February 19: Pitcairn Island

This was a very enjoyable “port”.

Pitcairn Island is a very small island in the South Pacific about 500 miles from any other populated land. It was where Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers of the Bounty (“Mutiny on the Bounty”) landed and hid from possible prosecution for many years. The remains of the Bounty are at the bottom of the island harbor. Almost all of the current residents trace their ancestry to one or more of the mutineers. The population is about 50 people.

The island has no facilities to host the 1,300 passengers on our ship for a shore excursion. Accordingly, rather our than going ashore, they came to the ship – 30 of them in a longboat. Each family has at least one income producing trade, usually something that they make – necklaces or other jewelry, jars of their local honey, paintings, clothing, etc. They came aboard at 8:00 am and set up individual booths around the swimming pool and sold their wares to a crowd that was usually three or four deep at every booth. I bought a Pitcairn Island shirt for far more than I could buy a similar shirt on Amazon. But all proceeds went to help the island economy. And the island economy relies on that income from us and other cruise ships that occasionally come to the island. There was no pier and the water offshore was several thousand feet deep, so our ship meandered in the vicinity of the island while the residents were onboard.

Pitcairn is a British territory and it receives some infrastructure support from England. As part of that, a supply ship comes to the island once every three months with fuel, food and other supplies. We, as well as other occasional cruise ships, give them food and other supplies in exchange for their coming aboard for our passengers’ benefit.

They have a medical building and a physician that comes to the island on a one-year contract. For serious illnesses, they rely on occasional passing ships to take ailing residents to Tahiti and, if necessary, from there to New Zealand by plane. Thus, a seriously ill resident might have to wait for a week or more to get needed advanced care. They have a small school that currently has two students. Once students finish the equivalent of 6^th grade, they are sent to New Zealand where they are boarded during the school year to finish their education.

At the risk of jinxing us, I’ll comment that our weather has been incredibly good. No rain in any of our ports. A little rocking and rolling at sea one night early in the cruise, but mostly seas almost as flat as the water in one of Sun City’s lagoons!

Now on to Papeete (poppy-et’ty), Tahiti on the 22^nd….