St. Helena is a pretty cool place to say you’ve been to, but the same can’t be said about actually experiencing the island. There are different sides to the coin of this opinion, and I’m sure many people have visited the island and found it charming and perfect. But, this wasn’t the view of my family and me upon arriving, and even though we found some cool activities to do, there were many downsides to our visit.
From the Dafne Crew’s perspective, St. Helena island was not at all superb. A lot of the things we look for in a place that makes it a great experience are small(ish) things that are almost unique to travel on a boat: a clean harbor/marina, good moorings or anchoring area, dinghy access, clean water to swim and filter, no bugs, etc. These things are basic stuff we’ve discovered has a nasty tendency to drive us away from a perfectly nice place. The second priorities after these basic ones are met are less bothersome frustrations and more pleasing inclinations: great natural life to experience cheaply or easily, accessible and interesting culture/history. We’ve been to a lot of places that don’t tick many of these boxes, and we find that we tend to not like to spend much time there, depending on the priority of each unchecked box. St. Helena was a bit of a mixed bag on this checklist.
On the one hand, our basic priorities were met, for the most part. The harbor was safe and clean, with no bugs, but the transportation to and from land was tricky, as there was only a ferry service that was poorly managed. Our secondary priorities were much more skewed to the other end of the spectrum. Even though the natural world was great and we went diving and swimming much more than in Namibia, the whole island was extremely expensive and so was, for the most part, inaccessible to us. We went on a few touristy trips and hikes to see the island and its history, but not as many as we wished for. On top of that, and probably most importantly, the internet was expensive, difficult to find, and not an option for us at all. Although we had planned to get back to classes and work comfortably after passage, we couldn’t do that in St. Helena, which cause us to cut our visit to the island shorter than we intended.
Now, this bleak description is a response to my family’s own specific needs; if you’re not looking to have access to the internet while on St. Helena, you will greatly satisfied with your situation. However, that’s not what we wanted.
For one thing, everything was expensive, but nothing more than the stuff we needed most: the internet. St. Helena is a British colony, so they use pounds, but even then, they are a tourist economy, so most of the touristy stuff we wanted to do (hikes, whale shark dives, etc) was expensive. On top of that, SIM cards and other internet options were just as pricy, as well as supposed internet cafes charging by the hour wifi access. To say the least, we were all expecting to get work done, have internet after a week of none, and, most of all, DO SOME SCHOOl, but had to absolutely abandon these plans after one day of exploring our internet options and coming up both empty handed and penniless.
Secondly, the island is super small and there aren’t a ton of tourist attractions. This was a fine revelation for us until we realized that the main thing we wanted to do (hike) was expensive and not worth it. After a week of being cooped up on a boat, the first thing you want to do is stretch your legs, and we were frustrated we couldn’t do that on St. Helena.
But, like I said, all of these things and other grievances we had were completely subjective and we meet plenty (or as many as a tiny island can generate) of other cruisers and tourists who didn’t feel this way about St. Helena. Also, we found joy in other things, as the natural life of the island was beautiful and we budgeted for a trip to see the famed whale sharks.
All in all, the trip wasn’t a complete bust, but we did end up cutting our time short on St. Helena, as I really wanted to get back to classes with my teachers and my dad had pressing work deadlines. I’d not say I’d want to go back there, but, for all the frustrations we faced, it was good to know there was a silver lining.