This year Shamcock & U-Bend went to the island of St. Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic, five days steaming north-west of Cape Town, on Britain’s last remaining Royal Mail Ship, the RMS St. Helena.
Before leaving civilisation we checked if there were any caches to hunt on St. Helena.......and this is what we found....both addressed as on St. Helena but actually on Ascension Island, far, far away. OOPS!!
BirdCave, Ascension Island by MasirahMan (GCHV9W)
Saint Helena 19 Feb 08
Yellow Fever Cache by Gruesome 2some (GCTXK5)
Saint Helena 12 Apr 06
So we decided that we had to set St. Helena’s first Geocache...........
“Jacob’s Ladder”
When you arrive and anchor in Jamestown Bay a little harbour boat brings you ashore from the RMS. After you get your passport stamped you stroll through the Castle Arch into Parade Square, the heart of Jamestown and immediately you will see, to your right, ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ going straight up the near vertical side of the valley, and our cache is up there!
Before you start to find our cache you must look around for some
information, all to be found in Parade Square:
1) How many miniature cannons are there guarding the entrance to
the Castle?
2) How many pointy bits are there on the top of St. James’s Church
tower?
3) What is the height of Rupert’s Hill?
Now stroll past the Museum to the start of your adventure, the
bottom of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. Our GPS put it at:
S 15° 55.508
W 5° 43.177
Jacob’s Ladder was constructed as a mechanical inclined plane
railway in 1829 by The Saint Helena Railway Company to carry goods
up and down between Jamestown and the interior plateau of the
island.
It was re-constructed as a single stairway by the Royal
Artillery in 1871 and remains to this day the world’s longest
single stairway with 699 steps, which rise from near sea level to
over 600 feet.
By the way the world record ascent was made last year by a young
German gentleman in just over 5 minutes. We managed it in a steady
climb of 10 minutes. Most folk say, “No Way!!!!” and retreat, to
drive up ‘Shy Road’ to the top!
Anyhow we expect YOU to make it up the stairs where the view
over Jamestown is breath-taking!
Our GPS put the top of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ at :
S 15° 55.586
W 5° 43.213
Now, to locate our cache, do just a little bit of mathematics to
the decimal portions (after the decimal point) of our co-ordinates
for the top and bottom of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.
Latitude
Subtract the decimal portion from our latitude for the top of
the stairs from the number of steps in the stairs.......then
subtract from that number the number of cannons at the Castle
Gate.
Add the resulting number to the decimal portion of our latitude
for the bottom of the ladder to obtain our cache’s actual
latitude.
Longitude
Subtract the decimal portion from our longitude for the top of
the stairs from the number of steps in the stairs.......then
subtract from that number the height of Rupert’s Hill........then
subtract again the number of pointy bits on the tower of St.
James’s Church.
Add the resulting number to the decimal portion of our longitude
for the bottom of the ladder to obtain our cache’s actual
longitude.
It’s a small cache by the road, enjoy the wine gums we put in
it, but please take something suitable to replace them.
Steve(Shamcock) & Karis(U-Bend).
Dili, Timor-Leste
PS. Seems that we originally goofed with the co-ordinates..or maybe St. Helena has drifted a bit away from the Mid Atlantic Ridge since we set it many years ago. The log by GEOLOGYJOHN apparently has the correct co-ordinates which moves it 254.1 metres to the SW...when we tried to change the co-ordinates the software wouldn't allow a change of more that 161 metres!! Crazy.. However it's STILL well worth the climb up the ladder...to find one of the world's most isolated geocaches!!. Shamcock & U-Bend