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.

Pitcairn!

Well it's official; we're 90 miles from Pitcairn Island and will be there in the morning! Onboard the Aquila, we pride ourselves on improvising and always making things work. Earlier today Andrew came up to the wheelhouse to show us some of the new camera equipment he got since Phoenix. However there was one small problwm, the new audio recorder he purchased for the camera didn't come with the adapter to attach it to the camera. After he brought all the gear up and showed us what he was missing, I ran down to my room and came back with a piece of aluminum bar and made a custom mount to attach the camera and mic to his tripod. Growing up on a boat with the closest home depot four thousand miles away sure does teach one to be resourcful!! One of the biggest problems we run into on a boat is all the garbage created by supporting 20 people for a month. The solution? As long as we are more than 25 miles offshore, everything except plastic will degrade and can be dumped into the ocean to t
urn into fish food. Ninety-nine percent of what goes over is food scraps but occasionally we have something else that has to go. Tonight was one of those nights! Mom and Dad got a new mattress and for the last 60 some days we have had an extra mattress onboard we had no room for. Chopper dave has grown quite addicted to dumping the food scraps overboard, so his eyes lit up like a christmas tree when I asked if he wanted to give the mattress the shove. Before he said yes, he asked one small question that provided endless entertainment for the rest of the night. "Can wee light it on fire before we dump it?" Well, uh, sure I guess! After getting the okay from Dad, the gas jugs were rounded up and I soaked the middle of the mattress with gas. We set it right on the rail in case it got too hot too quick, but the fire was only in the middle of the mattress so we had no issues tossing it over. Who knew a mattress would burn for so long while floating in the ocean!?! For almost an hour we wat
ched the flaming mattress surfing our wake until it finally gave up and sank to the bottom, 12,000 feet down. It is DEEP out here! A couple hours after dinner my sister was reading a book in the galley and as I walked upstairs I turned to her and said "Don't stay up to late. We will be at Pitcairn in the morning." As I rolled into my bunk, it hit me just how crazy that sounded. There aren't very many people on the planet, let alone 17 year olds, that've been able to say they will be at Pitcairn Island in the morning! Out here it is very easy to get bored and say it's just another day in the office. But little moments like that, I am reminded how truly special this life really is!

The Aquila visited the Gambier Islands yesterday, picking up our helicopter pilots and two of our scientists/project managers. Though we made it through with no issues, the channel into Mangareva is quite scary for a big boat like us. The channel is actually just a maze through the coral heads, and in places we had less than ten feet on each side and six feet of water under the bottom! The locals were awesome, although not many people spoke english, everyone was very helpful and courteous. It seemed like almost every kid on the island came down to the dock for a tour of the boat and a picture next to the helicopters. Most of the kids were learning english in school and each one remembered a couple of different phrases so when i said something there was normally at least one person in the group that understood it and translated for the rest of the group. Good thing we all know how to talk with our hands! We left mangareva at 1530 yesterday afternoon headed for pitcairn, a 36 hour trip
Our plan is to arrive early tomorrow morning, then probably head out in the afternoon again. At pitcairn we will pick up four more passengers, two observers that will stay on board and two that will be camping on henderson island.

Land Ho!

After ten days of nothing but blue ocean all around, we will finally see land today! Mangaeva is 120 miles off the bow, about twelve hours with a little bit of help from the current. The last week has been very busy gearing up for Henderson, but lots of fun too! Two days ago we celebrated Mom's birthday with the calmest day since leaving Seattle! A great birthday present from the ocean appreciated by all! We gave Chef Damien the day off for mom's birthday, and Kinsi spent almost the whole day in the galley making all of moms favorite dishes. For breakfast, Mom and Kinsi worked together on cinnamon cherry crepes just like old times. For lunch we had thai spring rolls with homemade peanut sauce, and dinner was black cod over rice and boc choy. Rounding out the night, Dad and Kinsi made two gluten-free angel food cakes covered in frozen strawberries! We tend to eat pretty well around here, and that day was certainly no exception! Yesterday we passed Fangataufa and Mururoa islands, where
the French conducted their nuclear weapons tests. Shortly thereafter, we caught the first mahi mahi of the trip. There's a chance we had a radioactive dinner last night but hey it was sure good! Mahi mahi with a side of potassium iodide anybody?! We have been working on several small changes to the boat to improve comfort, safety, and working efficiency. Our biggest project was an extension to the forward helideck, giving a pilot room to set the bait bucket down, then land next to it. Since we can load one machine off the aft pad while the other is fueling on the forward pad, we will never have to stop baiting to refuel! In the future, it is possible we could use both cranes to load, giving us the ability to run three helicopters at once! We also were able to finish up the railings around the sun deck. When those railings were originally put up, we only had enough material for a top rail but USCG regulations require a top, middle, and bottom rail. The most entertaining project came l
ast night when I attempted to fix the ships air horn. Because of its unfortunate mounting position on top of the wheelhouse, it regularly gets soaked with seawater, clogging up the inside of the horn. Somehow water also ended up inside the air line running up to the horn, because when I unscrewed the line and blew it out, it made a wonderful fountain of black, rusty water. My sincerest apologies to those who were relaxing behind the wheelhouse and got sprayed! After taking the horn apart and cleaning the whole thing, I put it back together and it didn't work. I tore it down and cleaned it again thinking I must have put something back in the wrong spot, but when I put it back together it still didn't work! After that I tore it down again and wirewheeled everything inside until it shined like gold and finally it let out a defiant roar! Now that I had it going, I took almost an hour to wirewheel the outside until the whole thing shined. Now if only the rest of the boat looked as new as i
t does! As part of our never ending fight against flab, Chris welded a stainless steel pullup bar behind the wheelhouse. The gang has been having lots of fun working out and there's plenty of friendly competition. Today will mostly be about cleaning and making the boat appear presentable when we arrive in Mangareva. Because we are getting in so late tonight, we will probably just anchor outside the channel and go through in the morning. Mangareva will be the fourth country we've entered on this trip, and Pitcairn, as a UK overseas territory, will make it five! One more month and I'm headed home!

Pictures!

Route 66!

There's other boats out here!! Until Yesterday, we didn't see any other boats, birds, or much of anything else for that matter. Yesterday we saw four sailboats and today a cruise ship passed behind us headed for bora bora! Why so many boats? This area is right in the middle of the Gambier islands of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands of NZ, both big attractioins for sail boats and apparently one cruise ship! The last month or so I've only been playing the acoustic guitar so tonight I finally dug out the electric but when i pulled it out a couple of the frets had rust spots on them! This environment is so corrosive! Looks like our speed is back down to 8.8 or so, right now the computer is saying we should get in sometime early the morning of the 11th. Mom took some funny pictures yesterday but those will have to wait until tomorrow because I am very tired! Haha more to come tomorrow!