Saturday, February 12, 2011

First sighting of St helena!

We saw it! In the fire of the sunset, we saw the impossible. The island of the Saints lay etched on the horizon - St Helena. We were amazed still 250 nm from this big volcanic island, but for an instant we could see it!
Today was cloudy and St Helena was hidden from us. Thank God for that instant, it was like a breath of hope. We imagined ourselves being on one of the old ships looking for land. People like Diaz and Joao Da Nova Castella, sailing the seas and finding an island in the middle of nowhere and then decided to stay for a while, and then decided to name this island...St Helela, because it was the birth day of Constantine's mother, Helena on the 21 of May 1502.
This island was formed 14 million years ago, after a violent volcano erupted. We are approaching this island, a 121 square km. It sits astride an ocean plate, the African Plate, and slowly slides eastwards toward Africa, 18mm a year, We are going to visit 4000 Saints living on this island and we will be 4 of the more or less 1000 tourists visiting this remote island per year!

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