It’s one of the most isolated — as well as intriguing — places in the world. It remains a British outpost smack in the middle of nowhere, deep in the South Atlantic. And while it’s difficult to get to…this is a place you definitely want to visit. Welcome to the brave…old…world of the island of St. Helena. Watch our special segment, from an upcoming edition of The Travel Detective, on PBS.

 

If you’re looking to get away from it all, have I got a destination for you.  It’s the island of St. Helena.  It’s one of the most isolated islands in the world, located smack in the middle of nowhere, and deep in the South Atlantic Ocean.  It’s Britain’s second oldest colony and loaded with history.  Some of you may remember Napoleon was exiled here—it’s also where he died. I got to warn you, it’s not easy to get to, but you definitely want to be here.

 

St. Helena is located about 1,200 miles from the western coast of Africa and 1,800 miles from South America’s east coast.  The island was created as a result of two volcanic eruptions. Its 47 square miles are home to about 4,500  residents–also known as Saints.

 

For nearly three decades, the only way to get to or from St. Helena was on the RMS St. Helena, one of the last remaining royal mail ships that actually still delivered mail. The ship was a literal lifeline for the island—delivering not only passengers, but also food, clothing, medicine and supplies across the South Atlantic. That journey, between St. Helena and Capetown, took five days!  

 

But in January 2018, the RMS St. Helena made her final voyage.  She was given a farewell party fit for a queen as she left St. Helena for the very last time. 

 

Now, a container ship arrives about once a month to bring vital supplies to the saints, but what about passengers?

 

Today, the only way to get to St. Helena is by plane: a small twin engine jet that comes in twice a week from Johannesburg.  And because the airport has no instrument landing system or night time operations, the flying here is old school (visual flight rules and weather permitting). 

 

The airport began regularly scheduled flight services in October of 2017. The planes can carry about 80 passengers plus cargo. Once they land, after a quick turnaround, the aircraft is ready to take off and head back to South Africa a few hours later. 

 

Now if you’re still not convinced that St. Helena is unlike most any place else you may have visited, here are some statistics for you. The number of police on the island? 24. Firefighters? 11 full-time and one auxiliary firefighter. Some license plates only have one digit and none have more than four. You want to call a home or business? You only have to dial four numbers. Since they only got cell service here in 2015, you can still find 38 pay phones scattered around the island.  But here, they’re called smart phones. 

 

The crime rate? Virtually nonexistent.  When I was here, the biggest case was two five-pound dumbbells being stolen from the gym. The police are on the lookout. They’ve got a post office here and they sell lots of colorful, commemorative stamps, but if you’re looking for daily mail delivery, you are out of luck. Mail is only delivered to the island twice a month. The number of ATM machines? Zero. So bring cash.

 

It goes without saying that on an island in the middle of the South Atlantic, there are plenty of boats. And if you like to dive, you’re in for a treat.  Less than a 15 minute boat ride from Jamestown Harbor, there are reefs, caves, wrecks  and islands. The water is almost always clear and fairly warm.

 

Snorkelers and swimmers have plenty to see, too. There are ten endemic fish species along with turtles, dolphins and Chilean devil rays.  But what many people really want to see are the gentle giants of the sea, the largest fish in the ocean: the whale shark.  This is not only one of the premiere places to view them—but if you get lucky, you can also swim with them.

 

Now, if you’d rather be on a boat than in the water—especially if you like to fish—you are definitely in the right place. I set out with Captain Craig Yon of Dive St. Helena, to see if we could catch ourselves a little dinner.  It didn’t take very long—less than ten minutes after leaving shore—to get our first bite.

 

Before we headed back to the dock, Captain Craig and I sat down to talk about some of the things that make the island so unique.

 

“The fact that we are isolated from the rest of the world,” Captain Craig said.

 

“Our marine life is probably our biggest draw. Then the island in general. The peace and tranquility, what you get from the local people, you know? You become part of the island when you visit.”

 

The island is also gifted with its fair share of history, like its most famous—or should I say, infamous resident. 

 

Most people think that Napoleon was exiled to the Italian island of Elba… and he was. But he escaped, and fought the British at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815… and lost. He was shipped to the South Atlantic to St. Helena, and moved into a hastily renovated house called Longwood.

 

By most accounts, Napoleon hated St. Helena, and despite the luxury accommodations, he wasn’t a fan of Longwood either.  Today the house is maintained by the French consulate on the island. There was a consolation. The British gave Napoleon and his entourage a daily ration of 14 kilos of beef, 9 chickens and 17 bottles of wine. 

 

Upon Napoleon’s arrival to St. Helena, his first view of the island would have been of the imposing black cliffs rising out of the ocean around the valley of Jamestown. He reportedly spent one night there and never returned. Longwood House, on a windy bluff about four miles away, had already been chosen as the best location for Napoleon’s exile, as it was deemed a difficult place from which to escape.   

 

The residence was an old summer house owned by the East India Company, and required restoration and an extension to accommodate Napoleon and his crew before they could move in. Even with the extensive renovations to the house, the living conditions were still not what Napoleon was used to.  The location was damp, moldy, and rainy—and reportedly aggravated the emperor’s health.

 

Today you can visit the house, and imagine Napoleon scanning his maps on the billiard table in the anteroom or peering through the holes he’d cut in the shutters in order to spy on people in the garden. The home contains many of the original furnishings and over 900 artifacts, as well as some replicas, like the camp bed where Napoleon died in 1821—a subject that remains controversial.

 

Some say that he was poisoned, while others believe he died from boredom. However, the evidence from an autopsy suggests that he may have died from liver and intestinal problems, perhaps connected to his ulcers.

 

He was originally buried in the Sane Valley, just a short drive from Longwood House, but his body was exhumed and returned to France 19 years after his death. The empty tomb, surrounded by a small fence in the middle of a clearing where Napoleon loved to take walks, can be seen today and looks much like it might have looked when the emperor was laid to rest.

 

Before you leave this part of the island, you’ll want to visit Diana’s Peak National Park. Here, you’ll not only find the namesake mountain, with great trails that will take you to the highest point in St. Helena, but you’ll also find Laurence Malon, the island’s terrestrial conservation officer. 

 

He and his small team work to conserve and regenerate native and endangered species on the island—any number of which are found nowhere else in the world. 

 

“One little sage that was thought to be extinct for over 300 years, found it,” Malon said.  “Now we know what we are looking for, we see it everywhere. And even to the day, new species are being described.”

 

You can imagine the excitement in the scientific community with each new discovery.

 

“The mechanism we use now is what they call a living field gene bank, so it’s pretty much the same as when people collect seeds, shove it in the freezer and now they’ve conserved it,” Malon said. “There’s a couple [species that are] extinct in the wild and we only have in the collections.”

 

Contrary to what you might think, they don’t treat the little seedlings with kid gloves. 

 

“If you grow something that’s really pretty and lush in the nursery because you can spray it every day and give it special care, when you stick it out in the wild it’s probably going to get a bit of a shock for the first bit and take time to establish.” Malon said.  “So we do the opposite. We treat them really poorly in the nursery, but in fact really well.  That’s what they want in the first place and we try to get them used to the diseases and pests and we establish this kind of ability that the plants have to readapt to the conditions that they’re going to find in the wild already. So our nursery is close to the habitat that we’re trying to restore.” 

 

Visitors to St. Helena can also do their part to help save the island’s endangered and endemic species.