Visitor Information
Come and discover our island
It’s better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times
Asian Proverb
St Helena is approximately 1,900Km west of the Angola/Namibia border, in the South Atlantic Ocean
One of the giant tortoises at Plantation House;
Read more about Jonathan…
On this site we are pleased to provide information for anyone considering visiting St Helena, one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands. St Helena’s environment is truly remarkable, from dramatic cliff tops to a sub-tropical interior, all of it surrounded by pristine seas and where the air-quality is unimaginably high, even in the City of Jamestown. St Helena offers world class opportunities for activities such as walking/hiking, ornithology, marine trips, Diving and Fishing. Our incredibly clear skies also attract astronomers and you can explore our many forts, batteries, other military installations and other Historic Buildings. Maybe you’re interested in the darker parts of our history and you may also be interested in our Pictures pages. Read A Very Brief History of our island, and if the only thing you know about St Helena is that Napoleon Bonaparte died here, you may be interested to read some fascinating facts about him.
Below: How to get here • Can I bring my pet dog/cat/parrot/elephant? • Time Zone • Weather • Take a tour! • Where to stay • Tips and tricks when here • Environment • Money • Official Tourist Brochures • Visiting in the 1870s • Longer stay? • Read More
I had been told about how friendly a place it is before, but was still charmed by it when I got there. I was quickly smitten with St Helena even more so than I had already expected anyway. What a magical place!
Peter Hohenhaus, dark-tourism.com
All visitors require valid passports and will normally be granted an entry permit for a period of three months. The entry permit may be extended up to a period of one year. Visitors must have a return ticket and pre-booked accommodation is advised.
Do I need a Visa? Check and apply here.
The faintest flourish of green on the big blue canvas of the Atlantic Ocean, St Helena is one of our planet’s truly lonely lands. But for intrepid travellers that’s part of its eccentric charm. Napoleon Bonaparte spent his last days here in grumpy exile, but modern visitors maroon themselves deliberately, to enjoy wild walking trails, welcoming locals and wonderful wildlife encounters. It’s not for nothing that St Helena is nicknamed the Galápagos of the South Atlantic; after 14 million years of isolation it boasts 500 endemic species and a coastline frequented by marine life including dolphins, whales and Whale Sharks. The journey - a 3,100km, 5-day-each-way boat expedition from Cape Town aboard iconicRMS St Helena- is part of the adventure. A long-awaited airport will open in 2016{2}, but St Helena isn’t expecting a revolution. Phone reception will remain a rumour{3}, cars will still be brilliantly behind the times, and life will continue at a similar somnambulant pace to Jonathan, the giant tortoise that started tottering around the island shortly after Napoleon died.{a}
The many ways to get to St Helena are discussed on our Getting Here page, and they include flying here!.
Its appearance from the sea is very unpromising - inaccessible rocks and stupendous crags frowning from every side… but once you ascend Ladder Hill Road, everything changes, and all seems enchantment… fruitful valleys, cultivated hills and diversified scenery of every description.{b}
It’s not impossible, but because of disease control the process is rather complicated - too much so to summarise it here. If you really can’t be separated from your furry/scaly friend, you are best to contact the Senior Veterinary Officer at the Agriculture and Natural Resources Division - Tel (+290) 24724.
Of course, Governor Gurr (2007-2011) had no trouble getting permission to bring his family dog, Stanley…(right)
St Helena is permanently on GMT (UTC). We do not use Daylight Saving Time.
The weather on St Helena is one of the island’s more unusual features. It can be sunny and calm in one place, and wet and windy only a few Km away. Read more on our Weather and climate page. Remember also that St Helena is in the Southern Hemisphere, so our summer runs from (roughly) November through to May.
How about St Helena at Christmas?
