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As you will find in any small community, it is quite easy here on Tristan for rumours and incorrect information to start circulating. In facing up to the reality of the situation, I have just put out a ‘Farming News’ paper, which has gone down exceptionally well. It gives folk a ‘from the horse’s mouth’ idea as to what we are trying to do, and I have had a number of people coming along with seeds for us to propagate. This is what I put out in the community:-

TDC Farming News                      Issue 1                          October 2017

The Department of Agriculture is aiming to publish a newsletter like this one from time to time. If anyone would like us to comment on any specific farming topic, please let us know.

Greenhouses and Mission Gardens

In recent months we have been able to make considerable progress on production in these garden areas. As well as growing plants that will produce food crops for sale, such as tomatoes, we are also growing plants that will end up being sold in the Agri Shop. These plants fall into three categories – indoor ornamental plants, outdoor ornamental plants, and plants for food production – all this is part of our mission to supply a service to the community. The thinking behind the production of vegetable plants for sale is that we have the facilities and skills to produce a range of strong, healthy plants that can be transplanted into peoples’ gardens when they are big enough to be able to withstand the many insects that are waiting to attack seedlings, and people will probably like being able to ‘kick start’ their own vegetable production without the risk of loosing small vulnerable seedlings.

The recent sale of tomato plants has been a big success. We hope to be able to follow up with cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants very soon. Keep an eye open for our notices as to what is coming into the shop. If anyone would like us to propagate any particular plants in the greenhouse, do please let us know.

Lime and Fertiliser

You may have noticed our team busy spreading fertiliser and lime in some of the pasture areas. This is part of an ambitious long-term programme to improve the grass production on the island, in order to help increase the feed available for the cattle.

Lime is being applied in order to raise the pH of the soil. A low pH means acid soil, and grass grows badly on ground that is acid. A pH of 6.5 to 7.0 is ideal for productive grasses, but many of the pastures are currently below 5.5.

I have been asked whether there is any problem with cattle grazing land that has been recently fertilised or limed. The fertiliser that we are using at present is prilled urea, specifically adding nitrogen. In some countries both urea and lime is deliberately added to cattle feed, and there will be no problem with cattle grazing on land that has been recently limed or fertilised with urea.

Bulls

 The very good news is that we are soon due to take delivery of two new bulls from South Africa. These are both Aberdeen Angus, one being a black Angus and the other a red Angus. We expect that these will be with us in time for the 2018 breeding season.

These two bulls will be key in improving the cattle blood-lines on the island. In the coming two months we should see the new calves born from the recent AI programme, and we look forward to seeing whether any cross-bred bull calves produced from AI are good enough to select for breeding in the future. In the meantime, with the new bulls quality natural breeding will be assured.

Ear Tags

 Some months ago the decision was made to identify cattle using ear tags, which will be pivotal to us being able to keep proper records, and for the identity of animals being followed from birth to death. Any people who watch Countryfile will be familiar with this sort of ear tag. The ear tags have now arrived on the island.

Each animal will be tagged twice, with a large tag on one side and a little button tag on the other side, both tags displaying the same number which will be the ID of the animal.

It is not intended that the ear tags will necessarily replace the traditional system of ear marking – it will be up to the individual owner to choose whether to ear-mark his calves as well, or whether to rely on the ID provided by the ear tags. We will of course be keeping a detailed record of each ear tag number, so that for example in the event that an animal is given or sold by one owner to another, the records will be updated to show the new owner.

It will take some time before we are able to obtain full benefit from the ear tag system. For example, once calves that are as yet unborn are tagged and fully mature the records that can then be referred to will be invaluable for the community and for the individual owner.

New Tractor

We are very pleased to be able to report that we have taken delivery of a new 4WD tractor, and this machine has now been commissioned and put into service.

Being brand new, this machine has the whole of its working life ahead of it. We feel that the tractor is a very sound investment that will play a key role in the important farming developments that are programmed. The tractor is a Massey Ferguson, and the controls are largely the same as the old 135’s and 240’s that are on the island, and are therefore familiar to our staff.

