Atlantic crossing ⛵️South Africa - Brazil⛵️ St Helena Island 🐠🏝

Part 2 of our Atlantic crossing - St Helena Island ☀️🐠 Happily, we can say that the trip following the storm went beautifully - baptism by fire initially and then about 12 days of absolute bliss. We had a fair share of semi rough nights, but what we had just come through meant that we appreciated the good conditions even more. All ‘conditions’ going forward were benchmarked against our first 5 days, so we pretty much appreciated any conditions at this stage🤣 Starry nights, the silence of the ocean, and the fact that we had now outrun the cold of the lower Atlantic meant that we were starting to peel off the layers of clothes and started feeling like we were headed to the tropics finally. We caught some amazing fish, saw beautiful bioluminescence in the ocean at night and just really loved our time at sea. There was huge excitement when we knew that we should be coming within sight of St Helena and the completion was on to see who saw it first. We had tried to time our arrival at the island in daylight. Mother Nature definitely had other plans as usual and pushed us up against the island whilst we were trying our best to slow down. We stayed well clear, based on the chart plotter because the night was so dark and on the approach we were making, the island doesn’t have any marker lights. As the sun rose, there she was!! Jurassic looking with huge rocky cliff faces coming downto the ocean. Green and lush above. She was a real sight for sailors that hadn’t seen land for 18 days, we were pretty exhausted and dreamed of being on a buoy where we didn’t have to analyze the conditions, wind and best of all, be able to sleep through the night, all at the same time. The watches wear you out, no matter how good they had been of recent. Best of all we knew we were going to be seeing Denver again too. There had been very minimal contact with him through the trip so we were excited to catch up again. On arrival at St Helena we were officially in quarantine 😔 and by St Helena rules we were not allowed to disembark the yacht or ‘fraternize’ with other boats until we had been ‘Covid cleared’. The authorities only did Covid tests on Thursdays so we were boat bound for 3 days until Friday when we finally got the Covid results and we were cleared to go ashore - but best of all, Denver was able to come across to us and that first hug was awesome. The next week flew by, we did a bit of touristy stuff, most notably we braved climbing Jacobs Ladder - a staircase that runs directly up the cliff face above the anchorage. It’s 699 large steps and is quite an accomplishment to complete. The views from the top are amazing. It was actually harder coming down, and we did pay for it over the next few days. Walking was pure torture for the next 3 days. Jamestown is stunning, old and quaint, the residents of St Helena (called Saints) are some of the friendliest people we have ever met. The history of the island is super interesting for anyone that enjoys history. The dinghy dock is not for the faint hearted, with most yachties making use of the very convenient ferry service. The water around St Helena was exactly what we had experienced all the way across the Atlantic, a deep blue that is hard to describe and crystal clear!! We were in 15m of water when on the buoy and we could see the sand below the boat. The fish that came visit were amazing, we felt like we were in an aquarium looking through glass. Of course the highlight of the stay was experiencing our hour long swim with first one, and then a second Devil Ray. What interactive creatures, we could see them looking directly at us as the circled, almost in slow motion. They just circled and went under us, so close that we had to lift our feet to avoid touching them. It was an experience that will stay with us for life. Sadly, time had passed and it was time to say goodbye and head toward Brazil.