Tristan da Cunha

July Storm Impact - Updates from the Island:

The storm which buffeted the Tristan da Cunha Settlement on the night of Thursday 18th July caused widespread damage, and is regarded as the most damaging natural disaster to effect the island since the October 1961 volcanic eruption.

''Life on Tristan is slowly getting back to some order as work continues as normal for those who had no storm damage, while others are coping in their temporary workplaces.

Thankfully now the phones are all in working order and contact can be made with family and friends away. Internet is up and running in the workplace, but the community only has access via the Internet Café. Sadly, the television is not yet on, so people miss the news and other programmes.

Children are back at school. They seem to have settled in well in their new premises and are all now catching up on lessons they missed out on during the storm.

Administration Building workers, including the Administrator's Private Secretary Cynthia Green and Island Council Clerk Geraldine Repetto have set up office in the Rectory, but internet access was only set up on Friday 9th August.''

The Tristan da Cunha Association has therefore launched an Emergency Fund to support the restoration:

The money raised will be used for relief purposes in response to requests from the island or chosen in close consultation with our island colleagues.

At the time of writing (31st July 2019), the detailed needs of the island are still being assessed. Initially, we anticipate buying books, equipment and supplies to help get the school and crèche back up and running, and helping with the restoration of the museum and archives, which are vital repositories of Tristan's heritage. These aims may change and we expect to add other projects once the needs are better identified.

Donate online via JustGiving.com

The JustGiving.com page we have set up is probably the easiest way to donate to the Emergency Fund. The web address is:

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/tristanemergencyfund

Please feel free to share this link on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
Please note that the JustGiving part of this campaign is specifically targeted at help the school and other educational facilities on the island back to normal, under the auspices of the Education Trust Fund. Donations made using any of the options below may also be used for non-educational relief efforts.

Source: https://www.tristandc.com/storm-2019-07.php

: A journey to Tristan da Cunha is always by ship. The 2810 km or 1750 mile journey from Cape Town harbour will normally take six days. Long awaited: the world's most isolated community regards the arrival of every ship as a special occasion.
Would you dare to take this journey?

Meet the Tristanians. Did you ever wonder what life is like in Tristan's only settlement Edinburgh of the Seven Seas?

Life on Tristan da Cunha – the World's Most Remote Inhabited Island Watch the three-part Britain's Treasure Islands documentary series on BBC FOUR, starting Tue 12 Apr 2016 21:00. (repeated Wed 13 Apr 2016 20:00). This mini-d...

Tired of the frenetic modern society? The Ultimate Escape! Tristan da Cunha is advertising for an adviser with farming experience to help develop livestock and agriculture! Join now!

There is a job going on the world's most REMOTE island The government of Tristan da Cunha, a UK Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, is advertising for an adviser with farming experience in the UK to help develop livestock and agriculture.

Tristan da Cunha population 2015 update: Total: 268 people (123 male and 144 female) Source: http://www.tristandc.com/familynews.php

Tristan da Cunha Family News

Tristan da Cunha DNA ...Secret Genealogy...Who is this "hidden ancestor?... -> The island population of Tristan da Cunha is unique with regard to its well-documented genealogy that dates back to the first permanent settlement in the early 19th century. The current population of 278 individuals is thought to have descended from 15 ancestors, seven females and eight males who arrived on the island at various times between 1816 and 1908. The male founders were all of western European ancestry, originating from Scotland, England, Holland, the USA and Italy. Today, there are seven family names in use (Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Repetto, Rogers and Swain), corresponding to the number of founding fathers with present-day male descendents. In addition to these known donors, there is also evidence for 'hidden ancestors' who supposedly contributed to the gene pool, but took their names with them upon leaving the island. http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v11/n9/full/5201022a.html

European Journal of Human Genetics - Genealogy and genes: tracing the founding fathers of... The European Journal of Human Genetics is the official Journal of the European Society of Human Genetics, publishing high-quality, original research papers, short reports, News and Commentary articles and reviews in the rapidly expanding field of human genetics and genomics.

Moving out from the frenetic world? Would you like to live in a house like this? Hell yes...

Economy in Tristan da Cunha:

About 260 people utilize small, relatively level portions of the island for farming and livestock. The islanders also fish and work at a lobster packing plant run by a South African firm.
When the first fishing factory was established on the island in 1950, many of the islanders had a hard time adjusting to the introduction of money into their subsistence economy. It brought increased prosperity, but the islanders at the time preferred to rely on their traditional reciprocal exchange systems for their own social and economic interactions, and they adopted the practice of selling only a small amount of goods among themselves. They expressed resentment at the influence of money on their traditional values and the threat it posed to their relationships, integrity, and security.

They have now adjusted to the money economy, though they still venture over to Nightingale Island periodically in their boats to harvest guano from around the penguin nests which they use to fertilize their gardens. Inaccessible Island, the other fairly large island close to Tristan, is strictly maintained as a wildlife preserve.

In July 2011, the Marine Stewardship Council certified the rock lobster fishing operation as sustainable and well-managed, and in October 2014 the European Union opened its markets to Tristan lobsters.