Livestock Mineral Deficiencies

Our visiting vet, Joe Hollins, has done some very interesting work by collating and analysing the results of blood and tissue samples taken from island livestock over a number of years

Joe has identified that there are substantial mineral deficiencies that are having a negative effect on the health of the livestock.

As a result, a consignment of salt / mineral blocks has been ordered and now received and distributed, and we are working through the herd to administer mineral boluses (stomach pills).

Alasdair Wyllie – Agricultural Adviser and Editor of TDC Farming News

Tristan da Cunha is a tiny volcanic island deep in the South Atlantic, at around 37^o south. The nearest land is Cape Town, some 1,600 miles to the east. It has a population of 260 people. Tristan was first occupied by a British garrison in 1816, and today it is one of the British Overseas Territories. In 1961 the island was evacuated because of the volcano coming to life, the population spending 18 months in Britain until they were able to return. The island is known as being the most remote inhabited island in the world.

In November 2016 I travelled out to Tristan to take up a 2-year contract as Agricultural Adviser to the Government of Tristan da Cunha. The central objective was the increase of island food production, for strategic and economic reasons. Technical advice and advocacy are the two pillars of my work here.

The long-existing agricultural enterprises are cattle, sheep and potatoes, plus some vegetables and a little fruit. There is much improvement to be made in all these enterprises. My brief also included the promotion of some quite fanciful ideas, including for example the commercial development of tea, and truffle production. I am pleased to be able to report that I have had agreement on the abandonment of these peripheral ideas, and we are concentrating on a ‘back to basics’ approach in the interests of food security and sustainability.

The main problems being faced can be categorised as being Logistical, Technical, Climatic and Cultural. The Cultural issues have developed as a result of the community on the island having very little contact with the outside world for most of its 200 year existence. Whereas in the early days the island was visited by whalers and seal hunters, these visits died out as a result of over exploitation of these natural resources, and in some years not a single ship visited. Because of the isolation, the spread and adoption of new ideas is naturally very restricted.

The climate can be described as temperate maritime, but this generalisation does not convey the day-to-day reality of the weather and of the way in which the weather plays a pivotal part in limiting farming options. Summer temperatures can range from 16 to 28^oC, and although the climate is wet there can be prolonged dry spells in the summer. Winter temperatures range from 4 to 16^o. There is great variety in the weather, with sometimes a few spring-like days in the middle of winter, and vice versa. However, one of the most significant weather elements is the wind; at any time of the year the island can have 5 or 6 days in which storm-force winds blow without a break, most often accompanied by heavy rain. Rains in the last 12 months have resulted in some serious flood damage, a combination of erosion and alluvial deposits being washed down from the high ground accounting for the loss of some 10% of the available pasture land, which previously amounted to around 400 hectares. Most crops need shelter from the wind to survive.

The logistical problems all relate to the extreme remoteness of the island. There is no airport, and only some 8 visiting cargo ships each year. The ships come from Cape Town, with a crossing time ranging from 6 to 15 days. These bare facts point to one of the main problem areas, which is that it takes a very long time for orders placed to arrive on the island. This impacts on obtaining, for example, machinery spares, medicines and other urgent supplies – indeed some orders originating in the UK can take more than 9 months to arrive. The price of everything coming to the island is augmented by shipping costs, and as may be imagined there has developed a strong ‘make do and mend’ attitude.

The very limited land area is generally poor, boulder-strewn ground which is not ploughable. This has become ‘pasture’ by the colonisation of kikuyu grass which of course is low in production and low in digestibility, as well as a range of other low performing weed grasses. As with most soils of volcanic origin, the soil pH is very low – 5.2 to 5.8. No lime has been applied since the early 1970’s. We now have lime ordered and received, and we have started lime spreading, as the beginning of a programme which should be repeated annually if funds permit. We also aim to reseed some of the pasture land; this will be done by spraying off the surface vegetation with glyphosate, and using a tined pneumatic seeder to sow a mixture of grasses that has been prepared for these conditions by a specialist seedsman in Scotland. The seeded surface will be rolled using a home-made roller made of two written-off gas cylinders filled with concrete.

