, we crossed the longitude meridian of Hesketh Bank, our starting point for our circumnavigation of the world. Sal Darago has crossed every line of longitude on the planet. WOW!! We can’t say we’ve completed our round the world trip until we cross our course line, which won’t happen until we reach Tobago in the Caribbean.

We have arrived safely at Ascension Island, another overseas British territory. The passage of just over 700 miles took 6 days. We had light winds at first and had to motor for a few hours the first night. The rest of the trip was under sail. We flew our ghoster (half spinnaker) goosewinged with the genoa for 3 days and nights. The wind was mainly SE 10-20 knots. The biggest problem was the toilet breaking the day before we arrived. Jeremy spent 4 hours working in the smallest space on board in quite a big ocean swell, clearing the pipes and tubes. All I’ll say is he needed a shower afterwards and had one sitting on the roof. By the way, it was St Valentine’s Day. How did you spend the day?

Today, 15^th Feb, we went ashore, experienced the art of tying up the dinghy so it doesn’t smash against the wharf in the swell, and cleared in and out with the Port/Customs and the Police/Immigration. We paid £15 to the Port and £30 to Immigration. The shop had potatoes, apples and oranges; the hotel has Wi-Fi at £10 per day and the Saints Club had 2 meals left of tuna and chips. The needs of a sailing crew are easily satisfied. Drinking water costs £1 for 44 litres at the wharf and showers are available at the swimming pool. There are no mobile phone networks. We are anchored off Georgetown in Clarence Bay next to a beach where green turtles come ashore to lay their eggs at night. We hope to watch the process tomorrow. Lots of cleaner fish, related to the piranha but hopefully vegetarian, eat the weed off the bottom of the boat.

On Monday we leave for Tobago. It’s a big trip and could take us a month. We won’t be able to blog, email or phone during that time. As always, we’ll let you know of our arrival as soon as we can.