Why you should become one of the first people on Earth to see this remote island from the sky
I’m going to break the first rule of travel writing and mention the view from the aircraft window. In this case, you see, it really is important. For four hours, cotton-ball clouds had been rolled out across an unbroken blanket of blue.
“Cabin crew to seats, please,” instructed the captain, his voice tight with nervous concentration. Seated aboard only the second commercial flight to St Helena – one of the world’s most remote islands – I’m among the very first to see her like this. For half a millennium she’s only ever been viewed from the sea: an impenetrable ring of volcanic rock hunched against the restless Atlantic waves.
Now I can glimpse her emerald interior of mist-laced, fern-filled forests. The only chink in her armour is a candy-coloured clutch of buildings squeezed into a 1,000ft-deep ravine – the capital, Jamestown.
The new airport – built at a cost of ￡285.5 million – was due to open last year, but suffered a series of setbacks while they solved the problem of wind shear – essentially updrafts of ocean wind that hit the rocks and churn upwards, pushing the plane down.
It was dubbed “the world’s most useless airport”, but that’s unfair. Parking on a pebble is downright tricky. “Only four pilots in the world are currently qualified to fly into St Helena,” says Jaco Henning, the man responsible for landing the inaugural flight on October 14. “We’ve been training intensively since March.”
Only four pilots in the world are currently qualified to fly into St Helena
Until now, if you wanted to reach St Helena it would have taken five nights sailing aboard the RMS St Helena from Cape Town – a seafaring tradition that hasn’t changed in over 500 years, when the island was first discovered by the Portuguese in 1502.
It is hoped the new airport will bring the chance of self-sufficiency to an island previously dependent on aid from DfID, Britain’s Department for International Development.
“Now I don’t have to wait three weeks for my next client,” explained Aaron Legg, a fifth-generation “Saint” – as locals are known – who has combined 4x4 adventure tours with his family’s tradition of farming. “It will mean I can actually run a business.”
Reversing his vehicle backwards up an off-road track to an outcrop called Flagstaff, he suggested we get out and hike towards the peak. The trees were hunched over protectively against the ceaseless flogging of the wind, while beneath them sprang delicate yellow flowers. “Everlastings,” said Aaron, gently cupping the petals. “The seeds were sent over by Lady Holland to Napoleon [who was famously exiled here] and now they’re everywhere. St Helena is a melting pot of plants – hibiscus, bananas, flax – and people – Indians, Madagascans, Sri Lankans, and Chinese – who have passed through here over the centuries.”
“What’s it like to live somewhere so isolated?” I asked, staring out at the limitless ocean, its hazy lines melding with the sky until it feels as if you’re floating in blue orbit.
St Helena | Home to the world's most remote...
“I was 18 years old when I saw an escalator for the first time. Ever seen the movie Crocodile Dundee? I was exactly like that! Can you imagine a young boy from Sandy Bay driving through Cape Town at rush hour? I’d never seen traffic lights before! I’d never seen a KFC or a Nando’s – I bought a sweet chilli twister and went straight back for a second,” he giggled, as we kept an eye out for the red flash of a Madagascan fody, a tiny bird.
“Now the airport gives me the freedom to travel, without taking too much time away from my business.”
From the Archives | Life on board RMS St Helena
Isolation has crafted the island’s charm. The hurricane news cycles we’re exposed to daily don’t swirl here. Nothing is rushed.
Clothes ordered online can take months to arrive and mobile phone coverage wasn’t rolled out until September 2015.
Life isn’t dominated by the glare of white screens. In the late afternoons, I would sit in the living room of Farm Lodge, owned by Stephen Biggs and Maureen Jonas, listening to the reassuring chime of the grandfather clock and the clackety-click of Katie the dog’s claws on the polished hardwood floors.
In quotes | St Helena
Good Housekeeping magazines from 2004 lay spread on the table and, in the distance, I could hear the occasional bleat from their 36 sheep. “Thirty-five after tonight’s dinner,” winked Stephen, arriving with a G&T.
Everyone I passed in my rented Ford Focus would wave from behind their steering wheels. Slowly a cloak of calm unclenched my shoulders. Instead of hurtling along the winding lanes between appointments, I would pootle. Fifth gear doesn’t get much action on St Helena.
Neither does fourth or third, for that matter. Signposts are merely a suggestion. If you get lost, who cares? The only witnesses are the cows.
From day one, Saints stopped on the streets of Jamestown to ask: “How you, lovie?” in their smooth Saint lilt. By day two, people I’d never met were greeting me by name in that mellifluous accent.
“We sound like a bunch of pigeons when we get together – we talk so fast,” chortled Ivy Robinson, owner of Wellington House B&B, as we sat in her lounge.
“We go ‘up the eel’ – not up the hill! My dad always said I had to ‘talk tidy’ (in proper English),” she said, shrugging off the suggestion.
Their nearest neighbour is Africa, 1,200 miles away, but locals have nothing in common with that continent. Although St Helena is classed as a British Overseas Territory, the Saints aren’t particularly British either. Slaves (from ships redirected here after abolition in 1833), Chinese labourers and Boer War prisoners have all added to the ethnic mix.
Early on Thursday morning, the RMS St Helena steamed into harbour. Local ladies sat under a bench festooned with pink blossoms waiting to eye up the arrivals and soak up the gossip.
“The atmosphere at the airport is the same,” said Stephen Biggs, who had turned up there to welcome his new guests.
“There are lots of families showing up to greet each other. We’ve mentally carried over the new form of arrival and it’s the place to be seen now on a Saturday lunchtime.”
But when RMS St Helena sails for the last time from Cape Town on January 24, arriving in St Helena on February 18, bidding goodbye will be bittersweet for most islanders.
“When she’s taken out of service, you won’t find me there [on the docks]. It’s too emotional. All our lives she’s been there, through good and bad – she helped us survive,” said Ivy, her hands twisted nervously in her lap at the thought.
However, even bigger change is snaking its way beneath the ocean. A branch of the South Atlantic Express submarine fibre-optic cable – connecting South Africa to the US East Coast – will arrive in 2020, ending St Helena’s digital isolation. “It will have a much bigger effect than the airport,” said Helena Bennett, the island’s director of tourism.
Both developments will give younger Saints a shot at a future that doesn’t force them off the island in search of work. Indeed, the new four-star Mantis hotel on Main Street is already providing jobs.
It remains to be seen whether St Helena will be made or marred by the change. Back home, I found myself greeting every car I passed out of habit – but their windscreens were empty of waves.
How to get there
Emma Thomson travelled with Discover the World (01737 219 291; discover-the-world.co.uk), which offers a Discover St Helena Fly-In combined with optional extensions in South Africa. Prices start at ￡1,588 per person for a week-long fly-drive, based on two sharing B&B accommodation.
The price includes return flights from Johannesburg to St Helena with SA Airlink, car hire, a 4x4 adventure excursion and a half-day wildlife cruise. Departures year round.
Return flights from London to Johannesburg start at around ￡600.
Further information: sthelenatourism.com