St Helena - The Island Ready to welcome ! An End to Isolation .

St. Helena - The Heart of the South Atlantic.

For more than 500 years, the only way to reach the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena was by sea. That is about to change.

For more than 500 years, the only way to reach the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena was by sea. Travelling to the South Atlantic island by sailboat, after a nine-day voyage from Namibia, my family and I made landfall the way every person before us has: the way Napoleon Bonaparte did when he was sent into exile in 1815; the way modern-day Saints (as the local population is known) do when they venture home from work in the UK; and the way the occasional, intrepid visitor has always done. But we were one of the last travelers to do so.

In April, the first commercial plane landed at the island’s new airport, and the last working Royal Mail Ship, the St Helena, was slated for decommissioning.

Now, for the first time, visitors won’t risk being doused in the Atlantic swell when they reach for the ropes at the sea-washed Jamestown landing, trying to time their first step onto solid ground.

however, had expected the ropes at the landing – and even the strong arms of the Saints as they pulled me away from the swirling sea. I knew that the capital of Jamestown would be a crayon-colored English village wedged improbably into a volcanic cleft on a tropical island. I’d read that Napoleon Bonaparte had been the island’s most famous prisoner.

But knowing of a place and knowing a place are different things. Of all the islands I’ve visited, Saint Helena is the most wonderful and strange. Caught somewhere between today and a time that may never have existed, St Helena has a retirement home for donkeys who have been replaced by cars; it only got mobile phone service a few months ago; it has a tiny bit of France (literally) in its lush interior; and it’s home to an estimated 187-year-old giant tortoise called Jonathon who, I was told, was just given his first wish.

One legend says the ringer of the Bellstone is granted a wish. I wondered if Jonathon’s own wish was related to the Bellstone, and made a mental note to ask Peters.

Saint Helena transform from one of the world’s most important mid-ocean provisioning stops to an isolated and forgotten outpost, and then again into a community that’s once again ready to welcome the world.