Tristan Travels: Departure Day

Ok its bad but it could be worse. I’ve just had emergency root canal treatment yesterday afternoon and have another appointment this morning at 8.30. Hopefully the painkillers will work eventually and I’ll get some sleep. The dentist is sure that the treatment is essential as the tooth was definitely infected. They use minature flexible round files and worryingly the tip of one of them has snapped off in the root. She is going to try to remove it tomorrow. (Sorry was that too much information?) I really hope it’s not going to play up on Tristan – 1750 miles and at least 6 days away from the nearest dentist.

Meanwhile I’ve dropped my hold luggage off at Table Bay Marine, done some last minute shopping and made arrangements for the Tristan da Cunha agent in Cape Town to pick me up and take me to the MV Baltic Trader at 1300 today, 22^nd September. Its actually a small (82m length) cargo ship that takes up to 12 passengers as well as freight and its Russian crew.

Once on board there will be no further blogs until I land on Tristan. But I’ll do some off-line blogs, conditions allowing. Meantime you might like to do a bit of reading about Tristan yourself. Just in case you haven’t discovered it the main island website is www.tristandc.com There are loads of interesting stuff on this site – you just have to dig around a bit. Take a look at the Shipping Schedule on the Shipping page for example Just 10 Cape Town - Tristan return sailings a year!

Kew provides information about the vegetation at http://dps.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/Tristan/Home/Index Take a look at the Alien Plant Reports on the Resources page. Pretty interesting stuff. And there is a good general history site at www.btinternet.com/~sa_sa/tristan_da_cunha/tristan_history.html

Also see www.tristandacunha.org and www.tristantimes.com for more general information.

Here are a selection of photos from our holiday in Cape Town: