First Footfall on Pitcairn Island

Shortly after sunrise the rest of the passengers and crew came up on deck and we started to pack and bring our bags up from our bunks. Captain Matt radioed the island and within half an hour we got our first glimpse of Pitcairn culture: the longboat, filled with about a quarter of the island's population coming out to fetch us. We could see them from quite far away so it was suspenseful seeing the boat arrive, wondering how they'd accept me as the journalist and pondering what these infamous people of piracy, isolation and sex scandals would be like. My guess was they'd be pretty nice.

The boat arrived and pulled up alongside the Braveheart. Brenda Christian, a bronzed vivacious woman with broad bare feet was the first to hop on board the Braveheart and start to throw our bags and supplies into the longboat. Her 20-something son Andrew, with long hair and multiple hoop earrings, sat at the bow of the longboat and was in charge of hitching the two boats together through the light waves then untying when it was time to go.
Two older men, with obvious Pitcairn-browned skin and broad faces manned the motor and a few kids and random adults gazed happily at all of us new visitors while some helped pack up our luggage. I'd heard stories about how in high seas you have to literally leap off the side of your ship over big waves into the arms of some pirate-looking local in the longboat. Today however, the sea was calm so, even though it was still a little leap onto the boat and the locals did look like pirates, it wasn't very scary.

A bearded man with glasses who didn't really look like the rest of the locals came over to sit next to me in the boat and introduced himself as Simon; he told me I was going to stay at his and his wife's house. The boat chugged around the rocky outcrop where we had seen the sunrise and we got our first glimpse of Adamstown - or at least the several houses perched on the cliff near the miniscule settlement. Soon we reached Bounty Bay, a small marina (with a big boat shed) precariously jutting out from below the cliffs. As we jetted in I read the large sign stating "Welcome to Pitcairn Island" - unbelievable, I was here, the last remnants of the Bounty were scattered along the bottom somewhere in the vicinity. The air was cool, I felt like I was in a dream.

About another third of the population was there at the dock waiting for us on their quad bikes, the main means of transport on the island. Simon helped me get my bag on his quad and, before I had much of a chance to take in the rest of the scene or say hi to anyone, we were motoring up the Hill of Difficulty, which is as steep as the name entails. Then we went through Adamstown, which is made up of a few houses, a complex with a post office and town hall, a tiny store and a prison. The school I'd later find out was on the outskirts of town.

Simon and his wife, who are British and American respectively, run the small community store and are the only non-Pitcairners living on Pitcairn. Their house is on a lovely bluff with 180-degree views out to sea. My room turned out to be a whole house with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and a shower but the toilet was the most rudimentary pit toilet I have ever seen - cowboy-style wooden door and all. Not that I minded.


There was a lot to do at the store with all the new supplies coming in so Simon asked if I didn't mind if he left me for awhile. He'd come get me in an hour or so to show me around the island and introduce me to people. No problem, I said, I still felt the boat's motion, was tired and had a lot to take in.

Please click on 'Pitcairn Island' at the right of this page under 'labels' to read my two previous posts about my trip to Pitcairn: Trying to Get There and Voyage to Pitcairn. I'll keep continuing the story over the next few months.

Voyage to Pitcairn: The Good Ship Braveheart & Our Arrival

On Tuesday September 23rd, 2008, the Pitcairn-bound Braveheart picked me up in Mangareva, French Polynesia. Captain Matt Jolly was a pirate/surfer-looking guy in his mid to late twenties with a constant smile and an assuring presence. Also on board were an optometrist (who was visiting for three days like me), Jacqui Christian (a pretty, confident Pitcairner in her mid-thirties), the rosy-cheeked Pitcairn school teacher coming back from vacation, an older woman from the Warren family (who was instantly wary of me - the journalist - and hardly said hello) and her teenage niece who was coming to visit family; all were arriving from New Zealand. Three more young and hip Kiwi surfer-types made up the rest of the Braveheart crew.

The boat was much more comfortable than I'd expected. It's a sturdy 39-meter steel ship, freshly swabbed and with several cozy air-con bunks below. We got a tour, chatted with each other then, just as we began motoring away from port, went to the dining area for an early dinner.