During the winter months, the livestock that are dependent on the grazing have a hard time. In round figures we have a total herd of 420 single-suckled cows and followers, and around 800 sheep. There is no grass conservation, and it is illegal to bring in hay because of the high risk of bringing in hitch-hikers, both alien plants and alien insects. The worst year for the cattle was in 1906, when numbers had been allowed to climb to around 700, and a hard winter resulted in 364 deaths.

The sheep tend to have an easier time than the cattle do, because they are able to graze the upland areas where there is much less grazing competition. Sheep are kept primarily for meat, but the wool is also important. There is a significant cottage industry of carding, spinning and knitting, with a range of quality woollen items being sent to customers around the world.

We managed to do an AI programme with the cattle last February, and if all goes well we hope to introduce new blood into the sheep flock next year. Nothing is ever simple, and both cattle and sheep are privately owned by individual families on quota systems. The management decisions that would be relatively easy with a co-operative or with an owning company, for example to reduce the herd size in order to reduce overgrazing, are exceptionally difficult here. Although there seems to be increasing awareness of the need to reduce stock numbers, the suggestions that have been made of meaningful changes to how things are done have not met with agreement from the islanders themselves.

In small, enclosed garden areas there is some production of vegetables, and there are two home-made greenhouses that are used for the propagation of seedlings and for the production of tomatoes and cucumbers. Garden areas have to be sheltered from the wind, and New Zealand flax is extensively used for wind breaks. The climate is such that some crops, notably kale and cabbage, will grow throughout the year. There is some advantage in growing crops in the winter months because then there are no damaging insects. There are two particular insect pests that cause great damage in the summer months – these are the diamond backed moth in the outside areas and the whitefly in the greenhouses. These are both alien species that arrived on the island in recent years, but they have no predators here – no predating insects, no hedgehogs, no insect-eating birds. As a result these two pest species can rapidly multiply out of control, particularly since they arrived here with well developed resistance to insecticides.

Potatoes have been grown on the island since the arrival of the first settlers. They are grown in small wall-enclosed areas (‘The Potato Patches’) that closely resemble the ‘kale yards’ that are to be found in the Orkney Islands and in the Outer Hebrides. Each family has a number of Patches, where they grow their own crop. It would surprise all potato-growing farmers around the world to know that the potatoes are grown on the same ground year after year, with no rotation, but for some reason this gives reasonable results here on Tristan. There are good years and not-so-good years, but in a good year surplus potatoes are sent off to St Helena, as part of a good-will exercise. There seems to be a degree of vulnerability in growing potatoes with no rotation, and in order to try and develop the protocol for growing an alternative carbohydrate crop we are about to try cultivating sweet potatoes, which of course are not susceptible to the same pests and diseases as the standard potato.

There can be very few places in the world where woollen products are commercially made with every stage of the process being carried out by hand.   On the island of Tristan da Cunha, shearing is done using hand shears, and all the wool treatment processes including carding, spinning and knitting are done by hand.

Sheep have been on Tristan since the early 1800’s. All the sheep are individually owned, but they are normally handled as one flock. It is the Agricultural Department that look after the sheep and carry most of the costs, taking care of all the routine treatments throughout the year, and one man from the Department attends to the ewes at lambing time. The owners of the sheep look after ear marking (each owner has his own pattern of cuts that are made in the ears for identification) and shearing, and finally the owner looks after the slaughter and butchering of his own animals.

