Cruise Ship Ocean Adventurer Visits Tristan for the First Time
Report and photos from Shirley Squibb
The MV Ocean Adventurer arrived at Tristan da Cunha just after 6:30am on the morning of Saturday 24th March 2018. It was a perfect day, sunny and calm with tranquil sea, and also a fishing day. At 8:30am, Immigration boarded, and by 9:15am the ship's zodiacs started ferrying passengers ashore.
The first ashore were a group for The Base hike to Burnt Wood, closely follow by a walking tour to the 1961 Volcano along with a visit to the Thatched House Museum. At the Post and Tourism Centre the bus waited for visitors taking the tour to the Potato Patches, and shortly afterwards a further group set out on the walking tour of Edinburgh village.
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| Passengers shopping for souvenirs. | Relaxing in the Café and Museum. |
By midday guests were returning from their tours hot and thirsty for some refreshments from Café da Cunha. There they relaxed enjoying a light lunch of Tristan lobster, sweet treats, hot and cold beverages along with the famous island brewed Albatross Ale while catching up with the rest of the world on Café da Cunha's newly installed wifi. Souvenirs and philatelic materials were purchased and posted and the rest of the afternoon was leisurely spent exploring the settlement. Visitors also had the pleasure of visiting the other venues opened, the Island Store, Albatross Bar, Rockhopper gift shop and crafts sold locally at individual stalls.
Two Geocachers, 'WANDRR', also visited and were eager to check out the cache sites. It was very exciting as a few ships ago another cacher had sent in a travel bug all the way to the remotest island. It was too big to go in the cache so a note was placed there instead and on production of the note the Geocachers were given the travel bug from the Tourist Centre. So all you cachers out there the travel bug is on the move so keep a look out and keep it going. See our page about the British Garrison Geotrail for more about geocaching on Tristan.
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| Visiting Geocachers beside the famous Welcome sign. | The Tristan Travel Bug |
At 5:30pm passengers started embarking in readiness for the following day at Nightingale and Inaccessible island. After spending the evening anchored offshore the Ocean Adventurer headed of for a cruise around the Outer Islands, departing shortly after en-route to St Helena.