Paused on St. Helena for a Global Pandemic

Well now, it's been an interesting couple of months hasn't it? We've been vaguely keeping track of happenings in the rest of the world by listening to the BBC World news on the radio with breakfast each morning. It had been very gloomy there for a while but now things seem to be becoming more optimistic. Apart from the economy of course, that's completely screwed. I think it might be our fault; last time we took a year off to go travelling we had the Global Financial Crisis and swine flu so there seems to be a bit of a pattern there. Sorry. We've had a very different experience of the pandemic here, almost the opposite of what you've all had. There's no covid-19 on the island, no lockdown, bars and restaurants are open and parties have been know to occur. On the other hand we've completely missed out on what seems to be a fascinating online lockdown culture due to the limits of internet here.

Jamestown is sqeezed into the valley

Hanging out outside the market is a favourite local passtime

The Consulate Hotel - a second home for sailors run by the amazing Miss Hazel

The Governor's car

So, what's our non-lockdown life-in-limbo routine been for the past few weeks? Pretty chilled really, definitely on island time now. I start my day with some exercise (hand-grinding my coffee beans) and then have a relaxing breakfast while listening to the BBC World news and having a bit of a read in the cockpit. I'm finally reading Harry Potter, only a couple of decades behind the rest of the world. I'm reading it in French so it'll keep me going for quite a while. After breakfast and washing-up I'll have a paddle on one of Karl's surfboards (doing my best to look like a surfer) while he does his ocean swimmer thing. I keep threatening to learn how to duck dive but haven't gotten around to it yet. That brings us up to lunchtime which involves either more relaxing in the cockpit or going ashore for lunch. There's a few hours then to tackle boat-jobs or shore-tasks before sunset drink time. Daily sunset watching is compulsory. Then one of us will cook dinner while the other sits, watches and makes helpful comments.

Paddling

We've actually had a pretty busy social life to keep up with here that has helped the weeks to fly by. There are the regular events: Sunday netball, Wednesday night gathering on one of the boats, Thursday farmers' market excursion, Friday Mafia (roleplay/boardgame) and Sunday afternoon at the yacht club. Then the special events: various birthdays (everyone seems to be having one), sailing races, pig roast evening, lobster bbq afternoon and St. Helena's Day celebrations (a sailing race, a Miss St. Helena contest for the boys, an afternoon of general merriment at the yacht club and the arrival of the MV Helena supply ship, yay!). And we've done some tourism – hired a car and went camping and hiking as a change from watery stuff.

Karl became chief lobster killer

Lobsters ready for the fire

BBQ

St. Helena's Day at the yacht club (which has a cliff for a back wall)

Miss St. Helena entrants

Karl's party piece traumatised everyone

Netball! Still fun.

Team Pink Panthers and Team Black Death

Racing on Umnyama

Alas it's not all fun and games. We've been trying to make plans for the coming months, keeping an eye on which borders might be opening, keeping an eye on the travels of our new satphone (New Zealand – Singapore – Hong Kong – Germany – Holland – South Africa and finally onto the supply ship in Cape Town) and trying to organise a job for me (just for a couple of months) back in Australia. And this is all very time consuming. When someone casually e-mails me a document to sign and return it goes a little like this: take the ferry ashore (it only runs once an hour), walk to a cafe with WiFi, check mail while being online for the briefest possible time (yes, we pay a fortune for WiFi here), download the document, pack up and head back to the wharf, take the ferry back to the boat, print the document, sign it, take a photo (“scan”), upload the photo to the laptop, take the ferry ashore, walk up to a cafe, mail the document while being online for the briefest possible time, notice that in the meantime someone else has mailed me a document to sign.......grrrrrrrrr. And it's been interesting for everyone here trying to make plans as to where to go next. Some American boats and crew with US passports have already left for the US Virgin Islands which are open for them. It's harder for European boats/citizens but a couple have now left for the Azores. Dutch boats are looking into the Dutch Caribbean islands, French boats are eyeing up the French Caribbean islands, English boats have the British Virgin Islands in their sights while us, another Australian boat and an Irish boat are left contemplating our countries' distinct lack of tropical island conquests. It's hard too for crew members who were hitching a lift towards awaiting jobs in the Caribbean and Mediterranean for the summer season and then found themselves unemployed and basically homeless mid-Atlantic. There's been a lot crew-swapping/boat-swapping in an attempt to match up owners' new plans with crew's plans, passports and visas. It The other challenge on the island is that it is very isolated and dependent on South Africa for supplies via ship and plane. And South Africa has been in a full-on lockdown which has interfered with the supply ship's timetable and has meant all scheduled flights have been cancelled. So now eggs are as rare as hen's teeth (due to a lack of chicken feed), potatoes and onions are like gold and there's no milk. None. All gone. There's also a vicious rumour circulating that there's not going to be any beer on the next supply ship. The local distillery may have to stop making hand sanitiser and go back to making its gin and rum.

Taking the ferry back to Gráinne

Sailors queueing for the elusive potatoes and eggs.

Helping clean and paint the yacht club in preparation for St. Helena's Day

Ferry landing area with ropes to help you swing on and off when the waves are big

You have to wear a snazzy hat on the wharf when they're unloading the ship

But finally a plan is coming together and it looks like we will actually be able to leave here, get to the Caribbean, fly back to Australia for a couple of months and hopefully earn enough money to get back to the boat and keep sailing for a while longer. Us and two other boats here (Umnyama and Aventyr) and one who has been at Ascension Island (Pauline Claire) are off to Grenada where we are all booked into the same boatyard so we'll have some virtual company as we set off on a five to six week trip non-stop; not something any of us were planning before covid-19 but stopping along the way just isn't feasible anymore (Brazil anyone?). So, all going well, we'll be seeing some of you on the Gold Coast in August and September....fingers crossed.

All in all St. Helena's been a fascinating spot to sit out this pandemic. We'll miss the Saints with their barely intelligible New England (to my ear at least) accents, ethnic mix of various Asian, European and African countries going back hundreds of years and their seemingly endless ability to wave at every passing car (even taxis which begs the question of how exactly you go about hailing a taxi). And we'll miss the fabulous community that's developed among the sailors here, both visitors and locals.