Decades ago, I found this book in a secondhand store. It was old even then. I considered a line: 'Nobody goes to St. Helena.' Well, the author did. Why not me? But the idea was filed on my chaotic mental shelf.
Although St. Helena is known - if known at all - as Napoleon’s island of exile, I’ve never been particularly interested in the deposed emperor.
It was more the thought of a place so completely isolated from the man’s onetime European conquests that intrigued me. Occasionally, I would dig out my yellowing Handy Atlas of the British Empire (published in 1905), turn to pages 4 and 5, and wonder about St. Helena, halfway between Africa and South America.
Since St. Helena’s discovery in 1502, the only access has been by water. In 2012, it is still a considerable voyage on the one boat to regularly call at the island. It is a volcanic summit with worrisome cliffs, a postage stamp desert and sprinkled with such curious names: ‘Gates of Chaos,' ‘Cuckold’s Point’ and ‘Two Gun Saddle.’
Then, last May, I heard about an airport, an airport scheduled to open in 2016. An airport will change everything. It won’t be a passage of nearly a week to be dropped off on the island. Visitors will no longer be a trickle. One estimate projects thirty-thousand arrivals a year. Just another name on a crowded airport departures board.
I searched for the old book. I had to go now, to be among the last to travel in the time-honoured way, to have the island and people of St. Helena to myself.