It’s a lovely, friendly, quirky, sunny, rainy, historical island and we’ve had a very special time here
Jack & Carolyn Long
A tour is one of our Top Twenty things to do during a visit to St Helena. |
The ride or drive along the mountain-tops, from Longwood across Sandy Bay ridge, and by Government House to Ladder Hill and Jamestown, is, for beauty of scenery, scarcely to be surpassed. The shady lanes, lined on each side with bright yellow blossoms of gorse, brilliant scarlet geraniums, and the deeper tints of the fuchsia mixing with the blue-green foliage and orange-coloured blossoms of the buddleia, and the pale-green leaves of the young oak trees, are very charming, and not less so when these suddenly give place to a rich meadow or sunny hayfield. The intricate nature of the roads, winding in and out of numerous valleys and ravines, sometimes making it necessary to travel more than a mile to reach a spot but a few hundred yards distant, conveys an impression of greater size than that which the place really possesses, and several days, at least, are necessary to obtain even a general idea of the Island.{c}
If you don’t want to explore the island yourself, or if you’d prefer to be guided, numerous tours are available. These are the ones we recommend:
Aaron’s Adventure Tours, using an off-road vehicle to access areas of the island that normal vehicles can’t reach. Aaron has a good knowledge of island history and some interesting family stories. Tours can be customised to your needs. Email aat@helanta.co.sh to discuss.
Robert Peters’ ‘History on Wheels’ Tour. Robert drives you around the island and talks of St Helena history, much of the more recent material from personal experience (at he remembers much of it!) Tours can be customised to your needs{4}.
Basil George’s Jamestown walking history tour. Don't miss his demonstration of sliding down the ladder!
The Charabanc. Built by Chevrolet in 1929 and now operated by Corker’s Tours.
Basil George
The 1929 Charabanc
There are various other taxi-tours, usually covering the whole island or whatever parts you agree with the driver, operated by most of the island’s taxi drivers. To get the full selection and book onto a tour, contact the Tourist Office.
Your tour guide may tell you stories that are at variance with the history presented on this website. Do not allow this to disturb you. What you are hearing is the folk-history of St Helena, as passed down through generations and based on half-remembered lessons at school from teachers who themselves learned St Helena history from others. Enjoy this for what it is - just don’t base your St Helena History Doctoral Thesis on it!
If setting out on your own we recommend that you download to your mobile/pad the relevant pages from Saint Helena Island Info{5} and then you can have detailed information at your fingertips wherever you go! But note that we said ‘download’ the pages. St Helena’s mobile network is not reliable in all parts of the island so if you look for us online at the actual site you might only get ‘NO SIGNAL’.
Touring, 1939-style!{1}
We regret that we can’t provide a comprehensive list of accommodation providers on St Helena. We have provided lots of useful general rentals advice on our Where To Stay page.
You may say that we travelled a long distance to find a little fort, three pubs, some decaying houses, odd Europeans, nice islanders, a few historical relics, dramatic views, flowers and sunshine. We would not agree with you. Had we travelled twice as far and stayed half the time, we would still have been uniquely enriched.{d}
There are no beaches, it’s expensive to get to, and landing on its cliffside airport gets a bit hairy, but damn - I loved beautiful, remote St Helena Island and its people.
Jurriaan Teulings, on Facebook
Here are some tips and tricks that may help you when you are here:
Dutch sail-training vessel The Gulden Leeuw, in 2016
Below: Shopping • Transport • Entertainment • Law • In Emergency • Other
24-hour shopping has not reached St Helena! Shops normally open 09:00-17:00 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 09:00-13:00 on Wednesday; and 09:00-13:00 and 18:30-20:30 on Saturday. A few open on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and/or on Sunday mornings.
Most of the week’s fresh food (meat, vegetables) goes on sale on a Thursday. Some more arrives on Friday. Foods may be available on these days that you will not find for the rest of the week. Fresh fruit is available only for a day or so just after the Sea Freight ship comes up from Cape Town, though some is now air-freighted in (at a somewhat higher price).
There is no fresh milk - it is all UHT. There are local eggs and imported ones; the latter are shipped in frozen from South Africa and are really only good for cooking with. Ask which you are buying. All eggs need to be checked before use - break each into a cup before adding it to the pan/mixture.
There are no trains. Most buses are for home/duty transport only and do not carry fare-paying passengers. There is a very limited public bus service.
Taxis cannot be flagged down on the street. There is a taxi rank in Jamestown, in Market Street behind the Tourist Office. Otherwise you need to telephone - numbers are in the telephone book. Taxis are not required to carry a taxi sign, though most now do; many are ordinary saloon cars - and not necessarily modern ones!
Cars can be hired. You can drive here as long as you have a valid driving licence issued in another country. If you are not used to driving a ‘manual’ (‘stick-shift’) car, it is possible to hire an automatic on St Helena; the Tourist Office should be able to help you find a renter. See also our Driving in St Helena page for local driving practices.
