{"id":4910,"date":"2009-06-08T01:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-08T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/?p=4910"},"modified":"2009-06-08T01:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-08T01:18:00","slug":"struth-across-the-pacific-by-tin-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2009\/06\/struth-across-the-pacific-by-tin-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Struth! Across the Pacific by Tin Can"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/SixnAyyaOtI\/AAAAAAAAGm0\/dnUnerJnAng\/s1600-h\/tinmail-739371.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/SixnAyyaOtI\/AAAAAAAAGm0\/dnUnerJnAng\/s320\/tinmail-739371.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344760121112804050\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>  <b><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">STRUTH !<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<div>\n<div bgcolor=\"#ffffff\">\n<div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">IN his  continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wonderous in the world of  travel, DAVID ELLIS says the tiny South Pacific island of Niuafo&#8217;ou in Tonga is  also known as Tin Can Island.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">Its because  Niuafo&#8217;ou has no harbour and no wharf, and in early days of European visitation  and settlement, during bad weather passenger and cargo ships would give it a  miss as there was no way of either landing or picking up freight or  passengers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">But because mail  was so important to the tiny community \u2013 there are still only around 650 people  live there today \u2013 an ingenious local storekeeper came up with the idea of  getting mail out to ships in bad weather by using old tin cans in which biscuits  had earlier been delivered to his grocery store.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">He put the mail  inside the tins, soldered them up so they were watertight\u2026 and had a powerful  local swim them on a floating pole out to ships standing in rough seas off the  island.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">Ship&#8217;s captains  refilled the tins with the mail for Niuafo&#8217;ou, and the habit quickly became  known as Tin Can Mail; a local postmaster later convinced the Tongan government  to print special Tin Can Mail stamps for the island, and these are still used  today and treasured by stamp collectors around the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><i>Our pic shows a postcard  mailed from the island in 1936 with the official Post Office cancellation  DISPATCHED BY TIN CAN MAIL.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STRUTH ! \u00a0 IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wonderous in the world of travel, DAVID ELLIS says the tiny South Pacific island of Niuafo&#8217;ou in Tonga is also known as Tin Can Island. \u00a0 Its because Niuafo&#8217;ou has no harbour and no wharf, and in early days of European visitation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[376,377],"class_list":["post-4910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-david-ellis","tag-struth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}