To Pitcairn Island Home Page

PITCAIRN INTERLUDE

by Peter M. McHugh

Bounty Bay is definitely not that sort of anchorage.

Even so, when Pitcairn Island appeared as a grey smudge on the horizon, five and a half weeks after leaving Lyttelton Harbor in the South Island of New Zealand, it was a welcome sight and cause for much celebration on AERANDIR. By that time, Chris and I were so used to life at sea that it all seemed like a dream when we dropped anchor in Bounty Bay and a longboat motored out to greet us.

When Charles Christian and a number of other Pitcairners jumped aboard, welcoming us to their island, we found we had been alone so long that we had difficulty talking with other people.

It was too late in the day for us to leave the boat and so the Pitcairners returned ashore, leaving us to the doubtful comfort of our hard-won anchorage. We were a quietly jubilant pair as we retired below and broke out a bottle of sherry to toast our landfall. Although this was far from being our first passage, it was by far our longest and Pitcairn is a very small speck of land to find in such a vast ocean.

Our first night in Bounty Bay, anchored only a few hundred metres from the remains of the Bounty herself, was surprisingly comfortable and very beautiful. A full moon it the peaks and cliffs and the baleful eye of the beacon on The Edge illuminated the rollers crashing to destruction on the enormous boulders that fringe the bay.

Of course, it is rather an exaggeration to call the slight indentation on the north-east side of the island a bay and to call it an anchorage is a very poor joke. Still, by the next morning we were well rested, had scrubbed away the odours of long distance voyaging and were anxious to get ashore.

I had been eyeing the surf around the landing with some trepidation, so I was very pleased to hear an outboard motor followed by a voice announcing himself as Steve Christian. Steve was travelling in a large Avon dinghy with a fibreglass hull and inflatable topsides, ideal for the dangers of Bounty Bay. We had no hesitation in committing ourselves to his care and he quickly justified our confidence by transporting us through the surf to the landing completely dry.

From here on, we were subject to hospitality that you would be lucky to find anywhere else in the world. There were a dozen smiling Pitcairners waiting on the jetty to help us ashore and the sign: "Welcome to Pitcairn" on the boatshed was obviously more sincerely meant than similar signs that are seen in airport lounges around the world.

The big dinghy was quickly and efficiently hauled up the slip, as there is no safe area to moor it. There is a concrete jetty at the landing, but the waves surge right around it and up onto the slip itself. This jetty and the area of the landing is both Pitcairn's lifeline to the outside world and also a source of considerable frustration to the people.

The jetty was built in 1976 by a team of British Army Engineers. Its design was the subject of some controversy between the Pitcairners and the Army. The ideas put forward by the locals were ignored and the result is the structure is suffering from erosion already and offers little protection from the swell. This is a major problem as everyone and everything that comes to Pitcairn must pass through the landing and ships must be unloaded when they arrive; they cannot afford to wait if the weather is bad. Because of this, when a ship does arrive with supplies (there are only two or three a year), the longboats must go out, no matter what the conditions.

Once the dinghy was safely away, our welcoming committee vanished up the hill in a cloud of two-stroke smoke—the main form of transport on the island being small Japanese motorcycles. This left us to walk to Adamstown in the company of Ivan Christian, Steve's father and the island's magistrate. We were a bit wobbly to start with, but we soon regained our land legs and enjoyed the novelty of the stroll among the lush tropical vegetation. The climb from the Landing to The Edge and thence to Adamstown is steep, the unstable dirt road being carved out of the cliff face above the bay, but it is neither long nor difficult even for people as unused to walking as we were.

We arrived at Ivan's house to find breakfast waiting for us. What a treat to have someone else to do the cooking for us — and fresh food, too. There were four generations of Pitcairners dining with us, ranging from Andrew Young, a fifth-generation islander, to Randy Christian, Steve's eight-year old son.

As it was Saturday and the people are Seventh Day Adventists, the weekly church service followed breakfast. The church is a simple but beautifully maintained building in the town square, contrasting somewhat with the majority of the houses in Adamstown. These reflect the terrible shortage of basic building materials for construction and maintenance. Also, as a result of the falling population (now down to 50), there are many abandoned houses which give the town a rundown appearance, verging on a ghost town in places.

At the time of our arrival at Pitcairn, the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands had only just occurred. We had been following this on shortwave broadcasts while south of Pitcairn and when we arrived it was the major (almost the only) topic of conversation around Adamstown. Like the Falklands, Pitcairn is an English island in a very isolated area and the people felt a very keen sympathy for the Falklanders. There was a great deal of speculation as to how England would react and everyone was impressed when the fleet set out for the South Atlantic.

The rest of our first day on the island was devoted to a tour. Randy was our guide and he soon had us panting as we climbed the dirt roads among the coconut, banana and orange trees, up to the radio station at the Taro Ground and finally to the summit, 300m above the sea. Not much of a climb, you might think, but then we had done no walking at all for the last month, and I must confess that we had spent more time carousing with friends than exercising while in New Zealand.

Despite the sweat it produced, our little stroll was very worthwhile. Pitcairn is an incredibly beautiful island - the equal of any we were to later see in the Society Islands and lacking only a surrounding reef to make it perfect. Stark cliffs contrast with endless shades of green, producing an emerald in an infinite setting of turquoise. The roads and the buildings are almost invisible in the trees, leaving the island looking almost exactly as it must have appeared to the crew of the Bounty when they first saw it. It is easy to understand why Fletcher Christian thought it was a suitable home for his small band.

The next morning, when Steve arrived to collect us; we were feeling like old hands at the game when the big Avon rushed in through the surf. This time, instead of walking, we were able to ride up to The Edge by tractor. Sunday is just another weekday on Pitcairn and all the men were going to be involved, at least for part of the day, on Public Work. This is Pitcairn's substitute for taxes and their means of maintaining the island's public facilities.

