January 18, 2000
Mutiny on the Bounty Almost Revisited
Actually, I could see the sea was rough the moment I looked out the porthole on the morning of January 18, 2000. I'd read the book, "Mutiny on the Bounty."
Heard the Lectures.
Seen the Movies.
Studied the map of the island.
And as almost every high school student in the country, knew the famous story.
I'd learned that in January 1789, Fletcher Christian and twenty-four men led a mutiny against Captain William Bligh, on his ship the HMS Bounty. After putting Bligh and 18 of his crew on a small boat into the Pacific Ocean, Christian and his mutineers sailed the Bounty off into history.
The story of what happened to the Bounty's Captain Bligh and his crew is an amazing tale of incredible seamanship and courage. Along with Captain James Cook, Bligh can surely be called one of the greatest navigators in naval history. In a small 20-foot boat, he managed to travel from island to island across the Pacific, until, miraculously, 42 days later, on June 14, 1789 they sailed into the Dutch port of Timor in the East Indies over3,400 miles away.
They had overcome mighty storms that almost capsized them, native attacks in which 18 of his men were killed, lack of fresh water and food that caused them to eat only raw birds--if they were lucky enough to trap one or two. Eventually, Bligh and 11 of his men successfully returned to England-and continued the hunt for Fletcher Christian and the mutineers.
Ironically, Christian never made it back to England, but several of his men ultimately were captured, stood trial, were convicted of treason and died.
But that's getting ahead of the story. Christian and his men, meanwhile, took the Bounty to Tahiti, but fled just ahead of a British warship sent to hunt them down. After months of ordeals at sea in their search for a safe resting place, encounters with fierce cannibalistic natives, desperate flight from hostile island after island, Fletcher and his mutineers arrived at their destination, Pitcairn Island, a remote uninhabited island that sits alone between Peru and New Zealand, 1,243 miles south of Tahiti.
This was they planned to begin a new life. Sinking the Bounty to void discovery, in 1790 eight of the original mutineers, six Tahitian men, twelve Tahitian women and one child who had sailed from Tahiti with them made their permanent home on Pitcairn Island. Tragically, almost immediately the men began to fight among themselves over alcohol and the women, and eventually a series of murders and suicides left only two mutineers alive, along with the Tahitian women and child.
Today, most of the inhabitants of this smallest British protectorate are descendants of those original settlers.
This was the story told in the famous book and even more famous movies, "Mutiny on the Bounty," early on starring Marlon Brando and later, Clark Gable, and this was the tiny island the Ocean Explorer hoped to explore on January 18, 2000.
A high volcanic island, Pitcairn is only 4.5 square miles in size, and has no natural harbor or coral reef, and breakers roll right up to its rocky shore. We had been told many times that it might not be possible to land passengers on the island, but if the seas were tranquil, an attempt would be made to land by tender or zodiac. Even if successful, the landing would be simply a beginning to a very tough ascent: in order to reach the tiny settlement on top of the island, the only recourse is to climb 450 feet up a steep slope called the "path of difficulty."
From the slides we had seen in Theresa's lecture, climbing that hill should more likely be called torture road.
But we were all ready to give it our best try! We truly wished to actually step foot on the island where its 60 inhabitants, most of whom are direct descendants of Fletcher Christian, live and nearly half the people bear the surname Christian.
The moment of truth came at 10 a.m. January 18. First, I have to admit that I had already made a bet at dinner the night before that we would not land. I won a dollar! That will teach me that I can't make a living as a gambler, even if I win.
Previously, another ship that had just attempted to land at Pitcairn had had three zodiacs capsize. The Ocean Explorer debacle at Easter Island just a day before also may have influenced our captain's decision, but the high choppy seas and overcast sky that morning undoubtedly were also major factors in his decision to abort any landings. We were told the seas were too rough for a tender or zodiac to land.
However, if we could not come to them, the Christian family contingent was determined that our trip should not be in vain! They would come to us.
They loaded their own longboat with home made baskets, carvings, tee shirts, honey, post cards, stamps and booklets and sailed out in their longboat to board our ship. With their leader, Tom Christian, a direct great, great, great grandson of Fletcher Christian himself at the helm, all but six of the islanders came aboard our ship.
Tom gave an elegant presentation about his family history and the history of how, why, when and who got to the island over 200 years ago and who remained. He told of the plight of the contemporary families, how difficult it was to stock the island with food, difficult to pay for electricity, difficult to keep a doctor and nurse, difficult to educate the children, and in general very difficult for the islanders to survive there much longer without change taking place. Selling goods to tourists was part of their survival package.
Their plan is eventually to built a short airstrip where the cricket field now stands, and hopefully create a more efficient way of living, especially for the young who now go to New Zealand for an education and seldom come back to live.
Christian, who spoke with an unusual accent that combined British with Polynesian dialect, was a tall handsome man, over six feet tall. His curly brown hair and piercing blue eyes showed distinct similarities to the original Christian we had seen in old drawings of the mutineers. The many other islanders who came aboard our ship also had recognizable characteristics and similarities to the appearances of their ancestors we had seen in slide shows of Pitcairn over the past several days. The friendly female police chief-the only police on the island-- sold wooden carvings; the jolly woman postmaster sold postcards and stamps cheerfully until they ran out. Others set up tables and encouraged our passengers to help them collect dollars that purchased distinctive handmade baskets, tiny sailing ship models of the Bounty, and tee shirts identifying Pitcairn Island. And several of the children were delighted to play among the passengers.
The island dwellers made no bones about it; in order to survive, they needed funds from such trade. The circumstances were like the British coming to Tahiti two hundred years ago and bringing another culture, but one that they welcomed. They were delighted at the sales that day.
At the end of the day, they loaded their longboat with the few remaining unsold goods, along with a bonanza of free gifts from the ship--many pillows, a number of mattresses, burlap sacks of potatoes and onions-and a goodly stash of ice cream from the ship's stores. The latter was a rare and welcome commodity on an island that has major staples and provisions delivered only three times a year!
And so we sailed away from Pitcairn Island at sunset. We were more than a little disappointed at not making a shore landing but a good deal wiser about the simple quiet way of life of the many friendly relatives of Fletcher Christian -and more knowledgeable of how difficult and complex it is to keep alive a culture that has survived over 200 years.
Now it's on to Tahiti.
