Costa Neoriviera ......The Cruise Ships are Coming

Arrival of the Costa Neoriviera

We have the Costa Neoriviera in St James's Bay today. 

This Behemoth of a ship is one of the largest of the 12 Cruise ships we are going to see this year.  

She dwarfs everything else in the bay and looks like a gigantic floating apartment block. On board there are nearly 2000 passengers and crew, which is just about half the population of the island.  

This could potentially upset the whole food chain here if all the visitors eat three meals today.  Luckily they are well fed on board so we should see food in the shops tomorrow.  

From Shy Road at 7.30am

Its a great test of how ready the island is for the Airport and the increase in tourism happening next year.  

So far I hear that we have run out of Taxi services to offer trips around St Helena or to specific locations.  This is the first time this has happened as most cruises are less than 25% of these numbers. 

All else is going well with a number of the tourists stopping off here at 2onmain for their lunch or a cool drink. 

Many of our visitors have been keeping themselves fit by scaling the 699 steps of Jacobs Ladder which in the old days was the short cut for supplies to get to the fort at the top of the cliff.  

Jacobs ladder challenge!

The view from my office

Giselle, one of the island's talented artists

The majority of visitors booked tours which took them around the island, stopping at Napoleon's tomb, Longwood House, the new Airport and finally Plantation House, home of the Governor and Jonathan, one of the oldest tortoises in the world.
By 4.30pm the island was back to normal with the last shuttle heading back to the Mother Ship. 

Next stop for the Costa Neoriviera are the Cape Verde Islands, then Canary Islands before heading into the Mediterranean for  Marseille and Savona in Italy. 

I guess Cruising is a great way to see the world but not too sure whether I am ready for the levels of organisation and time keeping needs to move large numbers of people around foreign destinations, even one as small as St Helena.

Our local wares market

Life goes on at the Pool