The flock has resulted from the importation of a number of breeds over the years. The main breeds in evidence in this mixed flock are Scottish Blackface, Cheviot, Suffolk, Carrodale, and a recent (but not too successful) addition of Dorper. We are currently making all efforts to introduce another importation of ‘new blood’ into the flock, this time hopefully bringing in Cheviots by using AI. We have come to that choice because the Cheviot breed is known for being hardy in marginal conditions, with a good carcase and with good wool quality.

Wool is often seen as a by-product of the sheep industry. Around the world, in these days of artificial fibres, wool no longer has the importance that it once enjoyed. It is difficult to imagine how important wool was for the early settlers on Tristan, since they had so little contact with the outside world and no other means of producing clothing to help them through the cold winters.

Shearing takes place in December, or sometimes January. Shearing takes place with pointed hand shears, the same sort of shears that shepherds around the world use for local clipping around the sheeps’ tails. The annual community event called ‘Shearing Day’ has already been covered in a previous article. The wool is generally packed tight into recycled plastic sacks, and taken home to be stored in islanders’ garages.

The work required to turn the bags of raw wool into a yarn that can be used for knitting takes a number of stages, all of them carried out by hand. Firstly the wool is washed. Once the wool is dry, it is picked over, this task being done to start pulling out the fibres, to separate the clumps into smaller pieces of wool and at the same time to discard foreign bodies and pieces of marker paint that were used to mark the sheep for identification. The next stage is perhaps a bit unexpected – the wool has a trace of cooking oil added to it and mixed into the pile of pieces. This oil allows the wool to flow better in the following two stages.

Carding and then spinning come next. In the carding process, two cards are used – these are like wooden paddles which have on one face hundreds of little wires protruding from the surface. The fibres of the small pieces of wool are pulled out, untangled, and left in loose spirals of fluffy wool by the skilled use of these cards, one the wires of one card being pulled against the wires of the other one.

The fluffy spirals of wool are then spun into yarn. Many of the ladies on the island use locally-made spinning wheels that are rotated by hand and that use the momentum of the wheel to power the spinning of the fibres together, although some treadle-powered wheels are also used on the island.

The yarn coming from the spinning is then doubled up, two pieces of thread being spun together by using the spinning wheel in the opposite direction. The fully formed woollen thread is then wrapped up in a skein, which is then once again washed to remove the oil that was added some five stages ago. After drying the skeins, the wool is then rolled up into the familiar balls of wool that we all know knitters to use.

The knitting skills that some of the islanders have need to be seen to believed. I have seen one of these speedy knitters working away at a speed that seemed to be impossible, with only occasional reference to some scribbled pattern notes on a scrap of paper. Yet she was working on a complex garment with the words ‘Tristan da Cunha’ built into the pattern, and she held a conversation at the same time!

The range of products that are made by the island knitters includes sweaters, socks and woolly hats. Sometimes they are made as a gift to family or friends, (here or overseas), sometimes they are made to order, and sometimes the more standard items are made for stock, to be sold perhaps to visitors to the island who may be expat staff or tourists from one of the occasional cruise boats or navy ships that come to visit.   They are also available by ordering via the web site, http://www.tristandc.com/handicrafts.php . If you order a garment, you must of course be prepared for a long delay while the item is made for you and while the long process of shipping to Cape Town takes place. But you will receive a high quality hand made item that probably has no equal anywhere.

Who will make the garment for you? A register is kept by the ‘Tourism Department’, and in true Tristan fashion they rotate the ladies that they ask to produce each particular order. Believe it or not, out of a total population of 260 people, nearly 50 ladies are on the register. This gives a clear picture of the importance on the island of the cottage industry of knitting.

This is another important event in the annual calendar of Tristan da Cunha. One of the more taciturn staff members of the Agriculture Department surprised me some weeks ago; while another member of the team and I were discussing the coming Ratting Day, the strong silent type leaned over and said “Ratting Day is lots of fun”. He was right!

It all started in 1884. The trading ship called the Henry B Paul was shipwrecked on the east coast of Tristan. It has been suggested that the wrecking of the boat was deliberate, as part of an insurance fraud. The wreck changed the island for ever, because a number of black rats swam ashore. It was, in effect, a very black day. Within a week of the shipwreck, rats were seen at the Settlement.

