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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Easter Island to Pitcairn island

Today, Thursday Feb 5th, was our first sea day after Easter Island and we didn’t do much of anything, sat by the pool talking to friends ’til it rained and we went up to the Royal Lounge for a game of trivia. The sea days are very relaxing and we find most of the time is spent talking with friends, attending a lecture or demonstration, eating, eating and eating . I actually did some exercise this morning, walking around the upper deck for 10 minutes, they have a full gym set up on board with all the usual machines but it’s generally busy at the popular times. Dinner was good as usual, though one of our tablemates, Jim, was not present due to illness. After dinner we went to the evening show, starring an English comedian, Rikki Jay, he was quite funny. Later we went up on deck for a presentation under the stars by an onboard astronomer, Dr Norman Caisse, unfortunately the stars didn’t co-operate and the sky was too cloudy for the presentation, it was delayed ‘til a clearer night. Clocks went back an hour last night and again tonight, first time changes since we left home.


Half way through the first segment, 17 days gone already and it was raining heavily this morning, Friday Feb 6th, the forecast is for the same all day. We’ve been having breakfast delivered to our cabin most mornings, it means we can relax and not have to get dressed before breakfast.


It was delivered by our usual guy, Michael (picture left), from Philippines, always happy and upbeat, maybe because his contract is complete when we reach Sydney and he gets to go home and see his girlfriend, they’re working on buying a house before getting married. Izzy wasn’t feeling too good so stayed in bed all morning, trying to get over her head cold. Princess had told us that all shore excursions for the entire 107 days would be charged to our credit card at the end of the first segment, Feb 25th, an announcement that wasn’t universally popular, so I, among many others made our way to the shore excursions desk to request that the excursions be charged at the end of each segment. The sky cleared around noon and it got hot and sunny, we planned to spend some time by the pool but got stuck in the casino as we both had good wins. Must have been our lucky day, we won trivia in the morning and again in the afternoon, each win gives you a coupon which can be used to acquire items like baggage tags or baseball hats. Tonight was formal night, lobster was on the menu along with a load of other stuff, lobster was on for lunch too and the buffet was the scene of mob mentality as the starving passengers pushed and shoved their way in to grab as much as possible, you’d think they hadn’t eaten for weeks. We watched Kaitlin Carr again in a new show tonight and when we got back to the cabin our dinner waiter had sent us a tray of delicious marzipan and truffle treats in case we got hungry during the night.

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