What Happened to the 700th?

Welcome to St. Helena, a British territory in the heart of the South Atlantic. She's a quirky little place alright, an isolated volcanic lump created by the Mid-Atlantic Rift... and home to a few fun facts!

St. Helena:

• claims to be Britain's second oldest colony
  
• is home to the world's most expensive coffee - made from the Green-tipped Bourbon bean imported from Mocha of Yemen
  
• was the site of Napolean Bonaparte's exile and subsequent death
  
• is home to Tungi spirit, a noxious alcohol distilled from prickly pears
  
• has no airport - visitors, goods, and mail must arrive/depart by ship
  
• possesses the world's longest continuous straight set of stairs, Jacob's Ladder (699 steps)
  
• is home to Jonathon, the world's oldest tortoise (estimated to be over 127 years old)
  
• is over 2000 km from any major landmass

We have arrived here for a 24-hour stopover while on our Trans-Atlantic yacht race (more on this in the next blog). With such little time to experience St. Helena, we attempted a cultural blitz! Tungi shots were downed, coffee slurped, old-fashioned letters to Mom written, stamped and loaded onto the mail ship, and stairs conquered!

Without a doubt, Jacob's Ladder was a special treat and my favourite part of the stop. The Ladder was named after a mythical ladder to heaven described in the book of Genesis - but the real version on St. Helena just leads up to a nice view. Does that qualify as irony? In any case, I suppose if you dehydrated yourself thoroughly before climbing, you could induce a more spiritual journey.

Not much to report, but I just wanted to be the first to write about St. Helena on Travelblog! I'm just a little disappointed I couldn't stay longer on this fabulous and friendly island.

Oh, and by the way, there were once 700 steps, but 1 got covered up during repairs.
Cheerio!

Note: Photo credits given to CR (Cody) and ZW (Zach). Photos with no credit listed were taken by yours truly.

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