Pitcairn island

Saturday February 7th. When we awoke Pitcairn island was in sight and the accursed Saga Rose once again lay anchored ahead of us. Pitcairn is about midway between Australia and South America, no more than a large rock projecting from the ocean, it was settled in 1790 by mutineers from the British ship Bounty. One of the most remote islands in the world, it was annexed as a British colony in 1838 and descendents of the Bounty’s first mate, Fletcher Christian, and eight other mutineers still inhabit the island. There were no planned shore visits for any of our passengers but as scheduled, around 10.00am the islanders arrived by boat to come on board and sell their wares. About 15 people came on board and set up tables in the Royal Lounge for the sale, as they came on board our Princess crew aided by a few islanders were loading supplies onto the small boat. Potatoes, onions, powdered milk, coffee, pasta noodles and toilet paper were some of the supplies I saw being boarded. We spoke to the daughter-in-law of Steven Christian a descendant of Fletcher but didn’t buy anything as I considered them expensive and unfortunately the items I was interested in were marked ‘made in China’. There were some nice carved wood items at reasonable prices, most were marked as made by one or other of the Christian descendants. Around 11.00am a presentation on the islands history was given by Tom Christian and our ship made a complete circumnavigation of the island before disembarking the islanders. The weather has turned nice again and we had a mostly sunny day with a high of 24 degrees and calm seas. Tahiti is our next stop, 1170 miles to the West.

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