Pitcairn Island is not for everyone. However if you were a fan of the book or movie “Mutiny on the Bounty,” please read on. Pitcairn is one of the remotest of all of the world’s inhabited islands, lying just halfway between New Zealand and the Americas. 4,800 KMs separate Pitcairn from everything else. Just a few archipelagos lie to the north; and the southern seas are empty until you reach Antartica.
Here’s were it gets really fascinating. The Island is inhabited only by the decedents of the Bounty mutineers and a few Tahitians. The total number is only 56. The history is still apparent in the surnames of these people. With only 56 inhabitants, originating from only 4 main families, Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world.
The Island has artifacts demonstrating that is may have had inhabitants before the mutineers landed and settled there in 1790. The tale of the mutiny of the British tall ship Bounty, which then let to the founding of Pitcairn is well known. All which needs to be mentioned here is from Tahiti with a cargo of breadfruit trees for planting in the West Indies, the captain’s mate Fletcher Christian, and others mutinied. Casting adrift the Commander, Lieutenant William Bligh, and 18 other officers loyal to Bligh. They were set adrift in the Bounty’s small boat. The mutineers then set sail back to Tahiti. (Bligh made it back to England to file charges against the mutineers.)
Their relations with the Tahitians soon deteriorated and, fearing discovery and arrest for the act of mutiny, 8 of the mutineers set sail with Fletcher Christian in search of an uninhabited island from where they could hide from the rest of the world. To help in their cause the mutineers took 6 Tahitian men and 12 women. Thus, you can imagine these guys had a pretty small gene pool. Truth is many times stranger than fiction, and in this case, for sure.
Unfortunately for me, the day we planned to make landfall the seas were far to rough. The ocean swells were 10-12 feet. Even with the help of the islander’s “longboats” it would have been far too dangerous. You know if the locals are opting out it must be bad. So I had to settle for some pics which were taken while circumnavigating around the island. Just to give you a few nautical facts as to Pitcairn’s location, it is 1,350 miles southeast of Tahiti, 4,100 miles west of Panama, and 3,300 miles from Auckland, NZ. Auckland is where their administrative headquarters are situated. Pitcairn remains the only British possession in the South Pacific.
