Friday, January 24th—Our 21st Cruise Day—Pitcairn Island

Friday, January 24^th—Our 21^st Cruise Day—Pitcairn Island

We left Easter Island at about 5:00 PM on Tuesday, and after two full sea days, we reached Pitcairn Island at 8:00 AM on Friday.

As we woke, we could just see the island through the morning haze from our balcony. This is one of the great joys of our cruise—waking up to see our destination becoming closer and closer as we approach.

Pitcairn Island was originally inhabited by Polynesians, but by the time it was first sighted by Europeans in 1767, it was uninhabited. The island is famous as the final destination of the HMS Bounty mutineers in January 1790. On that famous landing there were 9 mutineers, 6 Polynesian men, 12 Polynesian women, and 1 infant Polynesian girl. (16 of the mutineers chose to remain in Tahiti and 14 of those were captured by the British Navy in 1791. They were in the process of being returned to Britain for trial when the ship they were on—The Pandora—struck Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and sank; we know that 4 of the mutineers drowned, but we do not know fate of the other 10.)

By December 1800, all of the Polynesian men on Pitcairn Island were dead, as were 8 of the 9 mutineers. Only mutineer Alexander Smith (aka John Adams) was alive in 1800, and he lived on the island until he died in March 1829. But 9 of the Polynesian women (plus the young girl) were alive in 1800, so John Adams—as the only surviving male—must have had his hands full! But John Adams took responsibility for the education of the children (the only books they had were the Bounty Bible and another Christian book) and is revered by islanders today. In fact, the only settlement on the island is today named “Adamstown” in his honor.

Pitcairn Island was “re-discovered” by an American whaling ship in 1808—whose report of the island and its inhabitants was ignored—and by two British ships in 1814. At this time, mutineer John Adams was still alive, but the captains of the two ships decided it would be an act of cruelty to arrest John Adams and return him to Britain for his mutiny of 25 years earlier, and he was allowed to remain on the island.

Over the years, the island was visited by whalers, missionaries, and other individuals—some of whom chose to remain on the island. And, as was gently described in a talk we heard about the island, “even if individuals did not remain, they left behind their some of their genes.” So inbreeding was never a problem on Pitcairn Island.

Today the island is inhabited by between 45 and 50 people—most of whom are descendants of the original mutineers. (None of the original 6 Polynesian men left descendants.) But there is a problem on the island. Of all the people on the island, only a handful are in their childbearing years—most are well over 50 years old. Over the years many young people have left the island for their education, and not returned and today there is a strong push for immigration to the island—especially individuals in their childbearing years. So if any of you have the itch to live on a remote South Sea island, Pitcairn would welcome you with open arms!

One of the advantages of Pitcairn Island—from the mutineers’ point of view—was that it was, and still is, very difficult to land there—which means it would have been difficult to capture the mutineers had they been discovered. The only landing is in Bounty Bay, and the mutineers burned and sank the Bounty shortly after their landing on the island in 1790 in an attempt not to be discovered. Even after a successful landing there are steep cliffs to climb—the first of which is called the “Hill of Difficulty.” So getting 900 passengers off the ms Amsterdam and onto the island in a short amount of time was nearly impossible. Also, with a population of 45-50 individuals, there is not the infrastructure to support 900 visitors!

But never fear—if we could not go ashore on Pitcairn Island, the islanders were happy to come to us with an informational speaker and goods to sell. So after approaching from the south, our ship moved around to the northeast off Bounty Bay and anchored—waiting for the Pitcairn Islanders to arrive!

And come they did! Virtually every inhabitant of the island packed their goods into a long boat, launched the boat at Bounty Bay, and came over to our ship. The long boat attached itself to our ship, and the passengers and goods came aboard; the islanders set up individual “stalls” on the Lido deck and sold their wares.

The items for sale consisted mainly of carved wood plates and other wooden objects made on the island—as well as hats, shirts, books and other goods made off the island. The honey produced on the island—also for sale on our ship—is said to be among the world’s finest, and was chosen by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom as her personal favorite. Needless to say, sales were brisk, and for the 3 hours the islanders were aboard, the stalls were very crowded with Amsterdam passengers shopping and buying. The islanders even had a huge man dressed up as a pirate who was available for photo opportunities.

But the real highlight of the visit by the Pitcairn Islanders was a talk given by Jacqui Christian, a descendant of Fletcher Christian. Jacqui was born on the island, and like most young people left the island in her early teens to get her education in New Zealand. There she continued on and completed an undergraduate degree in Pharmacy. But unlike many others, she returned to Pitcairn Island in her twenty’s, and lives there today. Jacqui is a very intelligent and well-spoken young woman, and her talk gave us insight into both the history of Pitcairn Island, and life today on the island.  

In many ways, life on the island has many of the modern conveniences of the rest of the world. Islanders have internet service and electricity, and can make overseas telephone calls. But they cannot receive television broadcasts directly (they do have a very large DVD collection!), and their only consistent contact with the outside world is a supply ship that comes once every three months. Contact with cruise ships like ours is “hit or miss,” with contact being weather dependent--sometimes the long boat cannot get out to and tie up with a cruise ship—and coming on the average once every couple of months. One couple we met who were helping with sales were visiting friends on the island, having arrived on the December supply ship with plans to leave on the supply ship coming in March.

By about 11:00 AM, the islanders were packing up their unsold goods and making their way back into the long boat for their return to the island. For passengers, it was a brief but enlightening encounter with people from one of the remotest places on earth.

Shortly afterwards, the Amsterdam departed Pitcairn Island and headed west. There would be this day plus two more full sea days before our next port of call on Monday, January 27^th—Tahiti!