There are no 24-hour fuel services. Some stations open Sunday morning. Fuel is sold only in Jamestown (in Narra Backs, behind the Post Office - go down beside The Market), in Half Tree Hollow and in Longwood.
First see our What To Do page!
There are various bars around the island, open every night and until 1 or 2am Saturdays. All will welcome you - there are no ‘no-go’ areas.
There are several restaurants and plenty more basic catering establishments. All must conform to fairly strict food hygiene regulations. Most can provide a vegetarian option. Other dietary requirements are unlikely to be widely catered for, especially outside Jamestown.
Not all attractions are open all day, every day. Check with the attraction or the Tourist Office for opening times.
You can hire DVDs and Blu-Ray disks in many of the small island shops and in two dedicated places, both in Jamestown. Don’t expect to find the very latest films - delivery can take a month or two.
Check with your accommodation provider whether TV is available, and what you need to pay. There is no free-to-view TV on St Helena.
We have three radio stations, all on FM, operating 24/7 though with live presenters only in the daytime. Most programme content is music except for one which re-broadcasts the BBC World Service. There are no digital radio stations and none broadcasting on AM.
Smoking is not permitted indoors in shops, offices, bars, restaurants and other enclosed places.
It is not permitted to drink alcohol on the street.
Public nakedness is not permitted. It is not clear whether or not topless sunbathing is permitted but it is certainly not practiced.
All drugs, including Cannabis, are illegal.
The age of consent for all sexual acts is 16 years.
Read our laws (‘Ordinances’)
For a medical emergency, dial 911 from any telephone - the call is free. The Hospital is at the southern end (‘top’) of Jamestown. According to the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office the standard of medical care on St Helena is adequate.
For Police, Fire and all other emergencies, dial 999 from any telephone - the call is free. The Police Station is about halfway up Market Street and also deals with immigration matters.
Other useful numbers (these are not free, and are not 24 hours):
Vet: 26162
Water leak: 22522 (Connect Saint Helena Ltd.)
Electricity supply: 22602 (Connect Saint Helena Ltd.)
Electricity on St Helena is delivered at 240 volts, 50Hz through a British standard 3-pin plug. Adaptors for other plug types and voltages are sometimes available but it is more reliable to bring your own.
IDD, Facsimile, Telegram and Internet are all available. Phone booths are located in Jamestown and the country districts. Collect calls are possible to South Africa, USA, Canada, United Kingdom and Ascension Island. Credit calls (AT&T cards only) are possible to USA, Canada & United Kingdom (for more information see our Communications page). Bring your laptop!
Few places accept Credit/Debit/Charge Cards or Traveller’s Checks - see Money.
If you are dependent on a special diet best bring supplies with you, or contact one of our grocers to check availability{6}. Be aware that you can’t import fruit or honey. Diabetics are common here and low-sugar foods and drinks are usually available.
The world was not left to us by our parents, it was lent to us by our children
(African Proverb)
St Helena’s natural history and unique flora and fauna are discussed on our Island Nature pages, in particular our Endemic Species page. The St Helena’s Nature Conservation Group (SNCG) and St Helena National Trust websites also have useful information.
The local currency in St Helena is the Saint Helena Pound (SHP) which is linked at parity to the British Pound (Sterling; GBP). The £ symbol is used. Notes and coins are similar in denomination and appearance to their UK counterparts. A currency converter is available from XE.com.
Banking services on St Helena are provided by the Bank of St Helena from whom further information may be obtained.
Most businesses on St Helena will accept foreign currency for payment, but usually only Sterling,
US Dollars,
Euro and
South African Rand (these currencies are not Legal Tender). Sterling is accepted at par (i.e. 1:1) with St Helena Pounds; the rates at which the other currencies are accepted will be based on (but not necessarily the same as) those published weekly by our local bank. These may differ from rates advertised on websites and from other sources.
You may see signs in shops for the ‘Bank of St Helena Debit Card Scheme’ (image, right). Sadly please note that this is a purely local scheme - you cannot use it with overseas credit and debit cards.
Please note that there are no ATMs on St Helena - cash has to be obtained manually at the Bank of St Helena during bank opening hours.
