Day 15/56: Saturday, February 29, 2020: At Sea, Papeete, Tahiti

Day 14/55: Friday, February 28, 2020: At Sea

Bored!!!

Day 13/54: Thursday, February 27, 2020: At Sea

Day 12/53: Wednesday, February 26, 2020: Pitcairn Island

This morning we sailed into the "Bounty Bay" of Pitcairn Island. The seas seem to be subdued and we found later that indeed, we will be allowed to go ashore using the zodiacs. After the disappointment at Easter Island, this is a welcome development. We have been at sea for eight consecutive days. This is a difficult island to visit anyway, with virtually no natural landing sites. That, plus the fact that the island was "misplaced" on navigational maps for decades, made this a perfect place for the Bounty mutineers to hide.

As mentioned before, on average, more people visit the summit of Mt. Everest each year than visit Pitcairn Island. Our Destination Consultant told us several days ago that he has visited the island about six times over the years and has only been ashore once. Today will be his second visit ashore. 

There are only 50 inhabitants on the island, many of which are direct decedents of the Bounty mutineers. The capital (and only settlement) of Pitcairn Islands is Adamstown. The other three islands that constitute the Pitcairn Islands are currently uninhabited. The four islands (Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands) are a British Overseas Territory and part of the Polynesian Triangle. It is located halfway between New Zealand and Peru. Once the Bounty mutineers landed and secured as much of the ship ashore as possible, they burned the Bounty. The remnants of the ship sank into Bounty Bay and are a scuba destination today.

I went to the gym before sunrise and was able to catch a shot of the island as we approached.

The Captain said the seas were a bit rough but they thought it was safe to "zodiac" people to and from the pier.

Sarah headed off soon after the transfers began round 9:00 am. Maria and I decided to do our workouts and have lunch before heading to shore. Fernando came on the PA and announced that lunch would be served starting at 11:00 am. We went to the pool cafe, La Terrazza and finally, the Restaurant at 11:30 am. All were not serving yet. We were told they would open at noon. We went back to the room and decided to order room service. After placing our order, Fernando came on the PA again and said the sea was getting worse and if we want to go ashore, we needed to go now. We headed for Deck 3.

We were on one of the last zodiacs to go to shore and there were only three of us on the craft. It was choppy, but we did not feel it was hazardous.  We got to shore and were taxied up the hill to Adamstown and were dropped at Christian's Cafe where we had a lunch of fried fish, chicken and salad.





After lunch, we walked down the road to visit the main cemetery and then to see John Adams' grave site.

The main cemetery. Lot's of names of the Christian family.

John Adams' grave is up the hill from the main road.

John Adams was the last of the original mutineers to pass away in 1829 on Pitcairn Island at the age of 65. The story is that John received word of his pardon just days before he passed away. His grave on Pitcairn is the only known grave site of a Bounty mutineer.

Then we headed back to Adamstown. It was very hot and extremely humid.

On the way back, we got passed by Sarah on a ATV headed back toward the pier. She had been up to the highest point on the island. It was not until the next day that we found out that she had turned both her ankles on the zodiac ride to the island.

We walked the steep road down to the pier and had some good scenic views.

This was the anchor from the Acadia which sunk near the island in 1881.

The ride back out to the ship was not too bad. We got back aboard around 2:30 pm. The seas seemed to calm down during the rest of the afternoon.

Being so remote and difficult to get to, I just had to bring back a couple of Pircairn Island rocks.

Tomorrow is a sea day on the way to Fakarava, French Polynesia. Fakarava is an atoll that was substituted for our planed visit to Mangareva, Gambier Islands. The visit to Mangareva was canceled when it was "discovered" that our ship had too much draft to permit it to enter their lagoon. Really? You might have thought they would have known that before hand.