Shore Leave - Jamestown (Part II)
15.9268° S, 5.7171° W
After we finished our coffee and pastries at the Consulate Hotel, we thought it was time to go find Wes. We walked back down Main Street toward the waterfront and all the way back to the Wharf Steps (#1 on the map), and didn’t see Wes along the way. We waited awhile at the steps and eventually asked one of the workers on the dock if we could use his radio to hail Coda. We never got a response, but eventually we saw Wes pull up to Coda in the dinghy and start offloading jerry cans of diesel, so we knew he was in the process of refueling. We took the next available ferry out to the boat to help him.
While we had been sipping coffee, Wes had learned that the fuel barge that came around to refuel individual boats probably wouldn’t be able to get to Coda until the following Monday, and that was longer than he wanted to wait, so he decided to do it himself by ferrying 10 or so 20-liter jerry cans to and from the fuel dock in Coda‘s dinghy. (We have a total of 52 20-liter jerry cans onboard, plus two 300-liter fuel tanks, which gives Coda a 10-day motoring range; 22 jerry cans were empty by the time we arrived in St. Helena).
On his second run back from the fuel dock, the dinghy’s outboard decided to quit, and he ended up getting towed back to Coda by the fuel barge itself (which had an engine just big enough to maneuver itself around the harbor). When he finally got back aboard, we helped him unload the full jerry cans from the dinghy. Even though there were still a few more cans to fill with diesel, everyone was hot and tired, so we decided to go for a swim.
There was a fairly stiff current in the outer portion of the harbor where we were anchored, so we tied a small inflatable fender to a piece of rope, threw it in the water, then tied it to the stern of the boat to act as a “life line” in case anyone missed grabbing onto the swim ladder on the stern. Then we all jumped off the bow into the beautiful clear blue water and let the current carry us between Coda‘s two hulls back to the stern. We did a few laps like that before hosing off with some fresh water and getting dressed to go ashore again.
Wes and Dan did some experimenting with the dinghy motor and determined that it was likely an issue with the way the fuel tank was positioned, so they decided to make another run to fill the last few jerry cans. The rest of the crew was on standby in case the motor failed again, but they were succesful in their attempt, so we stowed the last few cans then went ashore in the ferry to get dinner.
We had heard that Anne’s Place was the “must visit” place, so we opted to have dinner there. Almost all of the tables were reserved for the evening, but because we were early, they gave us a table in the back corner and we had the place mostly to ourselves.
We were tired from the day’s activities, and we had a tour of the island scheduled for 9 a.m. the following morning, so we returned to Coda to turn in early for the night.
