Saint Helena is one of the remotest islands on the planet, sitting in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean 1,200 miles from Africa and 1,800 miles from South America.
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St Helena is the UK‘s second-oldest overseas territory after Bermuda.
It was named after Helena, mother of Constantine I and was completely uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese enroute to the Indian subcontinent in 1502.
For around four centuries, the island was an important stopover for ships from Europe to Asia and back, while sailing around the African continent, until the opening of the Suez Canal.
The island is also known as Napoleon Bonaparte‘s grave as it was where the French military commander was exiled from 1815 until his death in 1821.
Nicknamed “the Galapagos of the Atlantic”, St Helena has a unique biological diversity, with around 500 species of flora and fauna discovered on the island.
St Helena has no native land mammals, but is a haven for bird life, including the endangered St Helena plover or “wirebird”.
From boat trips to see hundreds of dolphins to swimming with whale sharks, visitors and residents in St Helena are in constant contact with the island’s marine wildlife.
The ocean waters surrounding the island also host incredibly diverse coral ecosystems.
Saint Helena is also home to the oldest giant tortoise in the world.
Jonathan – who was 186 years old in 2017 – had been living on the island since the 19th century and mating with another tortoise called Frederica since 1991.
But it has emerged that the giant animal could be gay.
Experts in the British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic recently discovered the old-timer’s girlfriend of the last 26 years is probably a male, The Times reported.
Despite the dreamy tropical weather and being thousands of miles away from the UK, the volcanic island is more similar to Britain than one might think.
It comes as Saint Helena also apparently suffers from late night weekend chaos, especially at capital Jamestown, where most of the 5,314 residents live.
The paradise island reportedly turns into hell on weekend nights with “drunkenness”, “feral kids”, and boy racers causing mayhem.
Earlier this month, the St Helena Government released a statement condemning “anti-social behaviour”, “drunkenness” and “criminal activity leading to the needless damage” in the lower half of Jamestown.
It mentioned how “a minority of people” were “harming their own community”.
The statement added that he St Helena Government is working with the UK Representative’s Office in London to get financial support to bring in solutions such as CCTV and set up civilian security patrols.
The St Helena Independent – one of the island’s two newspapers – published an editorial going into more detail about the anti-social behaviour.
“Having spent the night in Jamestown on one or two occasions I am very aware weekend nights are perfect hell every weekend,” the paper’s editor Vince Thompson wrote.
He recalled one Sunday morning when, in the early hours, “a succession of cars would drive up to the ramps, slow down, pass over the ramps and then accelerate using the highest possible revs immediately afterwards”.
“Throwing litter” and “breaking bottles” were said to be other issues. Vince went on to describe some of Jamestown’s unruly youths as “feral”.
He added: “I’ve just looked up the definition of ‘feral’, it states ‘in a wild state after escape from domestication’. That sounds about right.”
A bombshell letter from 2010 also revealed how David Cameron was told to ignore grave warnings that a £285 million airport on St Helena would be a disaster.
The ex-PM was told “undesirable” wind shear would make it a “very expensive and embarrassing white elephant”.
Ex-BA pilot Brian Heywood urged David Cameron not to blow taxpayers cash on the project in the remote island.
But the PM passed the warnings from his constituent onto the Department for International Development – and was reassured everything would be fine.
Ex-Aid Secretary Andrew Mitchell said all concerns raised by the pilot were being addressed.
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