In 1982, we sailed from Cape Town to St Helena Island. St Helena is the furthest inhabited island from a continent anywhere, making it one of the remotest inhabited islands on the planet. It’s located 12’850 kms from Cape Town, or approximately 1’700 nautical miles. Our trip from Cape Town to St Helena Island, in 1982, on Scally, took us approximately thirteen days, which is an average speed of 130 knots per day, which is good sailing for a 31-footer. This trip, via Airlink from Cape Town, via Walvis Bay, took approximately five hours.
St Helena is a volcanic island, with extremely rugged terrain, dramatic cliffs, steep valleys, variety of microclimates, and a very rich marine life. It was discovered, accidentally, by the Portuguese discoverer, João de Nova in 1502, on his return voyage to Portugal from India.
My flight from Cape Town would fly northwards, along the coast of Africa in the direction of Windhoek, where we would have landed, if weather conditions in the Atlantic required refueling in there. “Weather conditions are favourable, and so we will head out in the direction of St Helena, sit back folks,” announced the captain, and soon headed west heading out across the vast south Atlantic Ocean. I was extremely excited and apprehensive at the same time. It was a rather small plane, not completely full. Some of its passengers knew the route, and were family returning to the island. Others were tourists, like myself, coming for the first, or in my case, second time.
I kept looking out of my window, down to the ocean below, which looked utterly calm and peaceful from such a height, and imagined Scally sailing on these waters, taking us on our fourteen-day adventure across seas to this very same island so many years ago.
Dates: I flew to St Helena in January 2026.
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