Tristan da Cunha
After four full days at sea there was excitement and expectation, as the most remote inhabited island on the planet loomed into view before breakfast. A classic volcanic cone, ash black in velvety green drapes with swirling gray cloud at its peak, the appearance of Tristan confirms all the mystery and romance of islands. And the wind set fair for a landing at the tiny harbor, today busy with tenders to and from the island supply ship Edinburgh. It's not often that Zodiacs from the Endeavour have to deal with harbor congestion; for it to have occurred at Tristan da Cunha was nothing less than bizarre! We had been well briefed ahead of our visit. I suppose what everyone wanted to know was why a community that had been evacuated from Atlantic obscurity and relative poverty to the contemporary comforts of the United Kingdom, following the eruption of the volcano in 1961, opted to return to their island home within the space of two years. What was the island's secret?
We were pointed towards the answer as soon as we set foot on the quayside. All the able-bodied men on the island were busy with the unloading of goods from the Edinburgh in a cooperative spirit that obtains in all aspects of the island's life. At the time of the evacuation, there was no money in circulation on the island: it was share and share alike. We pottered around the settlement in the morning, pausing to listen to the sounds of the island: not our mechanical sounds but natural ones, cows grazing, dogs barking, distant voices, a cock's crow. The smell of grass, of baking and wood fires, of manure spread on the fields. No doors are locked, the one island policeman free to help out at the dockside. In the afternoon we walked the tranquil lane to and from the potato patches, a totem of the island's cooperative lifestyle. What will happen here now that satellite TV has arrived and money (from a successful lobster fishery) is in circulation? Can the idyll survive the intrusion of the twenty-first century? Many of us left the island humbled, and yearning that it might be so. An island of peace in a troubled world, indeed.
After four full days at sea there was excitement and expectation, as the most remote inhabited island on the planet loomed into view before breakfast. A classic volcanic cone, ash black in velvety green drapes with swirling gray cloud at its peak, the appearance of Tristan confirms all the mystery and romance of islands. And the wind set fair for a landing at the tiny harbor, today busy with tenders to and from the island supply ship Edinburgh. It's not often that Zodiacs from the Endeavour have to deal with harbor congestion; for it to have occurred at Tristan da Cunha was nothing less than bizarre! We had been well briefed ahead of our visit. I suppose what everyone wanted to know was why a community that had been evacuated from Atlantic obscurity and relative poverty to the contemporary comforts of the United Kingdom, following the eruption of the volcano in 1961, opted to return to their island home within the space of two years. What was the island's secret?
We were pointed towards the answer as soon as we set foot on the quayside. All the able-bodied men on the island were busy with the unloading of goods from the Edinburgh in a cooperative spirit that obtains in all aspects of the island's life. At the time of the evacuation, there was no money in circulation on the island: it was share and share alike. We pottered around the settlement in the morning, pausing to listen to the sounds of the island: not our mechanical sounds but natural ones, cows grazing, dogs barking, distant voices, a cock's crow. The smell of grass, of baking and wood fires, of manure spread on the fields. No doors are locked, the one island policeman free to help out at the dockside. In the afternoon we walked the tranquil lane to and from the potato patches, a totem of the island's cooperative lifestyle. What will happen here now that satellite TV has arrived and money (from a successful lobster fishery) is in circulation? Can the idyll survive the intrusion of the twenty-first century? Many of us left the island humbled, and yearning that it might be so. An island of peace in a troubled world, indeed.