What a shock! -> The 264 inhabitants of the island of Tristan da Cunha were evacuated to Cape Town on October 10th, 1961 - Brief summary:

From August 1961 there were signs that the Tristan volcano was restless. There were earth tremors and in the following months a large fissure opened in the ground behind the island’s lighthouse and a mound formed that gave off a powerful smell of sulphur and grew steadily larger. The island’s 264 people moved to the uninhabited Nightingale Island for an uncomfortable night before a Dutch liner, the Tjisadane, that happened to arrive the next day, took them away to Cape Town. HMS Leonard arrived from the Cape on October 13th to find that red-hot lava and smoke were pouring out of the mound, which was 250ft (80m) high. The crew collected as many of the islanders’ belongings as they could before sailing back to South Africa, but all the farm animals and domestic pets had to be left behind.

The islanders were soon taken on to England in a mail ship, the Stirling Castle. After a brief spell in wooden huts in Surrey, they were housed at a former RAF camp at Calshot, near Southampton, where they suffered unhappily through an unusually cold English winter. A Royal Society expedition in 1962 found that, although the Tristan crawfish cannery was no more and the islanders’ dogs had taken a heavy toll on the sheep, conditions seemed not impossible. An advance party returned to Tristan in April 1963 and in November some 200 people, including four Tristan girls who had meantime married Englishmen, returned to their island.

Tristan Brief History -> In 1506 a Portuguese sea-captain called Tristao da Cunha came across a group of six little islands far out in the Atlantic between South Africa and South America. The largest of them, which he named after himself, has a volcano in the middle. The British annexed the islands in 1816 and a population slowly formed from members of a temporary British garrison, shipwrecked sailors and other Europeans, as well as women from other islands. By 1886 there were 97 inhabitants, clustered at the settlement of Edinburgh on Tristan da Cunha.

Welcome in another world:

Are you really interested in traveling to Tristan da Cunha? It's not easy!
Hereby useful info --> Travel to Tristan da Cunha requires careful planning, often more than a year before a planned visit.

There is no airstrip on the island; all visitors must arrive by boat. There are no entry restrictions based on nationality and, while the island requires an application (which must be approved), there are no "visas" for entry to Tristan da Cunha.

Prior to booking passage all visitors to Tristan da Cunha must receive permission from the Tristan Government.

Write an email to [email protected] and specify the proposed dates of your visit, preferred passage (name of vessel), type of accommodation sought, nationality, age, and the full purpose of your visit.
A Police Certificate (official record of your criminal history, or lack thereof) may be requested. If you are a journalist or intend to publish any work as a result of your stay, you must declare so in your application. Film makers must apply for a permit (limited permits are available), have their intentions approved by the Island Council, and are subject to a £5,000 fee.
All visitors must agree to and abide by an extensive list of terms & conditions to visit the island. -->
(http://www.tristandc.com/po/TdCVisitsV9.pdf)

Visitors are the lowest priority for passage on vessels and may be forced to forfeit their passage to persons with a higher priority (medical evacuation, officials on official business, even locals leaving on holiday have higher priority). When planning a visit, consider a departure when several other vessels will be departing soon thereafter to avoid being stuck on the island if forced to forfeit your departing passage.

It takes five to ten days (depending on the weather and ship) to travel the 2810 kilometres from Cape Town. The South African polar research ship SA Agulhas and the fishing vessels Edinburgh and Baltic Trader do the voyage between Cape Town and Tristan da Cunha several times every year. A return ticket on Agulhas is about US$1,300, a return ticket on one of the fishing vessels is US$800. Schedules and further information is available on the official Tristan da Cunha website --> http://www.tristandc.com/visitsships.php

Amazing!!! Did you know that once Tristan da Cunha was called ----> Islands of Refreshment was the name given to Tristan da Cunha by its self-proclaimed ruler, Jonathan Lambert, in 1811.

Jonathan Lambert
At this time American whalers frequented the neighboring waters and, on December 27, 1810, the Boston ship the Baltic put ashore an American named Jonathan Lambert "late of Salem, mariner and citizen thereof" along with one Thomas Currie or Tomasso Corri in his employ, and a man named Williams. These three were the first permanent inhabitants of Tristan, and they were soon joined by one Andrew Millet.

Lambert declared himself sovereign and sole possessor of the island group "grounding my right and claim on the rational and sure ground of absolute occupancy".[1] He renamed the main island "Island of Refreshment", Inaccessible Island "Pintard Island" and Nightingale Island "Lovel Island". Lambert's sovereignty was short-lived, as he, Williams and Millet were drowned while out fishing on May 17, 1812. Currie was joined, however, by two other men and they busied themselves in growing vegetables, wheat and oats, and in breeding pigs.[2]

War having broken out in 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom, the islands were largely used as a base by American cruisers sent to prey on British merchant ships. This and other considerations urged by Lord Charles Henry Somerset, then-governor of Cape Colony in South Africa, led the British government to authorize the islands being taken possession of as dependencies of the Cape. The formal proclamation of annexation was made on August 14, 1816. This is reported to have primarily been a measure to ensure that the French would not be able to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free the deposed Napoleon I of France from his prison on Saint Helena.