The number one problem of rats is their ability to multiply. It is said that three breeding pairs can multiply to a million rats in twelve months, under ideal conditions. This may sound far-fetched, but if conditions are right baby rats can be sexually mature in just five weeks, there can be up to 14 young in each litter, and the gestation period is only 21 days. That is why rats are a problem in every city in the world.

When the rats arrived on Tristan, they had almost everything their own way. There were no natural predators, with the possible exception of the Arctic Skua, but in the case of the Skua the bird is diurnal and the rat is nocturnal, so only rats that were already sick would expose themselves to attack from Skuas. There are no foxes, no owls, no stoats, no raptors, no snakes. No enemies for the rats. At the same time, food was plentiful. Fish debris was being washed up on the shore, there was plenty of vegetative matter for the omnivorous rats, and particularly there were millions of birds that nested in burrows and on the surface of the ground, and which provided the rats with an everlasting high-protein food supply of eggs and chicks. It was convenient for the rat population that the different bird species nested at different times – the supply chain was assured. In a very short time the rats populated virtually the whole island. As the rat population increased, so the bird population was decimated, and some bird species even became extinct.

At the time, the severe reduction in the bird population was serious to the Tristanians, because they themselves had a diet which was quite heavily dependent on sustainably taking birds for meat and for cooking fat. Also of course the rats ate the islanders’ crops, particularly the potatoes, and they broke into food stores where they ate or damaged food that was being stored for the winter.

Rat control became a part of the islanders’ busy lives, with traps, dogs, sticks and later toxic baits all playing a part in the control of the black rat. At some time in the 1940’s Ratting Day started, being organised by the residents as a joint community action to try to address the problem of rats.

This, then, was the origin of rats, and the origin of Ratting Day, on Tristan.

We felt great excitement at being able to witness this annual event that is so much part of the cultural heritage of Tristan da Cunha. In common with all the main annual events, and in common with organised work days such as Unloading Day and Fishing Day, the day officially started with the sounding of the Gong. This traditional touch came as no surprise to anyone – it had already been firmly established the day before that Friday May 26^th was going to be Ratting Day. If it had transpired that the weather changed and that the day was going to be bad, the following Monday would have been substituted. The weekends here are sacrosanct. But this particular Friday we were blessed with great weather.

The five teams that had registered for the competition this year set out to their chosen grounds, together with dogs, children, sticks, spades, crowbars and essential supplies. They all went west, targeting known areas of large populations of rats in the Valley and around the Patches and in the ground of the western plain between the Patches and the escarpment.   These had been competition-winning areas in previous years. However, as we have learned, 2017 is different. Heavy rainfall and bad flood damage has changed the habitat for the rats. We must assume an awful lot of drowned rats, because one particular team worked an area in which they had seen great success in previous years, but this year they spent three hours with no rats at all being seen.

The process of ratting takes skill and hard work. Each team looks for signs of rat tracks on the ground; this takes accustomed eyes, to interpret on the ground the linear traces of the passage of the rats. Once it is established that rats have taken up residence in the area, it is a question of following the tracks and finding the hole that leads to their nests. Often these holes lead under boulders, and using bars and spades the ratters have to remove the boulder and dig down the lines of the holes to where the rats are lying. Suddenly, a rat makes a break for it, knowing that he has been cornered. He might be caught by the edge of a spade, or by a well-aimed boot. Outside this circle of action, there are the dogs, poised for action. Very few rats escape this cordon.

Once each rat has been killed, the next step is to cut off its tail. The tails are all collected in a plastic bag, to be measured and counted at a later time – this is a competition, after all. Prizes and prestige are both available for the winners. The winners will celebrate in traditional style, while those who are not winners this year will no doubt need some form of solace to see them through the evening.

