St. Helena's charm invites curiosity
THE ISLAND of St Helena was once a place of refreshment for ships sailing to and from the Indies. The Dutch, who already had a permanent settlement at Table Bay, tried to extend their influence by stealing it from the English during the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
Four ships left the Cape at the end of 1672 under the leadership of Jacob de Gens, who tried to penetrate the island via a steep ravine known as Lemon Valley, but his men were driven back by English planters who bombarded them with rocks from above.
The invaders then moved to the western side of the island, where they scaled dangerous cliffs. They quickly routed the English defenders and gained the upper hand. Governor Beale and the inhabitants spiked the guns and spoiled the powder before gathering their valuables and boarding an English ship, which sailed immediately for Brazil.
There, Beale sent a message to London and hired a sloop so that he could sail back to the island to warn English shipping to keep away. While at sea, Beale encountered a Royal Navy squadron under Richard Munden, who decided to retake the island without waiting for direct orders.
The story goes that the soldiers were guided ashore at Prosperous Bay by Beale’s slave, “Black Oliver”, but were unable to scale the 300m cliffs until a sailor named Tom scrambled up carrying a ball of twine attached to some rope.
Once secured, the rope served as a climbing aid for the rest of the force. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Dutch garrison was subjected to a bombardment from sea which so unnerved the men they immediately surrendered.
Fast-forward to 2017, and Prosperous Bay and Brazil feature in the delayed launch of the isolated island’s first commercial air service, inaugurated on the 14th of last month. For years, the “Saints” pleaded for an airport to connect them to the rest of the world and improve their economic prospects through tourism. The new facility at Prosperous Bay Plain was about to open last year when it was discovered that the landing strip was prone to turbulence known as “windshear”, which made it unsuitable for medium-sized commercial aircraft like the Boeing 737-800, which had formed the basis for calculations into the viability of the multimillion-pound project.
Smaller and lighter jet liners were subsequently tested, including the Embraer 190, a narrow-bodied, twin-engined aircraft manufactured by a Brazilian aerospace company, which passed muster. In June, Airlink won the contract to operate weekly scheduled flights from Johannesburg and Windhoek to the island, using Embraers, with an option to connect to Cape Town.
A limit of 76 seats per flight has been set – fewer than the original estimate – but this may help to preserve the charm of the island, which has never experienced mass tourism.