St Helena in photos

On St Helena, one of Earth’s most isolated inhabited islands, jaw-dropping landscapes, fascinating natural history and contemporary politics paint a picture of our planet in miniature. I explored it for a story in our August 2015 issue, and discovered that soon this planet will be closer than ever before.

It takes three weeks to visit St Helena. A five-day voyage from Cape Town on the RMS ST Helena (one of the last two working Royal Mail Ships in the world) is the only way to get there and back. That’s all going to change next year. Its airport will finally be completed, the ship will be decommissioned and one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world will be a four-hour flight away. So, I joined the nostalgic and the wistful on one of the RMS St Helena’s last voyages to see what life is like on this volcanic rock on the cusp of change. Here are some photos I took along the way.

I used an Outex Camera Cover to get the underwater shots on St Helena. They’re great for keeping your DSLR dry and come with various attachments to suit your lens sizes. Find out more here.