Report and photos of the visit of the sailing ship Gulden Leeuw to Tristan da Cunha on 22nd December 2015.

Visit of sailing ship Gulden Leeuw, December 2015

Gulden Leeuw 22nd-23rd December
Report and photos from Shirley Squibb
additional photos from Iris Green

Visit of 'Gulden Leeuw'

The Dutch three-masted topsail schooner 'Gulden Leeuw' arrived at Tristan on 22nd December for a two day visit.

Unfortunately sea conditions prevented anyone coming ashore but the weather improved immensely on Wednesday 23rd when a large group came ashore.

See www.guldenleeuw.com for more about the ship

Views of Gulden Leeuw on 22nd December when a visit ashore was cancelled due to the weather.
Left: First RIB shuttle leaves Calshot Harbour
Above: First passengers come ashore
(the vessel has a crew and passengers are known as 'trainees' - mostly students)

Report from Shirley Squibb on 23rd December
Gulden Leeuw She arrived yesterday morning, unfortunately the sea conditions did not allow her to land her passengers. Thankfully today was beautiful and they were able to come ashore.

The visitors started the day with shopping at the Tourism gift shop and posting mail, some even received mail that had been posted to Iris for this ships arrival. After some food and drink at Cafe da Cunha, Dawn gave a talk about the 1961 volcano and answered questions on the island. Some of the older school children, came along and joined in answering and asking questions of their own.

After the talk and questions, a group headed of to the 1961 Volcano with two of the Tourism staff and the six school children, Chloe, Jade, Janice, Nathan, Randal and Rhyanna. They enjoyed reaching the summit, feeling the warmth from the fumarole and walking to the craters. Others explored the village on their own or just relaxed in the sunshine. After lunch at Cafe da Cunha some visitors also enjoyed a game of golf.

The children that joined in on the tour of the volcano were invited to the ship in the afternoon and the ship departed early evening.
Dawn Repetto was joined by students from St Mary's School to give a talk about their island and answer questions.
Scenes around the Post Office counter

The Post Office and Tourism Centre was busy with people buying stamps and souvenirs.

Parents sent mail to the Tristan Post Office to be delivered before Christmas when students were expected to arrive. Only 6 letters managed to arrive here on time! Photos show the grateful young people with their mail from home, collected from the world's most isolated Post Office rarely used for this purpose!

Photos of students climbing the 1961 lava flow
St Mary's School students who helped with the Tourism Centre session and acted as guides on the 1961 volcano,
left - setting out for the ship, above - on shore after their visit.
We are likely to get more photos which will be added later to this preliminary report.