Since our departure from Walvis bay we were faced with 8 sea days in a row. We have never had so many sea days and wondered how we would cope but it turns out to have been great. Its very relaxing as there is no stress about port days, what we should do and how we should do it and then spending hours writing about it. It can be as busy or not depending how involved you want to be.
During this time we have attended some really good lectures from some well known speakers such as Jane Corbin, a reporter whom maybe better known in the UK for her documentaries on the middle east and chasing down Bin Laden and more recently reporting on isis. We have also had Peter Hawthorne, another reporter who has lived most of his life in South Africa, reported on apartheid and met Nelson Mandala several times.
As well as that that ship put on a country fayre, something they do once a year and all proceeds are donated to charity. It wasa lot of fun, very much like a country fayre would be. Passengers had donated clothes, books,shoes etc, there were raffles, guess the weight of an enormous cake that had been decorated with a map of the world and all the stops the ship had made, auctions for the nautical chart of the trip, have your picture taken with the dancers (Jon's personal favourite), artwork donanted by resident painters and much more. My personal favourite was splat the rat where they would throw a carrot down a long pipe from the floor above and you had to hit it with a hammer as it shot out.
The two other highlights of long sea days was a sail by of two very remote islands St Helena and Ascension Island which are 1,125 kms and a days sailing apart. Both islands were incredible if just for the very fact that they are so remote, possibly the most remotest in the world. I will start with the first one visited which was St Helena.
Possibly the biggest claim to fame this small island has is it is the very island that Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to in exile and where he died. He was originally buried here but has since been dug up and sent to Paris. The nearest land is Ascension island with the Southwest coast of Africa 1950 kms in one direction and South America 2,900 kms in the other direction so it really is in the middle of nowhere, don't think Napoleon could have swum to freedom.
Like most of these islands we have visited it is volcanic so again very dramatic scenery with mountains raising straight out of the sea. It is only 10kms x 17kms with a population of around 4500 UK citizens known as Saints. The one and only town on the island is Jamestown where most of the people live but there are a few in a couple of our main areas. Looking at the island from our point of view from the sea, most of it looked very inhospitable with sheer cliffs plunging into the sea and little greenery that we could see. Jamestown was perched high up on a cliff, nowadays reached from the port by car but in olden times by Jacob's ladder, a series of 699 steps, 600 ft high & built back in 1829 as a means to haul manure up and send goods down.
It was first discovered by those canny Portuguese in 1502 (how the hell they found it is nothing short of a miracle) the Dutch annexed the island in 1633 but it was the British East India Company who founded Jamestown, the first official settlement in 1659. It was eventually bought under the direct government of the British in 1834 and there it remains.
It has mild temperatures of around 20 to 30 deg in summer and 15 to 26 in winter but higher up the island can be a lot cooler with more rainfall. It has several endemic flora & fauna but interestingly enough it has plantations of NZ flax.
Napoleon wasnt the only hapless person banished to this island, over the times so were over 6,000 boers, Bahraini princes and other chiefs of states. One other interesting peice of information about the island is its oldest living resident. It is Jonathan the tortoise, believed to have arrived in 1882 and they think he was around 50 years old then making him around 185 years.
At the moment there is no other way of getting there except by ship. They are currently building an airport which will really open the island up but for now it is up to one of the last remaining mail ships still to bear the title of Royal Mail Ship, RMS St Helena. It carries passengers, cargo and of course the mail and takes 17 days to make the round trip from Cape Town, St Helena, Ascension island and back. Once the airport is opened this ship will retire.
We were lucky enough to see the ship in port. As we sat off the bay, looking at Jamestown the QV sounded her very loud, deep throated horn, it seemed to go on for ages and was bounching off the cliff walls. The RMS St Helena replied with her somewhat less impressive horn. It must have looked quite a sight, this massive cruise ship sitting out there in the harbour.
During this time we have attended some really good lectures from some well known speakers such as Jane Corbin, a reporter whom maybe better known in the UK for her documentaries on the middle east and chasing down Bin Laden and more recently reporting on isis. We have also had Peter Hawthorne, another reporter who has lived most of his life in South Africa, reported on apartheid and met Nelson Mandala several times.
As well as that that ship put on a country fayre, something they do once a year and all proceeds are donated to charity. It wasa lot of fun, very much like a country fayre would be. Passengers had donated clothes, books,shoes etc, there were raffles, guess the weight of an enormous cake that had been decorated with a map of the world and all the stops the ship had made, auctions for the nautical chart of the trip, have your picture taken with the dancers (Jon's personal favourite), artwork donanted by resident painters and much more. My personal favourite was splat the rat where they would throw a carrot down a long pipe from the floor above and you had to hit it with a hammer as it shot out.
The two other highlights of long sea days was a sail by of two very remote islands St Helena and Ascension Island which are 1,125 kms and a days sailing apart. Both islands were incredible if just for the very fact that they are so remote, possibly the most remotest in the world. I will start with the first one visited which was St Helena.
Possibly the biggest claim to fame this small island has is it is the very island that Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to in exile and where he died. He was originally buried here but has since been dug up and sent to Paris. The nearest land is Ascension island with the Southwest coast of Africa 1950 kms in one direction and South America 2,900 kms in the other direction so it really is in the middle of nowhere, don't think Napoleon could have swum to freedom.
Like most of these islands we have visited it is volcanic so again very dramatic scenery with mountains raising straight out of the sea. It is only 10kms x 17kms with a population of around 4500 UK citizens known as Saints. The one and only town on the island is Jamestown where most of the people live but there are a few in a couple of our main areas. Looking at the island from our point of view from the sea, most of it looked very inhospitable with sheer cliffs plunging into the sea and little greenery that we could see. Jamestown was perched high up on a cliff, nowadays reached from the port by car but in olden times by Jacob's ladder, a series of 699 steps, 600 ft high & built back in 1829 as a means to haul manure up and send goods down.
It was first discovered by those canny Portuguese in 1502 (how the hell they found it is nothing short of a miracle) the Dutch annexed the island in 1633 but it was the British East India Company who founded Jamestown, the first official settlement in 1659. It was eventually bought under the direct government of the British in 1834 and there it remains.
It has mild temperatures of around 20 to 30 deg in summer and 15 to 26 in winter but higher up the island can be a lot cooler with more rainfall. It has several endemic flora & fauna but interestingly enough it has plantations of NZ flax.
Napoleon wasnt the only hapless person banished to this island, over the times so were over 6,000 boers, Bahraini princes and other chiefs of states. One other interesting peice of information about the island is its oldest living resident. It is Jonathan the tortoise, believed to have arrived in 1882 and they think he was around 50 years old then making him around 185 years.
At the moment there is no other way of getting there except by ship. They are currently building an airport which will really open the island up but for now it is up to one of the last remaining mail ships still to bear the title of Royal Mail Ship, RMS St Helena. It carries passengers, cargo and of course the mail and takes 17 days to make the round trip from Cape Town, St Helena, Ascension island and back. Once the airport is opened this ship will retire.
We were lucky enough to see the ship in port. As we sat off the bay, looking at Jamestown the QV sounded her very loud, deep throated horn, it seemed to go on for ages and was bounching off the cliff walls. The RMS St Helena replied with her somewhat less impressive horn. It must have looked quite a sight, this massive cruise ship sitting out there in the harbour.
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