Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha
After four days at sea, eager eyes are on deck for sunrise and... there is land! We are finally out of the "furious forties" into the thummery thirties and everything is different, air, sea color, even seabirds. Pink streamers at dawn, then golden clouds unfolding like rose petals, and at first sunblink, a green flash! There could be no finer guarantee of a special day dawning. First we pass under the sheer ramparts of Inaccessible Island, its eastern corner a giant towering fang, its cliffs shaggy with ferns and tussac grass like the hanging gardens of Babylon. Rafts of great shearwaters rise and fall on the sea: this remote island with its impregnable castle walls is the perfect kindergarten for millions of shearwaters, prions and storm-petrels. Hanging easily above our stern like swaying mobiles are giant petrels, yellow-nosed albatrosses and Antarctic terns: this is the outermost haunt for several Antarctic species, three isolated volcanic havens lost in the last eddies of cold southern currents. We are 1,500 miles from Antarctica, 1,700 from Brazil, 2000 from South Africa, in the middle of everything, at the centre of nowhere.
Soon we are alongside the soaring cliffs of Tristan itself, at the foot of which is the tiny settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, nestled on the narrow green coastal fringe. Our Zodiacs collect a team of locals who will guide us at Nightingale Island, 22 miles to the south. Two hours later we halt alongside the island, but here the swells are more serious; we must cancel our plan to leap like penguins out of the surf onto wet rocks: safer to cruise the shore in Zodiacs. So we drift over the great kelp forests, gazing down through their floating tresses into prussian blue depths. On Apex island we gaze up at coveys of coquettish Rockhopper penguins all of whom appear to have just washed their hair: backlit by the sun, their flaxen hairdos flop and flutter, tossed by the wind. On a rock ledge lounge Subantarctic fur seals, the bulls glossy velvet black with tan chests. There are tiny huts in the tussac, from the days when islanders came here to harvest albatross and shearwater chicks. Wind-combed vegetation, spray exploding into deep caves, beaches loud with black furseal pups, cliffs daubed with orange and green algae, an unforgettable vista. We motor back in a tropical trance, mellow and slightly punchdrunk after an extended massage by sun, swell and Tristan zephyrs.
After four days at sea, eager eyes are on deck for sunrise and... there is land! We are finally out of the "furious forties" into the thummery thirties and everything is different, air, sea color, even seabirds. Pink streamers at dawn, then golden clouds unfolding like rose petals, and at first sunblink, a green flash! There could be no finer guarantee of a special day dawning. First we pass under the sheer ramparts of Inaccessible Island, its eastern corner a giant towering fang, its cliffs shaggy with ferns and tussac grass like the hanging gardens of Babylon. Rafts of great shearwaters rise and fall on the sea: this remote island with its impregnable castle walls is the perfect kindergarten for millions of shearwaters, prions and storm-petrels. Hanging easily above our stern like swaying mobiles are giant petrels, yellow-nosed albatrosses and Antarctic terns: this is the outermost haunt for several Antarctic species, three isolated volcanic havens lost in the last eddies of cold southern currents. We are 1,500 miles from Antarctica, 1,700 from Brazil, 2000 from South Africa, in the middle of everything, at the centre of nowhere.
Soon we are alongside the soaring cliffs of Tristan itself, at the foot of which is the tiny settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, nestled on the narrow green coastal fringe. Our Zodiacs collect a team of locals who will guide us at Nightingale Island, 22 miles to the south. Two hours later we halt alongside the island, but here the swells are more serious; we must cancel our plan to leap like penguins out of the surf onto wet rocks: safer to cruise the shore in Zodiacs. So we drift over the great kelp forests, gazing down through their floating tresses into prussian blue depths. On Apex island we gaze up at coveys of coquettish Rockhopper penguins all of whom appear to have just washed their hair: backlit by the sun, their flaxen hairdos flop and flutter, tossed by the wind. On a rock ledge lounge Subantarctic fur seals, the bulls glossy velvet black with tan chests. There are tiny huts in the tussac, from the days when islanders came here to harvest albatross and shearwater chicks. Wind-combed vegetation, spray exploding into deep caves, beaches loud with black furseal pups, cliffs daubed with orange and green algae, an unforgettable vista. We motor back in a tropical trance, mellow and slightly punchdrunk after an extended massage by sun, swell and Tristan zephyrs.
