On 2 January 1954, Tristan da Cunha was visited by the Dutch ship "Ruys", a passenger-cargo liner, carrying science fiction writer Robert A Heinlein, his wife Ginny and other passengers. The "Ruys" was travelling from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Cape Town, South Africa. The visit is described in Heinlein's book ""Tramp Royale"". The captain told Heinlein the island was the most isolated inhabited spot on Earth and ships rarely visited. Heinlein mailed a letter there to L. Ron Hubbard, a friend who also liked to travel, "for the curiosity value of the postmark." Biographer William H Patterson, Jr. in his two volume ""Robert A Heinlein In Dialogue with his Century"," wrote that lack of "cultural context" made it "nearly impossible to converse" with the islanders, "a stark contrast with the way they had managed to chat with strangers" while travelling in South America. Members of the crew bought penguins during their brief visit to the island.