{"id":48,"date":"2016-12-20T14:58:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T14:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/?p=48"},"modified":"2017-01-25T13:10:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T13:10:55","slug":"cape-town-to-tristan-da-cunha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/?p=48","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town to Tristan da Cunha"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our departure from Cape Town was scheduled to be on Thursday 17th, but it was (initially) delayed a day. \u00a0Unfortunately, our hotel had no availability on the night of the 17th, and we had to move to another place. The delay was caused largely by the decision to load stone which was needed for some urgent repairs to the harbour wall on Tristan.<\/p>\n

We were to travel on the ship called the Baltic Trader; eventually we had the call to be ready for our transport to the ship on the Sunday morning (20th) at 7.30, which was later extended to 9.00 for a ship departure of 11.00 \u2013 ish. \u00a0\u00a0With us in the hotel was a geography teacher heading to the island on a 6-month contract. \u00a0When we arrived at the ship, we saw our baggage loaded, and then we were joined by the new Administrator and his wife and we were all taken off to Immigration.<\/p>\n

Here there were some anxious moments when the Immigration officer refused to accept the passenger list that he was given \u2013 he was right, the list that was offered was for a previous sailing! \u00a0Anyway, the matter was resolved quickly and with good humour, and we felt that we were a step closer to our departure to Tristan da Cunha.<\/p>\n

Once the main engine was started up, we had feelings of \u201call is well\u201d which lasted quite briefly, in fact until the engine was shut down again! \u00a0There was a flurry of activity among the ship\u2019s crew, and we learned that the cooling water intake was obstructed. \u00a0The diving company arrived promptly, and before long they had the obstruction cleared \u2013 large pieces of plastic 1 tonne bags, oddments of rope, and bizarrely a crisp packet. \u00a0This collection of plastic debris was almost inevitable, given the huge amount of plastic that was drifting around inside the harbour.<\/p>\n

A diver goes in search of our cooling water blockage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two small tugs arrived, and we were given a \u2018dead pull\u2019 straight away from the harbour wall, to distance us from the worst of the floating plastic before the main engine was re-started. \u00a0Finally, at around 4.30 in the afternoon, we left the harbour, leaving an angry tug-boat crewman contemplating his hawser which had had to be cut as a result of a jam on board our ship.<\/p>\n

\"Someone
Somebody cut my rope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Leaving Cape Town – Table Mountain on the skyline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The weather and hence the sea state when we left was challenging, particularly for the first day out, with a quartering sea causing an uncomfortable motion, but day by day it moderated and by Wednesday it could be described as perfect, with a gentle following breeze, an almost cloudless sky, and a sharp horizon.<\/p>\n

On the Tuesday we went past a group of whales \u2013 perhaps six or eight of them heading in an easterly direction. \u00a0I think that altogether there were five days when whales were sighted, but none of them were very close. \u00a0The further west we cruised, the more we were accompanied by birdlife, including yellow-nosed albatross and wandering albatross to remind us that we were \u00a0deep into the Southern Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Yellow-nosed Albatross<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although for some dizzy hours we managed 8 knots, we spent most of the time with head winds and our speed was reduced even as slow as 3.1 knots at times \u00a0– \u00a0it is an awful long way to go at that speed!<\/p>\n

Coming into Tristan da Cunha \u2013 early morning arrival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Early in the morning of the 30th we finally made it to the island. \u00a0We had read about the unloading arrangements, and expected the manoeuvre to be exciting. \u00a0It was! \u00a0In groups of six the passengers were ushered into a metal box about the size of a confessional (not that I would know!) \u00a0\u00a0A hook from the ship\u2019s derrick was attached, and we were hoisted way up into the air and over the side of the rolling ship. \u00a0We were then landed on a motorised pontoon that was waiting alongside. \u00a0The object of the exercise was for the crane operator to judge the touch-down of the confessional with the pontoon going down in the swell, to give us a soft landing. \u00a0In our case he mis-judged the landing and we arrived on the pontoon with a spine-jarring crunch.<\/p>\n

The Confessional<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The unloading and getting ashore gave us our first experience of Tristanian boat handling and stevedoring skills, which were impressive to say the least. \u00a0Details to follow in later blogs.<\/p>\n

I will outline some details of our arrival on shore later, but there is a quick foot-note here. \u00a0We were so lucky to get off the ship when we did \u2013 that morning the wind rose once again and unloading had to be called off. \u00a0It was a week before unloading was able to restart and before we saw our luggage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our departure from Cape Town was scheduled to be on Thursday 17th, but it was (initially) delayed a day. \u00a0Unfortunately, our hotel had no availability on the night of the 17th, and we had to move to another place. The delay was caused largely by the decision to load stone which was needed for some … Continue reading “Cape Town to Tristan da Cunha”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geology-natural-forces","category-history","category-social","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguins-and-potatoes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}