Pitcairn Island and Mutiny on the Bounty

Hi Guys,

Pitcairn Island – Pacific Ocean 14 February 2011

(Longitude: 25 04’West Longitude: 130 05’East)

(Time -8 GMT or Pacific Time)

Pitcairn Island, most of us know the story of Fletcher Christian and mutiny on the Bounty where he put Captain Bligh on an open boat and “escaped” to an uncharted Island.

Well, here we are at that uncharted place and the coordinates are shown above. We feel kinda privileged to be here. It was not on the original list of places to be visited. We cannot go ashore as the island will not hold the 2,000 passengers from the Aurora so the Pitcairn Islanders will come aboard with all their wares.

We anchor and with great anticipation the passengers and crew line the rail. A small launch appears from a jetty at the foot of the cliff under Adamstown and pulls up alongside the Aurora. We are convinced that most if not all the islanders are on this boat. It is loaded to the gunwales with things for us to buy. The goods are marked with “Pitcairn”, “Mutineers”, “Bounty” but on closer inspection we also find the label “Made in China” and “Made in Haiti”. Not a problem as the tables on the fantail are loaded high with tee shirts, golf shirts, carved bowls and fish, black pearls the size of marbles, honey, scale models of the Bounty and postcards with beautiful stamps. How the cards will be “posted” is beyond me but wait a month or two (etc, etc) but I am sure they will turn up. Susan turns round to check her money for some black pearl earrings and when she turns back with the $100, they were gone.

30 or 40 Islanders came aboard at 3:00 pm, exceeding the agreed number of 23, but the captain made up extra tables at the other end of the ship for the additional sales. At 6:00 pm the Pitcairn Islanders departed with fewer items but with a few more US dollars. From my reckoning and the level of interest, they probably walked off the ship with something like $50,000, god bless them. This is the first time that a P & O ship has stopped at Pitcairn and there was a ceremonial sword and several formalities presented by the mayor of the Isle of Man to the Mayor of Pitcairn and lots of kisses.

The captain was delighted with a scale model of the Bounty in full sail. From my life in Cape Town, I reasoned that money is useful but locals need somewhere to spend it, so I packed a bag with some of the shampoos, hand creams, cookies, chocolates on the pillow that we do not use on board ship. As the small launch pulled away from the ship, I saw off cuts of the ships carpet piled high on the launch from carpets replaced in some of the cabins.

From the comments on this Valentine’s Day, it exceeded all expectations for a wonderful day. We dine using a cheeky Valentine menu and each table was decorated with a red helium balloon.

Tahiti here we come but not until we have cruised for another 4 days.

Pitcairn Island - 2miles by 1 mile

Susan and Roy at Pitcairn

Pitcairn Islanders - Perhaps most of them?

Buying Pitcairn artifacts

Pitcairn was sighted for the first time on July 2 1767 by midshipman Pitcairn; however Captain Phillip Carteret of the British sailing ship Swallow incorrectly recorded the position of the island.

In 1790 when Fletcher Christian (22 years of age) mutinied, he put Captain Bligh (33) and 18 others in an open boat, however Captain Bligh decided to sail to Timor then to England to prosecute the mutineers.

Fletcher Christian in January 1790 sailed back to Tahiti where 16 of the mutineers decided to stay in Tahiti. Of these 16, two were killed by the Tahitians, 4 drown on the way back to trial in UK and 3 were hanged for mutiny.

Fletcher Christian, 7 others, their 11 Tahitian wives, a baby and 6 Tahitian men who were taken on as additional crew arrived at Pitcairn Island. After several years a drunken fight broke out and the Tahitians killed 4 of the men from the Bounty, including Fletcher Christian and then the remaining 4 killed the 6 Tahitians. Another mutineer became so despondent that he tied a rock to himself and jumped into the water. A further mutineer, Quintal, when his wife died, demanded a wife from the remaining islanders or he would kill them, they dispatched Quintal with an ax.

Apparently, sufficient of them survived from the four families (Christian, Warren, Young and Brown) that there are now 50 inhabitants (2010)