See also the Tourist Office brochures on:
There are some videos posted on YouTube® on the Tourist Office channel. Here is an example:
{7}
John Melliss, writing in 1875{8}, describes the voyage from the UK to, and arrival at St Helena:
The first week of the voyage is occupied in reaching Madeira, by which time the sea-sick voyagers, about whose sufferings so many accounts have been written, have sufficiently recovered to enjoy the enchanting break afforded by a few hours ashore in that lovely island. The next few days are occupied in steaming down amongst the beautiful islands of the Canarian Archipelago, with, generally, a fair view of the renowned Peak of Tenerife towering high above the clouds. A sight of Cape Verde, on the coast of Africa ; and a day or two, by way of change, of that intolerable damp, steamy, hot atmosphere so inseparably associated with equatorial regions ; and then a week or ten days amongst the fresh South-east Trade Winds, the deep blue seas of the South Atlantic, with bright sunny skies, and St Helena is reached ; the voyager looking back with pleasure to what has been in reality nothing more than an agreeable yachting trip, instead of the much-dreaded long sea voyage.
On landing, the stranger is beset by a whole rabble of dirty boys, each eager to get possession of his order to find him a horse or carriage to visit Napoleon’s tomb, to conduct him to an hotel, or in some way to make something out of him. Horses there are plenty of, and even carriages can be found for a trip to the tomb and back at the moderate charge of two or three pounds.
These days there is no rabble of dirty boys and no horses or carriages, but you will find taxi drivers at the wharf, ready to assist.
I can strongly recommend St. Helena to persons who do not enjoy good health, and to nervous folk who dread thunderstorms and snakes!
Governor Gallwey in ‘A Sojourn in St. Helena’ for the Journal of the Royal African Society, 1941
Think you might want to stay here permanently? The island is idyllic, the people are friendly, the weather is warm, there are no snakes; what more could you want? Before you sell up, read our useful guide. Even if you are only coming here for a year or two, you will find useful information on our Could you live here? page, including a guide to What to bring (and what to leave behind).
Below: World Tourism Day • Something to discuss • Article: Sustainable Tourism and a Remote Island • Article: Napoleon, tourists, divers and flu: flight opens up remote St Helena
Welcome banner for The Duke of Edinburgh, 1957
World Tourism Day is celebrated globally and on St Helena every year on 27th September. Read more about the day on the Wikipedia.
Events on St Helena, organised by the Tourist Office, are mostly focussed on showing locals the tourism opportunities the island offers. If 27th September falls at the weekend activities take place on the preceding Friday or the following Monday.
The following was written by two tourists departing St Helena after a two-week stay. Their views are interesting and should prompt discussion. Saint Helena Island Info does not necessarily agree with the views expressed.
We have spent the last two weeks on your beautiful Island staying at the Mantis Hotel. The experience has been broadly positive but there are areas which could be improved to enhance the tourist experience, perhaps attracting a greater number of tourists in the future.
The following were excellent experiences:
Aaron Legg’s 4x4 Island Tour was superb. He is an intelligent, well-informed and friendly individual and an asset to the Island
Craig Yon’s Whale Shark experience
Anthony Thomas’ Marine Tour
Plantation House Tour with Debbie plus morning coffee and Tortoise visit
Coffee Plantation Tour was excellent as is their coffee shop
Princes Lodge Tour with Reg was also excellent
Less good but still interesting were:
The Distillery Tour
Longwood House & Napoleon’s Tomb - Longwood House would benefit from improved curating, the audio tour was too long and turgid in parts. It would also benefit from a coffee shop which could be combined with the gift shop
Museum has a wealth of treasures but would benefit from better curating
ACCOMMODATION: - MANTIS HOTEL
Excellent rooms with air-con & WiFi. Staff friendly and helpful but on occasion there appeared to be more staff than necessary. The terrace areas would benefit from introducing potted plants/greenery. The provision of free WiFi is a big plus for tourists
AREAS THAT REQUIRE IMPROVING IF TOURISM IS TO BE SUSTAINED:
AIRPORT - Flights need to be reliable and not cancelled by e.g. fog, thus landing needs to be possible by instrumentation
Direct flights from Europe would be a huge asset but in the meantime, flights from Namibia would be attractive, allowing dual-centre holidays
ROADS - Open up the long Haul Road and improve road signage. There is a need for more public lavatories outside Jamestown
Provision of a comprehensive, up-to-date tourist road map
Provision of good map for walks (none at Tourist Info)
Current electricity charges are both primitive[sic] [‘Prohibitive’?] for the locals and also inhibit development
There is a need for Cafes outside Jamestown
Tree-labelling in Castle Gardens & the Arboreta
Tourist Office appears over-staffed & tourist info not always available. General appearance could be improved
Car Hire needs overhauling. Our first car we rejected as it had no rear-view mirror. The second car was driveable but the interior was filthy. The availability of vehicles with air-con would be a plus.
