'MOSS' battles the surf, Bounty Bay
First, let's relate PI's unusual history.
Pitcairn Island is most famous as the refuge of the Bounty mutineers. In 1789, Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Captain William Bligh on the HMS Bounty in the South Pacific. After setting Bligh adrift, Christian and eight fellow mutineers — along with a group of Tahitian men and women — searched for a hideaway beyond British naval reach. They found it in Pitcairn, a remote, mischarted speck of volcanic rock, and settled there in 1790. To prevent escape and discovery, they burned the Bounty in what is now called Bounty Bay. The settlers’ early years were brutal — marked by murder, alcohol, and conflict — until only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive among the men. Adams transformed the tiny community into a devout, orderly society, raising the remaining women and children on Christian values. When an American whaling ship accidentally rediscovered the island in 1808, the outside world was charmed by what it found. The community converted to Seventh-day Adventism in the 1880s, a faith still central to island life today. Pitcairn remains one of the most isolated — and least populated — places on Earth, with fewer than 50 residents, all descendants of those original mutineers and their Tahitian companions.
When our cruise ship arrived in 2003, there was no way for us to go ashore. Ship to shore was only possible on the native longboats. So instead almost the entire tiny population, came out to visit us, and sell their handmade goods, i acquired a hand carved wooden longboat...and bought a one year subscription to the Pitcairn Island Quarterly, that he said would be mailed to me every quarter. At home much later, i never got a single copy. 🙄 But then again, at the time we did not know some of the men were child rapists, never mind thieves.
In 2004, seven men living on Pitcairn Island faced 55 charges relating to sexual offences against children and young adults. The accused represented one-third of the island's male population and included Steve Christian, the mayor.
Before we steamed away late that afternoon, we watched the British Governor for the territory get lowered into a longboat (in hindsight, likely to investigate the rape charges). Our last sight of him was him bobbing up and down in the heavy waves, as they struggled to shore.
The next day, many miles further along our world journey, the ship heard email news that in fact the longboats were not able to dock at all that night, because of the high heaving waves. So that poor Governor started his visit by bobbing up and down for 12 hours in the pitch dark, in a longboat full of rapists! Poor devil. I can just picture him far earlier in London accepting his new post, thinking, "well this should be an interesting assignment for a few years"!
In hindsight, this was the most bizarre of our hundreds of port stops over the 11 years of world cruising.
