TEAM SA LOGBOOK - 25th April - St Helena

WEBLOG ST.HELENA – Chrismarie Braun

On the 25th April we got shore leave. Despite all the excitement we were all really upset to have to leave Gustav, Bryan and Brandon behind at the ship due to them having gotten port suspension. I really hoped to see them at least at the hike the following day but whether they were let off for the port programm or not was not yet decided.

The Island was beautiful and the people were really friendly and welcoming. Most of us were really excited to meet some of the people there as we were informed about their cultural background: half the population was from African descent, a quarter European and a quarter Chinese when the island first got settled. The people had a very British accent with a Chinese tone and they looked African although they had Asian features. It was definitely a very interesting culture to get to know.

Some of us spent the day going on a tour to see Napoleon’s house, his tomb and giant turtles at the governors house. Others went around Jamestown with their watchgroups and explored the city. Watch 1 and watch 4 had a watchcamp planned for St. Helena that night, which means that the watchgroup ( the group of students you have nightwatch with – 7 in each group + a teacher responsible for the needs of his/her wathchgroup kids) spends time away from the ship for a day and a night to bond. Watch 1 and watch 4 shared the same camping spot but were further away from each other which gave each watchgroup separately the time to get to know one another better especially with the new watchgroup members just having joined.

Watchgroup 4 ( Patrick, Shane, Kyra, Chrissy, Claire, Dylan, Johanna and Mr. Hurley) explored the camping place which was in the middle of the mountains/ forest and to all of us the most beautiful place we had ever seen so far. Although it was far away from shore (about a 40 min. drive ) we could see over the ocean and could even see the anchored SV. Concordia.

We all had a lot of fun. We ate kaktus, had potatoe sack races, made a fire over which Mr. Hurley made us Pizza for dinner and later we gathered at the fire, and ate cookies while Mr. Hurley told us horrorstories. Although we had a tent, we did not use it, the night was way too warm and the stars were too beautiful to not sleep directly under the sky. The next morning we got woken up by a rooster which belonged to a family that lived close to our camping spot but despite the cookericoo, we got up at 8 a.m ( It felt really good to sleep in). We got picked up half an hour later because Mr. Hurley had arranged for us to eat breakfast at a very nice restaurant.

Later we met up with the rest of the crew to go on a hike in the foresty mountaint of St. Helena. I was really happy to see Bryan, Gustav and Brandon joining us for the day and was glad to hear that due to their very hard work they were let off the rest of their port suspension. Although it was very rainy and wet, we enjoyed the hike a lot. The nature was beautiful and the 3 hour hike was not as strenuous as expected. When we got back, we got a couple of hours shore leave before curfew and most of us used the time to phone our parents, eat lunch, buy groceries or to go swimming.