The next phase of the day is the counting and measuring of the tails, and the prize giving ceremony. This all takes place at the Vet Clinic. Each ratting team presents its bag of tails, which are checked, counted, measured and recorded. The ‘most tails’ prize (1^st and 2^nd) is awarded to the team with the most tails per person in the team, to allow for differences of team size. There are also prizes for the longest tail, and there is a consolation prize for the team with the least number of tails per head. The longest tail this year was impressive – a record-beating 30.2 cm, while altogether 399 tails were counted. This may sound like a lot of tails, but it compares poorly with last year’s figure of around 930. This fall in numbers could be due to the floods taking their toll on the rat population, or perhaps the fact that rather fewer teams entered the competition this year.

And so on to the closing event of the day, a dance in the Philip Hall. And there was all-round agreement that “Ratting Day is lots of fun!”

For the second time in two weeks, the flags on Tristan da Cunha were at half mast. In both cases this was an expression of solidarity over the atrocities in the UK – Manchester and London. The vile Manchester bombing, and the idiotic murders in London, have rocked the people here.

It is a reminder as to how very British this island is, even though Britain lies some 6,000 miles further North. This ultra-remote island is one of the British Overseas Territories, and its origins go back to the time in the first years of the 1800’s when there was a British garrison here. The people here are very loyal to the Queen, and in many respects they are more British than the British.

From the perspective of the people of this remote island, it is even more difficult to understand the wave of ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ attacks than it is for other people around the world. Their thinking is:- how is it that people can move to another country that is generous enough to offer them shelter, then for these people to take all the benefits they can in terms of free housing, unemployment benefit, free medical care, and so on, and then turn round and bite the hand that has for so many years fed them? Even worse, and even more hypocritical, is to go out on a murder rampage and pretend it is in the name of Islam.

The truth of the matter is that the murder of innocent individuals has nothing to do with Islam. The Koran expressly forbids such actions. There is however a provision that gives soldiers who are carrying out a military action, as decided on by social and religious leaders, the expectation of enormous privileges and pleasures in the afterlife if they die in the name of Allah. The modern self-styled fundamentalists are breaking the rules. Just because they cry out “In the name of Allah” as they carry out their atrocities does not at all give them the backing of the religion. They might as well cry out “on the name of Pooh Bear” or “In the name of Alice in Wonderland”

One trouble is that Islam does not have a pyramidal hierarchy. It has no Pope, no Archbishop. And no single person within the faith is standing up and saying (as they would on Tristan) “Not in my name, Buddy”

I am not at all anti-Islam. For fifteen years I worked in four different countries in the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, in Saudi Arabia one farm I was developing was on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca. And to drive to Hail where we had another farm, I had to drive through the holy city of Medinah. But I feel that if the diverse and widespread leaders of Islam do not stand up together to expose the hypocrisy of the fundamentalists, then Islam itself will come under unprecedented pressure from the outside world. Otherwise, they as a whole will be tarred with the same brush as their idiotic traitors. There is a saying “If you are not part of the cure, you are part of the problem”.

Coming from the west coast of Scotland, and having forbears who lived for generations as part of small island communities, I relate strongly to the Western Isles. Way out in the Outer Hebrides, there lies a tiny remote island called Barra. Some weeks ago, a young Barra girl called Eilidh McLeod made the journey of a lifetime to travel all the way to Manchester to enjoy a concert by her musical heroine called Ariana Grande. There, as a result of a universal traitor, she lost her life.

We look out from our house on our remote island deep in the south Atlantic, looking past the half-mast flags and out over the sea to the north. And we are deeply conscious of how desperate it must now be for the people of the community of the remote island of Barra, who have lost one of their precious children.

It is an inevitable fact that because we live on an island (and an exceptionally remote island at that) we all notice and comment on any ships and boats that we see. Ship movements have always been important here. In the early days of the community there was great excitement whenever a ship was sighted, because it could present an opportunity to do some bartering. Meat, crafts, vegetables and water were exchanged for fuel, hardware, medicines, clothing and other manufactured items. There was also the possibility of some mail being delivered. So at the first sight of a ship the cry would go up “Sail Ho!” and the men would stop whatever they were doing, collect their ‘sales bag’, and set off on the sometimes perilous journey out through the surf to the ship.

