The first thing you notice on board is how close to the water you are. This is no mega-cruise liner. Your head is probably 12 feet from the water as you sleep in your cabin on B deck.
Another thing you notice is how busy and purposeful and determined the little RMS St. Helena is. The tender ship Flamingo turned her around and, on leaving the harbor at Walvis Bay, she set a course, fired up her engines and then never wavered for three and a half days, just steady chugging northwest at a constant speed, never changing heading, moving farther and farther from land.
Day One:
- Distance traveled, 255 Nautical Miles
- Average speed, 15.4 knots
- Distance remaining, 976 Nautical Miles
- Nearest land: 135 Nautical Miles east in Angola
Day Two:
- Distance traveled the last 24 hours, 375 Nautical Miles
- Average speed, 14.6 knots
- Distance remaining 611 Nautical Miles
People said a cargo ship bound from Cape Town to Las Palmas crossed our path only a few miles away about 10:00 on the morning of day two, but we hadn’t hit the deck yet and missed it. That was the extent of human contact for the day.
Each morning started out overcast but one cleared early on, giving us bright blue skies and a seep blue, rich sea color that Fred, a Saint returning to the island from seven years contract work in the U.K., claimed as the island’s own.
“You can tell we are in St. Helena’s waters because of its color,” he said.
Our forced headlong rush across Namibia to catch the RMS St. Helena in the first place is too long to recount now – we’ll save it for later. Just now, here are a few photos from the world’s last working Royal Mail Ship.
Setting sail from Walvis Bay, Namibia.
The Sun Deck.
The bridge.
The RMS St. Helena at Jamestown, St. Helena Island.
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