Arrival in St. Helena

On Tuesday, February 28, the RMS St. Helena arrived at the island of St. Helena.  The island is forbidding, with cliffs rising from the water's edge to a height of 600 feet or more nearly everywhere around the island.  Consequently, there are almost no sandy beaches.  Currently the only landing place anywhere on the island is at the foot of a very narrow valley that leads to the sea.  The capital, Jamestown, is built long and thin within that valley.  It's about a mile long and two streets thin. We were ferried ashore (life jackets again) by a small, twenty-person, open launch.   Again, thankfully in a fairly calm sea!  Customs was cursory:  we handed our forms to a customs agent, who didn't look at them and waved us through.  We walked down the wharf and found Caroline Peters and her husband.  They certainly gave us a warm welcome!  The next day, we walked to a (dry as it turned out) waterfall at the top of a valley.  The vegetation quickly turns to tropical.  In fact, there is often a very light rain or mist.  This trail is likely to be one of the easier ones on the island but was steep and muddy.  Back in Jamestown that afternoon, we found that most businesses, in the English tradition, are closed on Wednesday afternoon.  Jamestown was established at least as early as the first British occupation in 1659.  The buildings are old, but colorfully painted in pale colours as seems to be frequent in tropical climates.  The hotel (where the Duke of Wellington once stayed) in which we stayed for the first two nights has a pane of glass scratched 1781.  Ivy Yon, the proprietress, runs a tight and elegant ship, with frilly bed linen and doilies under everything, and a huge sitting room on the ground floor filled with puffy sofas and armchairs that look rather 1950s.  Everything is terribly English, and she is terribly friendly.  The hotel door stands open all day long.  Being American-trained, we are a little security conscious, but probably have no need to lock our car or our front door.  Crime is at a minimum here, with a couple of drunks in the lock-up every now and then.