"Oh no not spaghetti again!" laughed the school teacher. "They serve this every time because they know it comes out your nose when you get sick." Everybody giggled knowingly.

Now I get really, really seasick but I was determined to flex my strongest sea leg muscles on this trip. I'd taken some good seasickness tablets and decided that no spaghetti was coming out of my nose, no way. Still, the motion of the ocean was already getting to me and just the thought of barfing noodles made me queasy so I didn't eat much.

The sun was setting and the lagoon was calm so I went up to the control room hoping to chat with the lively crew. Matt got out a picture album and showed me some of the other journeys the Braveheart has made: Antarctica, the southern Tuamotus, Kerguelen Island and more. The crew is into surfing, climbing, fishing and a slew of other adventurous activities and it looked like they were having a ball manning the ship even through mighty 16-meter swells in the Southern Ocean. Suddenly my life as a Lonely Planet writer seemed very boring. Just as suddenly, we left the lagoon and the sea got much rougher. Within about two minutes I knew that I'd better get to my bunk or I'd be spraying spaghetti all over my new super-cool friends.

And that was it. For 36 hours I lay comatose in the dark listening to my i-pod and feeling like hell. I threw up once in the conveniently placed bucket next to my bed (no spaghetti out of my nose I'm proud to say), ate a few dry crackers with jam brought in by the crew and just meditated. When finally I felt the boat stop and heard some commotion I got up.

Up on deck the sun was just rising from behind Pitcairn, the air was crisp but warm, the sea dark but calm. The feeling of this moment is hard to describe. All I could think of was how the Bounty mutineers must have felt when they first saw Pitcairn and I wondered if they too first glimpsed the island at sunrise. Only the optometrist and I were on deck and we just smiled knowingly in silence. There we were, watching the sun come up at one of the most remote destinations on earth.

Voyage to Pitcairn Island: Trying to Get There

It all started with a Lonely Planet conference in Melbourne, Australia. As part of the schedule, our large group of about 30 authors plus some editors and staff were invited over to the Wheeler's house for dinner and soon I found myself chatting with Tony about some of the very obscure Pacific islands (such as Wallis & Futuna and the Austral Islands) that only he and I had ever researched. When I mentioned to him that I had fantasies of updating Pitcairn Island for the upcoming South Pacific book, his eyes lit up. Soon several of us were around a coffee table gazing at one of Tony's prized possessions, a replica of the Bounty carved by Fletcher Christian's great, great, great, (great?) grandson that he had bought when he stopped on Pitcairn years ago on a north-bound icebreaker ship.

And that was all I needed to get me going. Once I was back home on Tahiti I managed to talk the editor for the South Pacific guide into agreeing that it was high time someone went Pitcairn and that obvious someone was me. It worked, I got offered the job, but I had no idea how hard it was going to be to get there.

I looked for cargo ships and cruise ships; nothing. I looked online for sailboats looking for crew with even less luck. I did find one small vessel that was planning a rustic cruise to the islands but the dates were way outside my deadline. My break finally came when I contacted the Pitcairn home office in New Zealand and the secretary recommended I contact the Braveheart. The ship had been chartered by the British government to bring the school teacher back from holiday, two children visiting from school in New Zealand and an optician to check the islanders eyes. The cost was $5000 return for the 36 hour crossing from the already remote French Polynesian island of Mangareva. It took some needling to get the funds, but I did it and secured my ticket for passage and a three-day visit to Pitcairn Island.

Before I could confirm though I had get permission from the islanders to visit. I had to write a letter stating why I wanted to visit which would be reviewed at a town meeting on Pitcairn and then a vote would be made deciding if they'd take me or not. After some Internet research I discovered that Pitcairners hate journalists. Thanks to Cathy Marks and Dea Birkett, two writers who (within a few years of each other) spent a few months on the island and wrote scathing books about the twisted social set up on the island. Journalists were categorically refused. Luckily I knew that the islanders would probably remember Tony from his visit. My ex-father in law had also spent a few months living with a family on Pitcairn so I asked him to write me a letter of recommendation. It worked, I got accepted and was thus to become the first journalist to set foot on the island since the 2004 sex trials.

Note: all Pitcairn photos by Celeste Brash