Jon Tonks

­When I discuss the islands that I have been visiting for the past five years, what fascinates people the most is the isolation. Once you explain how to reach Tristan da Cunha, having to fly to Cape Town and pick up a cargo vessel that takes at least seven days to reach the island, it instantly puts it into perspective. I have been planning a return to St. Helena, as out of the four islands I have been to it is place I have spent the least time, which has prompted my return. But whilst thinking about sitting on a boat again (5 days to St. Helena from Cape Town) it made me ponder the journey I took out to Tristan back in 2011.

My instructions before embarkation were to meet someone called Dorian at an office near the docks in Cape Town with $US500 and my passport. I was given a ticket, and told to come back in two days. On the morning of the journey I took a taxi from my hostel that dropped me at the harbour next to an elderly white vessel, crane-lifting boxes into her belly. As I stood staring at my rusty home for the next week, a large South African man in a chef’s apron appeared from the ship. I later discovered his was named Cookie, and he instructed a shorter man with a bold Afrikaans accent to take my bags to where I’d be residing in for the next seven days.

The RMS St. Helena is part cargo, part cruise ship and has provisions for a comfortable and enjoyable journey across the Atlantic to St. Helena, with fine dining, cricket on the top deck and a round of bingo after supper. Reaching Tristan is a little more stripped back in the comfort department, and the MV Edinburgh (part cargo/part fishing vessel) has no such privileges. The ship has no stabilizers for passenger comfort, no bar or dining room, and certainly no on-board entertainment beyond the ageing television the galley. The ship provided me with a basic but functional cabin, with everything designed for life at sea; latches, hooks, and rubber surfaces to stop cups from gliding off tables. I had a porthole and a stainless steel sink, there was a shower room down the corridor, and the top deck was stacked high with nothing but pungent, dull green lobster pots. I didn’t really know what to expect before I arrived, but the ship was certainly smaller than I thought it would be.

After four hours you couldn’t see land any more. That was it for a week. Entertainment came in the shape of a pack of cards, one bottle of whisky and a random array of movies that were available through the 12 fishermen heading out for work. There were also two Tristanian women on board, one returning home from a trip to South Africa, the other visiting her mother after being in the UK for a few years. There were also four South Africans, a mother, father and son who all worked in the same company, and another contractor travelling alone. They were all heading to the island for harbour repair work, contracted by the British Government.

Cookie’s food was amazing. Each night it was something different, whether it was beef goulash, mutton, sausage and mash, chicken and rice or fish and chips. In the day he would bake fresh muffins and bread, whilst talking of his fondness for travel and the far away places he has worked.

The stars at night were amazingly bright. Similarly the phosphorescence glowing around the hull of the ship was the evening highlight as she plowed through the water at an alarmingly slow 7 knots. In the daytime giant albatross would follow the ship, but then soar ahead to remind you how slow we were travelling, though watching the water when the weather was calm made the sea appear like glass. During the whole seven days I saw probably two other ships on the horizon. The contract workers reveled in pointing out just how much trouble we were in if the boat tipped in a storm, how we were 5km from the bottom of the ocean and just how hard it would be for a rescue team to find us. I never really found out how much of that was just to wind me up, but for some reason it never really bothered me.

On the evening of day seven we had reached Tristan da Cunha, and as the sun set behind the island its volcanic peak slowly appeared on the horizon. I’d managed to not reach boredom in the week aboard the ship, I spent time with the crew and taken pictures of them all, and the frequent meal times passed the time well, though rendered me institutionalized. By the time we reached an anchor point it was too dark to safely disembark, so we slept until the morning when we were greeted by Conrad Glass, the island’s only policeman who boarded the ship, in full British Police uniform, to check our passports before we left the ship. The choice for disembarkation was a rope ladder or a crane lifted box. I opted for the rope ladder and watched in hope as my camera gear was winched across. I had heard occasionally that cases have been dropped into the sea and never seen again, and the prospect of travelling this far to watch my equipment drown was a little too much to contemplate. Fortunately, all arrived safely into Calshot Harbour, and it felt good to be on dry land.