Several more sea days between Easter Island and Pitcairn. Life
on board ship for us is almost getting routine. As a matter of fact when we
showed up in the dining room for breakfast fifteen minutes later than usual, a
waiter grinned at us, looked at his watch and said, “You’re late.” After more
than three weeks aboard ship, the crew and world cruise passengers are truly
getting to know each other well.
The build-up in anticipation of our visit to Pitcairn Island
included a day of Pirates at Sea. The entertainment staff put together quite a
day and evening of pirate themed fun. The atrium was decorated with a ship and
a midday program included the cruise choir (passengers) dressed in pirate gear
and singing an appropriate Yo-Ho song.
Of course our days at sea also included talks of the Bounty,
the mutiny, Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian and naturally the movie. We’d
seen the movie before while sailing in the area on a Princess ship—out on deck
getting sprayed with salty sea water on a rough night. We passed this time even
though it was indoors. The amazing thing is that no matter how many times you
hear the story, it never seems to be the same. We were hoping that once we got
to Pitcairn the residents would set us straight.
The Bounty was originally sent to the South Pacific to
Tahiti to gather breadfruit to bring back to the Caribbean where it could be
used to feed the slaves cheaply. (Later we found out that when it finally made
it on another voyage, the slaves refused to eat it.) Since they had to wait for
the breadfruit to be ready to harvest, the crew stayed for quite a while on the
island and ended up falling in love with it and some of its female inhabitants.
Fletcher Christian had apparently married one of the island girls.
Needless to say, they were disgruntled when they had to
leave and it seems that while Captain Bligh was a great sailor, navigator and
chart maker, he wasn’t so good at human resources and management. Thus a mutiny
occurred and Captain Bligh and as many men as could fit in a long boat were put
out to sea with meager provisions. He and the men in the boat survived a 3600
mile trip to another set of islands where they caught a ride home.
Meanwhile, Fletcher Christian and seven other men who had
mutinied gathered twelve Tahitian women and six Tahitian men and set out to
find a place to settle where they wouldn’t be found by the British. Pitcairn
happened to be incorrectly marked on navigational maps and when they happened
upon it in January of 1790, they thought it would be the perfect place. They
took everything they could from the ship that they could reuse and then set the
rest on fire so that the ship anchored off shore would not be evidence of their
hiding place.
There was some fighting, some disease, and other stories, I’m
sure, of how the original mutineers died but eventually the only one left was
John Adams. He had been taught to read by one of the other mutineers, Young, I
think. The only reading material was the Bible and a prayer book. By 1800,
Adams was the only mutineer left and he became the founding father of the town.
He is said to have led with kindness, fairness, and good sense.
The island was converted from the Church of England which
had been the religion of the mutineers, specifically Young and Adams who
instilled faith and the following of the church’s traditions to the Seventh Day
Adventists after a box of their literature was sent to the island followed by a
missionary who convinced the then islanders of his faith.
There is a lot more of interesting history to be had at the
official site of Pitcairn Island. Yes, they do have a tourist bureau. Here is
the Pitcairn URL: visitpitcairn.pn
Tomorrow I’ll tell you more of our visit.
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