Bounty Bay, Pitcairn Island
Jan 28, Tourning Pitcairn Island on our Azamara Onward World Voyage 2024
We made it ashore on Pitcairn Island today! You may be thinking ‘Well yeah, it’s right there on your itinerary’, but that’s not how it works. Most cruise ships come up, a couple of islanders hop onboard with their wares and their presentations, people buy their t-shirts and postcards right here on the ship, snap photos of Bounty Bay from the rails and off they sail. The issue here is that it’s an anchorage with big swells. Tendering people safely ashore is not always possible. We watched Captain Carl head off this morning on a reconaissance loop. It was all the drama of a bullfight watching them try to get back onboard, and these are the most seasoned of officers! Water was spraying, the boats bucking, ropes snapping and pieces literally getting ripped off the sides of the tenders; but, after much deliberation, they decided to go ahead. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the majority of the passengers were pleading to go ashore, happy to risk it. More people make it to the pinnacle at Everest than ever step foot on Pitcairn Island, and we were this close. We couldn’t not try, and if the captain thought it was doable we were doing it.
It turned out to be fine. Yes, a wild ride, but no actual danger. The crew are well seasoned, and they took full control of the situation. We just all needed to let them manhandle us a little and jumped when they said jump. We got ashore and toured Bounty Bay, Adamstown, the old church, got a good peek at Christian Cave, the works. We stopped in at the little museum at the top of the hill. It was full of info and artifacts, and a guide was there to walk us through the juicy history. It’s a pretty salacious tale, and the islanders tell it well. There are only about 50 inhabitants now, and 33 of them are direct descendants of the original mutineers from the Bounty. Almost everyone we encountered had the last name Christian.
The original anchor of the Bounty!
I’ve sailed around a lot of sparsely populated islands, but the unique thing here is how cut off they are from the rest of the world. There’s a cargo ship that comes by four times a year. If you’re here, you’re here for at least three months. It took us two days to sail here from Easter island, and it’ll take another couple of days before we get anywhere with people again. No airstrip, no ferries, too far for a chopper, too rough for a float plane. You’ve got to really like the people you’re with. And they seem to be a tight community, I mean beyond the fact that they’re all related. They’d need to rely on each other for everything. They have StarLink, but it’s patchy and expensive. The General Store is packed with freezers to ride out the gaps between deliveries, and the community bulletin board tells a tale of total collaboration. It was interesting to see that the ship forwarded ahead a long list of excess goodies we have onboard; cases of beer, boxes of Dom (we’re clearly underperforming as drinkers) that they offered up to the islanders. There was a sign up sheet for people to buy all kinds of items, and there was a lot of action on it.
I’m almost through John Boyne’s ‘Mutiny On the Bounty’. I started with the original, but switched to this version on the advice of a fellow passenger and am so glad I did. Some fine storytelling. If you’re coming here, you’ve been here, you’ve dreamed of visiting or you just like a good tale, I’d highly recommend it. Here’s a link:
If you’ve read it and have thoughts, or if you have other suggestions for trip reading, let me know in the comments below.
We’re about to set sail. I’m going to throw on a swimsuit and watch the island disappear from the swimming pool. Two days of watercolor classes coming up, then we’ll arrive in Fakarava. I’ll touch base again from there.
Thanks so much for reading.