Develop High Knoll Fort with better signage, possibly a coffee shop and charge for entry. Encourage night viewing of stars with info charts
Develop and promote the fishing industry. Tourists on an Island such as this expect a plentiful and varied supply of fish to eat
Jamestown Quay should be a tourist attraction and is instead marred by containers. The prime site - Donny’s, is open only on Fri/Sat evenings
Support and monitor locals in their development of tourist services e.g. how to run a shop for the tourist trade
Name & email address supplied
Sustainable Tourism and a Remote Island
By James Bainbridge, Round Trip Foundation, 17th February 2019{9}
Following the opening of St Helena Airport, the remote island is looking for ways to boost its economy through sustainable tourism.
The great primeval bulk of the Barn, part of the rocky coastline of this island formed by volcanic eruptions, towers above the crashing waves as the 100-seat aircraft shakily approaches St Helena Airport. It’s quite an entrance to one of the world’s remotest islands, located about a third of the way across the South Atlantic from Southern Africa to Brazil and accessible, since 2017, by weekly Airlink flights from Johannesburg. St Helena is so remote that the flight here takes six hours, as opposed to four hours on the way back, because the plane has to refuel in Windhoek before it crosses Namibia’s Skeleton Coast and the open sea: if the small Embraer aircraft is unable to land at the island’s wind-shear-prone airport, it needs enough reserve fuel to make it back to mainland Africa.
The sheer remoteness of this British Overseas Territory once inspired the Brits to banish Napoleon Bonaparte to the island’s green hinterland, where he died after five years in exile. Around 6000 Boers and a party of troublesome Zulus would also spend several years here, in a history that saw 1000 ships dock annually during the island’s heyday as an English East India Company outpost, before its fortunes declined when trade routes shifted north with the opening of the Suez Canal. Today, tourism is a key plank in the island’s economic development plan for the next decade, but transforming the sector into a healthy and sustainable industry faces challenges.
Firstly, there is the inevitable issue of access. The announcement of weekly flights, following the controversial airport’s construction, was welcomed by Saints, as the 4500 islanders are known. There are also extra flights around Christmas, partly catering to the many Saints, who work in Ascension Island, the Falklands, the UK and beyond; a great leap forward from the five-night ocean crossing from Cape Town, even if Saints wax nostalgic about the RMS St Helena.
That said, the Embraer’s limited capacity is restrictive and, more significantly, so is the cost of flights, coming in at around £800 return from Johannesburg. Considering the wonderful Southern African destinations that can be reached for less from Johannesburg, including well-established tourism destinations from Cape Town to the Okavango Delta, it is unsurprising that planes to St Helena are rarely full. There is also the risk of not being able to land at the island’s windy airport, which could lead to a long wait in the Johannesburg Holiday Inn. A good illustration of these factors was the Fox family whom I met on the plane, six brothers and sisters who had emigrated to South Africa as children and were finally returning, 60 years later. They could no more afford to fly than they could face the sea crossing, and were finally visiting their birthplace thanks to a special on flights.
So how does St Helena build its brand and compete with the stiff tourism competition? Already, many Saints are frustrated that the airport has not provided the hoped-for boost to the island’s economy, which remains reliant on the UK, and tourism businesses receive low footfall. The island does, however, have strong appeal, both to adventurous seekers of a bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime experience of this remote British outpost and to niche markets. The Napoleon connection is a marketer’s dream, with sights including the French-owned Longwood House, where the Emperor spent his days drinking sweet wine and dictating his memoirs, his tomb (now empty) and his first residence on the island, Briars Pavilion. I met several French tour operators on a recce and one already specialising in St Helena, while St Helena Distillery, the world’s remotest distillery, is making a brandy to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, which is set to attract French pilgrim-tourists in 2021. Producing spiced rum, coffee liqueur, gin from the local juniper and schnapps-like Tungi from the island’s prickly pears, the distillery opened in advance of the airport and benefits from both souvenir hunters and local consumption. (In the bars of maritime Jamestown, the Shipwreck, a mixture of spiced rum and Coke, has long been a Saint favourite, while beer drinkers generally choose between South African and Namibian lagers.)