It is not really that different now. The house that we live in is quite high up in the village, and we have an excellent view of the sea from the house. No-one now cries “Sail Ho!”, instead we listen on the Harbour channel of the VHF to see what is going on.

One category of ship that we see is the ‘passer by’ – that is the ship that is not in these waters in order to have some direct contact with the island, but which happens to be passing this way. They are not numerous. In fact, in the four months that we have been on the island, we have seen just three such ships! They were all huge long tankers, partly hull-down on the horizon, heading east to go around the Cape of Good Hope. Strangely, of the three that we have seen, two were on the same day.

No-one would say that Tristan is a natural destination for cruise ships. The classic pattern of cruise ships is for the passengers to do visits during the day, and for the ship to move on at night to the next wondrous destination. That is not exactly possible here!   But there are some speciality, small scale cruise ships that especially visit off-the-beaten-track places, and some of them come here. The risk that they take is that they sell their cruise to include this ‘most remote island in the world’ visit, and there is then disappointment when weather prevents anyone from landing. That happened recently, when on the 24^th of March the Silver Explorer was due but the seas were enormous and for safety reasons it was out of the question for the crew to attempt to get anyone ashore. A luckier boat was the French cruise ship Le Lyrial; she had just 160 passengers on board, and they were able to do a stop-off between St Georgia and Cape Town. Of the passengers that we met, they all seemed to be French and Belgian, and they all seemed to really enjoy the charm of the Settlement that is called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.

At the other end of the scale, we have had a few intrepid yachtsmen coming here intending to make a visit. In January this year there was a sailing race from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro; although the race route of course ran substantially north from here, there were a few who decided to bend their route on their return to Cape Town, and to have a visit to this island. I believe that all these visiting yachts were from the Royal Cape Yacht Club, which Bee and I visited with a friend when we were in Cape Town. The first returning yachts were unable to arrange a landing, so they sailed on to Cape Town. These were the Ray of Light and Regardless. Then two yachts came and anchored here at the same time – these were the Rotary Scout and the Scatterling. Then a couple of days later two more yachts came along, but also sailed past and did not stop – these were Marie Galate and Black Cat. Then five weeks later we were treated to a visit from real adventurers; these were the two guys sailing the catamaran Sea Oyster. They also had completed the Cape Town to Rio race, but they had dallied on their return to cruise around some of the Brazilian islands before coming along to Tristan. The sailors, called Jimmy and Stan, had been at school together in Switzerland. They timed their departure from the island quite well – check out the photographs for a view of harbour conditions during their departure, with a similar view taken just 20 hours later. They were so prudent to leave when they did, and to get a good offing away from land before the storm broke that night. There is absolutely no shelter here, no natural harbour. If boats anchor in the lee of the island, there is always the risk of the wind changing and increasing in strength, and of the boat being at risk on a lee shore.

On the 18^th of March we were treated to a visit from what must be one of the most beautiful tall ships in the world. The Dutch-registered square rigger, sailing barque Europa, was at anchor here for two nights.   With around 18 Dutch and British professional crew and some 40 young trainees, the boat provides adventure and discipline. The crew I spoke to were fascinated by Tristan, and they mentioned particularly the friendliness of the people, the scenery, and the cute houses.

This is a lead into my next blog. I realise that these pages have given very little information on the scenery of the island and on the Settlement itself, so that might be what I will write about next.

 

Finally, just a quick note to say that our very poor internet system has just got much worse! Indeed, for the last two weeks I have been unable to get into my gmail account. So – if anyone needs to contact me, you can ring if you know the number, or leave a request in the ‘comments’ section here for me to ring you, and the friend who looks after these posts for me will relay your enquiry.