Pitcairn Recap

What an adventure! Pitcairn Island is a truly amazing place, with a unique breed of people to match. For those that haven't heard of the place, Pitcairn is a small island 360 miles southeast of Mangareva. Somewhat of a plateau, the island is ringed with steep cliffs two or three hundred feet high. The top isn't flat by any means, but certainly more so than the cliffs at the edge! Around fifty people live on the island, about forty of whom can trace their liniage back to the original settlers of the island, the mutineers of H.M.A.S Bounty. When we arrived at Pitcairn yesterday morning, we were met by a longboat with ten of the villagers from the island. The longboat is a rather impressive vessel, about thirty feet long and ten feet wide, made from aluminum and powered by a large diesel motor. Into the longboat we loaded a pallet full of boxes, a four wheeler, and six of us seadogs that wanted to stretch our legs a bit after being on the boat for three months. Bounty Bay was quite roug
h with the swells coming in from the north so we waited outside the breakwater until a suitible wave came along. Gunning the motor, we surfed the wave in and, rounding the breakwater, immediately went to full reverse and came to a stop perfectly alongside the dock. Up on the dock, most of the village turned out to welcome us, and what a welcome it was. Heather met us with walking maps of the island and took charge of showing us around Adamstown and the general dos and donts of the island. Do feel free to walk anywhere on the island just be back to the boat by 3:30. Don't poke your head into the classroom while school is in session! Luckily we visited on Saturday so this wasn't an issue. The people living on the island all seemed like they could pass for your typical New Zealander; jolly good people and tough as nails! Walking around the island, I don't think I saw one person that wasn't smiling. The elevation gain up the road was incredible, and made for some very tired legs at the to
p.. Pretty much everybody offered us a ride up but we were quite happy to finally get to walk around and so declined. After taking a look at the village square, I headed for the southeast side of the island with Chris and Kinsi in tow. Our destination was a beautiful natural saltwater pool protected from all but the biggest waves outside. All the waves swirling around outside piled up a bit of foam, then when a big wave came in it would splash all the foam up to where the wind could catch it and blow it past us like tumbleweed! From the pool, we could watch the waves hammering the other side of the rocks and shooting up into the air. Every few minutes, an especially large wave would come through and wash right over the top of the rocks, sending a three foot mini tsunami across the pool. After the pools, we headed up to the radio station, really just a couple antennas and two satellite dishes. However, it was one of the highest points on the island and offered a great view of the villa
ge and Bounty Bay. Heading back out to the boat was pretty much the same as coming in, except in reverse. Untie the lines and hold the boat next to the dock waiting for the signal. When we got the thumbs up from the dock, it was full speed ahead and around the corner before the next roller came smashing through. Going out of the bay, everyone sits in the back of the boat because "you get a fair bit of hang time up front." Going up the waves are fine, but when the bow drops over the back of a wave it can be pretty violent. Sam was the furthest one forward and though he was holding on, he wasn't prepared for the zero G's off of one wave. Boat went down, sam stayed up. Gravity kicks in and Sam rejoins boat at bottom of wave with a very loud thump. That ones gonna bruise! After that everyone made sure they were hanging on extra tight and we made it back to the Aquila with no issues. We offloaded ourselves, four observers from Pitcairn, and a boat load of gear for the camp on Henderson. Th
e observers are Jay Warren and his son Ralph, and David Brown and his sister Ariel. At two years younger than me, Ralph is the only teenager on Pitcairn. Two of them will be staying on the island, and two will be staying on board. The rats are a real nuisance on Pitcairn and they have already had one hand baiting attempt fail so this job on nearby Henderson is of great interest to them.