In terms of niche tourism, the rich marine life and shipwrecks attract locally run boat, snorkel and dive excursions; St Helena is one of the best places to swim with magnificent whale sharks, the world’s biggest shark. There is also an 18-hole golf course and resort in the pipeline, but its slated development in the island’s pristine heartland has angered some locals and, as a bleak report on St Helena by British mogul Lord Ashcroft notes, the developer recently changed hands. For me, there was major appeal in the fascinating history of this 120-sq-km island, the quirks of life here and the friendly Saints themselves. In the era of Trump, BREXIT and terrorism, when the number of Brits and Americans emigrating to sleepy New Zealand has doubled, St Helena offers a safe and old-fashioned village atmosphere, where everyone knows each other (literally) and motorists unfailingly wave at passing cars. The mixed-race Saints trace their roots back to the settlers, soldiers and slaves who arrived across the ocean, including British sailors, African slaves, Chinese and Indian workers and Boer prisoners; not unlike South Africa’s ‘coloured’ population, whose mixed genealogy includes the slaves and Islamic dissidents brought from the East Indies by the Dutch East India Company.
Unlike South Africa, St Helena’s is an uncommonly non-racial and colour-blind society, but the comparison between the two carries through to language. Like Afrikaans, a creolisation of Dutch by the ancestors of today’s coloured people, the thickly accented, rapid-fire, slang-peppered English spoken by Saints is the unique legacy of the diverse people brought by the Trade Winds. Somehow managing to simultaneously echo Cornish, Irish, American and Australian lingo, the best description I heard of the Saints dialect was ‘like a cross between Yoda and a pirate’.
With this sociological interest in mind, the historical Magma Way tours run by Basil and Kevin George were fascinating, not just to see the sights but to hear their anecdotes of island life. Showing us Jamestown’s vertiginous 699-step Jacob’s Ladder, built in 1829 to haul up manure and send goods down, 82-year-old Basil demonstrated the technique he developed for sliding down the railings on his way home from school. The many historical sights range from capital-in-a-canyon Jamestown and the imposing 19th-century High Knoll Fort to the Boer Cemetery and the white stones in Ruperts Valley, a memorial to the slaves once buried in unmarked graves.
Culturally, tourism can help Saints to preserve their traditions - a concern for some with young people leaving in search of work while the airport, not to mention the forces of globalisation, brings in outsiders. Given the island’s small population, an influx of even just a few hundred people could have a profound impact; South Africa comes to mind with its high rates of crime and emigration, and one family on my flight was a case in point. Answering this issue was the hands-on cooking experience at Richards Travel Lodge, where Linda Richards taught us how to make island specialities including spicy fishcakes and Plo, a kind of curried paella.
Similarly, conservation of the island’s endemic flora and fauna, which most famously includes the plover, known locally as the Wirebird, has to contend with centuries of alien species. Notable incomers include African succulents, the termites that reduced Jamestown to dust in the 19th century and, most recently, the elusive simian-feline ‘Monk-Cat’, thought to be a civet that hopped off a boat from Namibia. There is now the 32-acre Millennium Forest Project to re-establish rare endemic gumwoods, while my walks with St Helena National Trust guides to Blue Point and Diana’s Peak (823m), the island’s highest point, were scenic highlights. The walks are two of the 21 Post Box Walks that explore this tropical island’s striking mix of barren, semi-desert coastline and pastoral interior, with its lanes winding between emerald hills and along windblown ridges like a chunk of Cornwall that went to sea. With more affordable air access - perhaps provided by competition on the route from Johannesburg and the option of flying straight from Windhoek - and continued marketing of St Helena’s considerable appeal, tourism can build on its positive contribution to St Helena’s economy, culture and conservation.
Based in Cape Town, James Bainbridge is the senior author of the Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Berlitz guides to South Africa and Cape Town. Magazine and TV assignments have taken him across Africa from the beaches of the Cape Peninsula to the heights of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, with plenty of stops in parks and reserves along the way. James runs travel writing day courses around South Africa, and works as a journalist, copywriter and copyeditor when he’s not on the road. Visit his website to find out more, and follow him on Instagram @james_bains and Twitter @jamesbains.
