Travel with Indigo

This is a passage of some 1,100 uneventful miles, with gentle seas, whisps of wind and increasingly tropical skies. I and the crew pass these days in a relaxed stupor of naps, books, movies, fine meals and wines (not the crew, though. The captain wisely forbids the crew from drinking while underway.) They are among the most soporific days I’ve ever spent thanks to the warm, moist tropical air and the soft undulations of Indigo’s motion.

Late in the afternoon of the fifth day at sea, we site Pitcairn Island. It’s sole “harbor”, called Bounty Bay, is like Easter Island’s nothing more than a bight fully exposed to the seas now running northwesterly. Anchorage in the bay is untenable, so we approach just behind a headland and in the lee. The mayor, Jay Warren, is expecting us after brief VHF conversations announcing our approach.

Though the wind is northwesterly there is a typical Pacific swell rolling in from the south making our anchorage rolly. Late in the evening when the winds have abated we relocate to Bounty Bay and there anchor not more than 300 yards from the sunken remains of Her Majesty’s Armed Vessel (HMAV) Bounty. This is the vessel whose mutinous crew were the founders of the island’s current population.

Just to refresh your history, the Bounty, captained by the now famous Captain Bligh, was dispatched from England for the purpose of voyaging to Tahiti, where she was to take on a load of carb rich breadfruit and deliver it to Caribbean plantations. This fruit would there be fed to plantation slaves then dying from lack of sufficient nutrition.

When it came time for the Bounty to set sail from Tahiti with its load of fruit, twenty-five crew led by Fletcher Christian mutinied. They captured the Bounty and set Bligh and eighteen crew adrift in an open longboat with meager stores and gear. Sixteen mutineers decided to stay on Tahiti. Nine, including Christian, and six Polynesian men, twelve Polynesian women and a baby girl sailed away in hopes of avoiding eventual capture by hiding in a remote island. Coming upon Pitcairn Island after an extended search, they discovered that it was wrongly placed on British Admiralty charts 188 miles west of its true location thus lessening the chance of discovery.

This tiny crew of scoundrels decided, wisely as it turned out, that Pitcairn Island would be their home. After off loading all their possessions, they set fire to the Bounty, whose charred hull sank within 150 feet of the present island landing.

The quick minded reader will have already hit upon the fact that was to be the undoing of this inchoate island community: fifteen men and twelve women. No good could ever come from such a mix, and none did. (In Christian’s defense, three of the Polynesian men were stowaways.) Trouble ensued with numerous murders, including those of Christian and four other mutineers at the hands of the native islanders. Literally adding fuel to the fire, one of the mutineers learned to brew a potent liquor from local
plants. More trouble followed.

Meanwhile, Bligh, in one of history’s greatest feats of open water navigation, managed to get the eighteen expelled crew safely back to civilization.

The British Navy, never keen on the idea of mutiny, sent out a ship, the HMS Pandora, in search of the bad guys. Those who had foolishly stayed behind on Tahiti were quickly apprehended and returned to England for trial. On the return voyage, with the bad guys held in a cell called Pandora’s Box, the ship struck the Great Barrier Reef and foundered with the loss among others of four mutineers. Those remaining were returned to London and put on trial. Most were hung or imprisoned. Those who had fled to Pitcairn, and had avoided getting murdered, lived out their days there..

Pitcairn is a small volcanic island of just 1,120 acres, nearly all of it steeply inclined from the sea. Its surrounding cliffs are dramatic, reaching 500 to 800 feet on average with a high point of 1,100 feet. The interior is amazingly lush with wild tropical flowers, trees and fruits in profusion arrayed among lush valleys, soaring peaks and gentle hillsides. It may be the most idyllic spot I’ve ever seen and certainly worth a visit, but for the difficulty of getting there. Other than on private yachts, the only way to get there is aboard the freighters out of New Zealand that deliver supplies every three or four months. That is the only lifeline to the outside world. A few years ago a fine new phone system and internet connections were installed, and these have been a godsend for communications. The island and most families have their own web sites. Check them out.

The crew and I go ashore in the island’s 15-foot skiff, which delivers us through the surf to a stout concrete quay. There we are greeted by a goodly number of the island’s population. Brenda Christian, a direct descendant of Fletcher, and her husband Mike kindly take us on a whirlwind tour aboard their ATV’s, the principal means of transport. An intricate system of finely graded dirt roads laces through the island’s hills and valleys, making access to almost any point possible. We first visit the town hall, post office and museum, then travel around the island to the edge of various impressive cliffs, most about 500 to 800 feet high overlooking a ragged coast and booming surf. Brenda then takes us up to the highest point, at 1,100 feet, where the locals have a picnic area arranged on the very spot once occupied by a former U.S. Air Force missle tracking station. We stop by the home of Brenda and Mike, the new home of their 22-year old son Andrew, and the home of another Christian descendant from whom we buy logoed polo shirts, caps, and the inevitable tee shirt. Then it’s back to the landing and off we go loaded down with memorabilia. Next stop is the Gambier Islands, a part of French Polynesian, some 300 miles due west.