After breakfast, while Chris helped with the washing (which included a few of the less disgusting items we had accumulated down at 45 degrees), I wandered off to the community's workshop. There I found myself helping Steve try to shape a tray for the manufacture of molasses out of a large sheet of stainless steel. The sheet was quite thick and a real challenge to work without the facilities of a sheetmetal workshop. The whole exercise was frustrating and, I imagine, typical of Pitcairn where the people are living a Western lifestyle but without decent contact with the outside world. By lunch time, however, we had had some success with the tray and our washing was drying on the line. A glimpse over The Edge confirmed that Aerandir was riding happily at anchor and so we felt justified in going for a walk around the town.

During our stroll we found ourselves walking past the house of Thurman Petty, the new minister who had arrived from the USA only a week earlier. We called in for a chat and found ourselves seated in their lounge amid the chaos of their unpacking. Barely had we sat down when the party-line telephone rang with a call for us. The message was very short: "Your boat has broken loose".

The few minutes spent sprinting back to Ivan's house, I would rather forget. An uninsured boat, the swell crashing on the rocks around the bay, the knowledge that already the Bounty was not alone on the bottom, an aluminium telephone pole, complete with slides and scraps of sail, seen the day before - all these things helped me fly up that road. What way was the wind blowing??

A motor-bike was waiting at the house for me, along with the reassurance that Aerandir was living up to her name (a Tolkien word meaning Sea Wanderer) and was drifting out to sea. Steve was waiting at the landing with the Avon launched and 10 minutes later I was sitting on Aerandir's foredeck attaching new anchor and chain. In the westerly wind that was blowing, Aerandir had drifted almost north east out of the bay, just clearing St Paul's Rock, and had headed off in the general direction of Easter Island without us.

Our normal anchor gear consists of a CQR with 20m of chain and 100m of rope. We had used all of this on the sand and rock bottom of Bounty Bay and unfortunately the rope had wrapped around a rock and had finally abraded through. At the first opportunity, we will be investing in an anchor winch and finding somewhere to stow 100m of chain in our 30ft boat.

After very carefully checking that all was secure, Steve and I headed back to shore where preparations were in progress for a birthday party.

Birthday parties are a great social occasion on Pitcairn and we were lucky, in our short stay, to be able to attend one. The old guy whose birthday it was had turned 78 and everybody on the island converged on his house that evening, bringing food. The result was an enormous table, piled to the point of collapse with an incredible variety of food. There was no alcohol as Pitcairn is a "dry" island.

I was able to resume my interrupted conversation with Rev Petty and also to meet Allan Cox, the school teacher from New Zealand. Allan, his wife Judy and their three children had already spent one two-year term on Pitcairn. They had returned to New Zealand for two years, then decided on another two years on the island and had only just returned. They obviously love the place and their children regard it as paradise.

Needless to say, our wayward boat was the subject of much discussion that evening. We learned of an earlier visitor who decided to sleep ashore one evening against everyone's advice and woke the next morning just in time to see his ferro-cement ketch smash herself to pieces on the rocks. The telephone pole we had seen the previous day had been his mizzen mast.

Despite all this, visitors seldom have problems with their boats. The anchorage has such an appalling reputation that those using it are especially cautious and the locals always keep a close eye on what is happening in the bay. Some boats have been able to stay for weeks without any problems.

Our sleep that night was not so sound. The weather had begun to change and, needless to say, we were a little nervous. We kept an anchor watch for much of the night. By morning, the barometer was falling and it was obvious that our stay at Pitcairn was nearly over. The wind was increasing in strength and shifting to the east, driving a nasty sea into the bay. Life was becoming very uncomfortable .

Chris went ashore with Steve to say goodbye and to leave some mail but I had to stay on board. Things deteriorated rapidly while they were away. When they returned a couple of hours later, Dennis Christian was with them and they had brought diving gear. By then, Aerandir was pitching, snatching hard on her anchor rope and heavy rain was driving in across the bay.

A few minutes later, three of us were swimming around the turbulent surface, searching for our lost anchor. The bottom, 15m down, was clearly visible and it did not take long to locate the gear. Once the anchor was located, I had expected Steve to don the scuba bottle to retrieve it and so I climbed into the dinghy. A moment later, Steve surfaced alongside and handed me the frayed end of our anchor rope.

We dragged the rope, chain and anchor into the dinghy and headed back to Aerandir where Chris was waiting anxiously. The anchor was transferred across and hurried, inadequate thank you's and goodbyes said. Hoisting the anchor was an epic all on its own with the foredeck pitching madly but eventually it was up and with the No.3 set, we were off. Within no time, Pitcairn had vanished astern in the mist and rain and we were alone again on the empty sea.

The 15-day sail to Tahiti gave us much time to reflect on our visit to the home of the Bounty mutineers. Two days was a short stay after over a month at sea but neither of us regretted the long voyage and felt that our short interlude on Pitcairn was more than ample reward for our efforts.

If we ever return, we will arrive from the East - a far easier way of getting there. Although Pitcairn is visited by anything up to a dozen yachts each year, few arrive from the direction we did. To us, however, intent on a 12-month Pacific cruise, it was a logical choice. We have already cruised in the western Pacific in our last boat, Grey Nurse and this time we wanted to see a few places off the beaten track. If nothing else, Pitcairn Island is certainly that.

We completed a 12 month Pacific cruise which started in December, 1981 from the Mersey Yacht Club (Devonport, Tasmania) and also undertook another 12 month long Pacific cruise in 1986. Sadly, we have never returned to Pitcairn and we sold our boat in 1990. We now live in Hobart.