| Ship's Diary |
| During her time at sea, HMS Endurance will be sending back regular diaries to keep us all up to date with what is happening on this deployment. Use the links below to read extracts from the diary. |
| Tristan da Cunha |
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This is a small (38 miles sq) volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, midway between South America and South Africa. It has a population of approximately 300 people. There is just one settlement, Edinburgh that sits at the foot of the peak on the plateau known as the Base. It was first discovered by the Portuguese explorer Tristao da Cunha who although did not land, did name the island after himself. It was first settled in 1816 by the British Government who after interning Napoleon 1300 miles away on St Helena were anxious to prevent the French from using it as a staging post to attempt a rescue from. The ludicrosity of this was realised several years later when the garrison withdrew. A soldier and his family applied and were given permission to remain. His descendants still live on Tristan today. Early in the 20th Century it was offered to the Cape Colony who declined to assume administrative powers over the island. In 1938 it became a dependency of St Helena, and in 1949 on establishment of a local fishing industry the British Government appointed a resident administrator.
Communication is possible by inmarsat phone, with limited email facilities (there is one terminal on the island), and Tristan receives BFBS television (British forces broadcasting services), channel 1 as well as the BFBS radio station. Otherwise this small volcanic island is isolated and far removed from the outside world. The community has a school, and a stand alone doctor, who has an amazing facility at his disposal to care for his 300 patients, including an XR machine, an operating theatre including anaesthetic machine (he has to both operate and administer anaesthesia at once), ultra sound, a small pathology lab, a dental department, and a small ward to include an isolation room. He also has a small obstetric suite to include a neonatal incubator, as there are approximate 3 babies born a year on Tristan. If he needs to evacuate a patient he must sometime wait for 2 months until the next ship. HMS ENDURANCE arrived on the morning of the 22 March to be greeted by an island shrouded in mist. The lower 200 feet of the island were visible on arrival, which shortly decreased to 100ft. The tasks that HMS ENDURANCE had agreed to assist the administration with, namely assessing any illegal fishing activity were performed and the hydrographers were set ashore to perform some of their magnetic tasking. The CO was given a short tour of the settlement Edinburgh, before returning to the ship to host 25 local personnel for lunch in the wardroom. The afternoon saw the ships cricket team ashore to play the Tristinians, at cricket, or at least that was what we thought. They didn’t seem to be expecting us so we managed to spend a couple of hours playing ourselves and managed to get enough of a match for the selectors to assess the talent on board wrt to selection of the A team for the next match – St Helena. Others managed a short time ashore to stretch their legs and visit the local gift shop. As ever matelots managed to come away with T-shirts, and passport stamps. Happy with their day's activity, all were back on board for the evening by 1830 as the weather worsened.
The weather continued for the day and the next, but by Wednesday the sun had once more made it out and the traditional Wednesday sports afternoon was given over to the game of ‘Brighter cricket’.
The rest of the week has passed in a frenzy of activity, there is a lot to prepare, both short term, for our next visit, and longer term for our summer refit. We are expecting a number of visitors shortly in part to discuss the refit, and in part to talk to the Ships Company about a variety of other topics. Consequentially we are trying to get everything organised and ready whilst at the same time giving the ships company the wind down that they well deserve after a busy 3 work periods. It was with this in mind that the ship had a random Sunday routine on Saturday. Much appreciated by all except the S&S who, snowed under with refit plans were unable to be prised away from their desks for long enough to muster a team for the interdepartmental flightdeck row. This event involved teams of 5 rowing 5000m in 1000m bursts as fast as possible. Won by the flight, with the executive a close second this provided a brilliant excuse for the rest of the Ships Company to bask in the sun in the name of supporting their department. Finally it is hot. We had all been hoping thereat this would have happened 10 days ago, but now that it has we are making the most of it. The same afternoon an all comers clay pigeon shoot took place from the quarterdeck. Let’s just say that the pigeons are in no danger from us! All in all a good afternoon was had by all and there was some much needed recharging of batteries. |
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