Napoleon, tourists, divers and flu: flight opens up remote St Helena
By Ed Cropley, Reuters, 14th October 2017{9}
JAMESTOWN, St Helena (Reuters) - On St Helena, the remote volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic where Napoleon breathed his last, big changes are afoot - well, big by St Helena standards.
Onlookers peer through windows shortly after the first ever commercial flight landed at St Helena airport near Jamestown, October 14, 2017
In the heart of the capital, Jamestown (population 600), Constable Cowie is worried about the Christmas traffic; Craig, the dive-master, is checking his emails twice a day; and Lucille, the local taxi magnate, is introducing 24-hour shifts.
For the 4,500 residents of the island, separated from Africa by nearly 2,000 km (1,240 miles) of ocean, the arrival this past weekend of the first ever commercial flight was cause for celebration and marked another step closer to their inclusion in the 21st century.
Saints, as locals are known, only got mobile phones and the Internet 18 months ago, supplementing the five-day boat trip to Cape Town that represented their only connection with the outside world.
Now, there is a weekly flight from Johannesburg - via Namibia’s Windhoek - to the spectacular St Helena airport, perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. Locals are hoping for a steady trickle of aviation thrill-seekers, French history buffs and whale-watchers.
According to Craig Yon, owner of diving company Into the Blue, a group of Swedish divers who had been contemplating a trip to see Whale Sharks next year booked within minutes of reading online that the inaugural flight had landed safely.
Things are really picking up, he said. Before, I’d only check my emails once a day. Now I have to check them in the morning and the afternoon.
FLU IMPORTS?
There has been talk since the 1930s of an airport on St Helena, the involuntary abode of British colonial adversaries ranging from French emperor Napoleon to the Zulu King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo and 6,000 Afrikaners taken prisoner in the Boer War.
The current site was selected a decade ago after the prime location on the notoriously craggy 16x8 km (10x5 mile) island was ruled out because it was home to an important colony of the endangered wire bird, a type of indigenous plover.
Even after its construction, a mammoth engineering feat involving 8 million cubic metres (yards) of rock and 285 million pounds ($378 million) of British taxpayer money, the airport nearly didn’t happen.
The first test flights were buffeted by vicious cross-winds, making it too dangerous for large aircraft to land and leading to an 18-month delay in its opening, during which time the British press dubbed it the world’s most useless airport.
Saturday’s landing, in a 100-seater Embraer, involved a pre-touch-down briefing about emergency go-around procedures but passed off smoothly, to the cheers and delight of those on board and hundreds of Saints crammed into the glass-fronted terminal.
I was quite happy to see the plane land safely because there have been a lot of problems around that, with the wind shear, said 22-year-old police officer Sophie Cowie, whose beat is managing the traffic on Main St., Jamestown’s one road.
While some in Britain may question the value for money of the airport - more than 60,000 pounds per Saint - for the islanders it has already proved its worth, enabling several emergency medical evacuations, including a newborn child.
However, one possible unintended consequence of more arrivals is the increased spread of disease to an island whose animal and human inhabitants have been protected from many of the world’s germs.
In the past week, the island’s schools have been almost empty due to a bout of flu. Said to have been brought in on the boat from Cape Town, it has laid low 80 percent of pupils.
Our Comment: Mobile ‘phones came 18 months ago; the Internet has been here for 20+ years; and there are two principal roads in Jamestown, not one!
Credits:
{a} www.lonelyplanet.com/st-helena, downloaded October 2015{9}{b} Eliza Fay, Letter, 1817{9}{c} ‘St Helena: A Physical, Historical and Topographical Description of the Island, including the Geology, Fauna, Flora and Meteorology’, by John Melliss, published in 1875, 1875{9}{d} Oswell Blakeston, in his book ‘Isle of St Helena’, 1957{9}
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Footnotes:
{1} Visitors on the Viceroy of India.{2} The scheduled commercial air service actually started on 14th October 2017, but what’s a year in our 500-year history!{3} Um…no - the mobile service started in 2015.{4} See his tour brochure: [Image, right]
{5} Since December 2018 this site has been fully-compatible with mobile devices.{6} Thorpes, Solomons or qms@helanta.co.sh.{7} Please first read this warning.{8} In ‘St Helena: A Physical, Historical and Topographical Description of the Island, including the Geology, Fauna, Flora and Meteorology’, by John Melliss, published in 1875.{9} Reproduced for educational non-commercial use only; all copyrights are acknowledged.
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