Shore Leave - A Royal Interlude
When we were in the customs office, I overheard one of the people working there talking about prince someone-or-other. Later on, I noticed that many of the windows of the shops on Main Street had signs welcoming Prince Edward, but for some reason I assumed it was for a visit that had already concluded.
I finally put two and two together while we were waiting at the wharf steps to return to Coda to help Wes with the refueling. There was a very nice silver Jaguar sedan parked near the steps with several police officers with very pale skin and very crisp white shirts gathered around it. The car had no license plate, just a yellow placard with a crown on it, and it had the following small flag flying on its hood:
Why were all these officious-looking people and autos milling about? It turned out that Prince Edward (King Charles’ youngest brother) had gone out to see sharks and the boat he was on had broken down. A St. Helena rescue boat was in the process of towing his vessel back to the wharf, and his official entourage was waiting for his return.
They were still waiting when we caught the ferry back to Coda. The dinghy broke down on Wes in the very path that the boat towing Prince Edward took back to the wharf; if he had broken down in the same spot about 15 minutes later, he might have gotten rescued by the same boat rescuing Prince Edward!
In any case, I later found an interesting pair of photos on Daily Mail. Since that site is loaded with ads and clickbait, I’ve embedded the images directly:
