Legendary Pitcairn Island

Legendary Pitcairn Island Quarterly Tourism Home to the Descendants of the HMAV Bounty Mutineers Newsletter VOLUME II ISSUE I MAY — J U L Y 2 0 1 3 INSIDE Cruise Ship Caledonian Sky CALEDONIAN SKY T HIS CRUISE PASSENGER ISSUE: CHRISTINE STAINES HEARTS AND HOMES VISITS PITCAIRN, ON PITCAIRN ISLAND MAKES A FRIEND AND PITCAIRN ISLAND’S WINS… LONGBOATS On April 30th, with assistance from local Police Of- ficer, Sargent Allan Trow, Pitcairn author Nadine CRUISE SHIPS & THE Christian announced the winner of her recent on-line PITCAIRN PHILATELIC book competition. BUREAU The winner, Ms Christine Staines, will receive a signed copy of the recently published romance novel EXTRACT FROM „Remembering Love‟ and a black pearl necklace and A PASSION FOR THE SEA earrings set, made on Pitcairn by Nadine herself. BY JIMMY CORNELL “I had a fantastic day when I visited Pitcairn on the Caledonian Sky on Christmas day last year. And was lucky enough to meet Nadine and her children in per- “PITCAIRN son at the Pitcairn Museum, where she works as the ISLAND…? I’VE BEEN curator. As soon as I had the chance I purchased an THERE!’’ E. Copy of the book and then, when it came out in BY CLIFFORD DEAR hardcopy, I had to buy the „real deal‟ and enter the competition. I‟m rapt that I won! It makes my visit to the island even more special .” Winner Christine Staines (top right) ON-LINE MONTHLY with the author and her children Always interested in promoting Pitcairn, the on-line NEWS outside the Pitcairn Museum. competition was entirely the authors own concept. THE MISCELLANY “I wanted to promote the book, which of course is set on Pitcairn, but I also wanted to give my readers FRENCH NAVAL around the world the opportunity to experience a little FRIGATE bit more of the South Pacific and black pearls epito- PRAIRIAL CALLS AT mize the romance of the islands. The response was PITCAIRN fantastic. There‟re a lot of people out there genuinely DON”T MISS interested in Pitcairn and it was lovely to be in a posi- tion to acknowledge that interest.” OUT ! The prize package will be posted to Ms Staines on Sargent Allan Trow draws Pitcairn‟s next quarterly mail ship in June. Meanwhile, BOOK YOUR Christiane Staines‟ winning entry. Nadine‟s readers eagerly wait the release of her next 2014 book. VOYAGE NEW INTERPRETATION BOARDS FOR VISITORS TO PITCAIRN ISLAND Regardless of where new adventures take you in the world there‟s little doubt that one of the best ways to take in your surroundings is to walk about. With this in mind the Pitcairn Islands Tourism Department has erected a series of new interpretation boards which highlight the island‟s many natural, historic and built attractions. Historic sites and events like; Thursday October Christian II‟s house site, Raising the Bounty Anchor, the stories of the Taro Ground Radio Station and the Pitcairn Longboats and important archaeological sites Down Rope and at Tautama are included in the series. And, the Pit- Tourism Department Staff , Carol Warren, cairn Island Council has recently been provided with another list of (left) and Heather Menzies stand proudly proposed locations for its consideration. beside Pitcairn‟s Early Civilisation sign at Evan‟s Look-out . Pitcairn‟s visitor numbers are steadily increasing. But, the reality is that the island has a tiny work force - just 32 people - to undertake more than twice as many jobs, part-time. This impacts available human resources when it comes to delivering tourism services. So, the aim is to provide as much user friendly information as possible so that visitors can engage with and appreciate Pitcairn‟s cultural and historic attractions at their own pace. “The new interpretation boards feature great photographs and wonder- ful artwork commissioned by the Pitcairn Island Philatelic Bureau for stamp issues so they‟re practical, attractive and informative.” says local Tourism Coordinator Heather Menzies. “Research shows that travellers rank „access to information whilst on holiday‟ as a third top priority. In Carol & Jay Warren, adding the final touches many cases, quality information makes a positive impact on overall visi- to the sign which commemorates the house site of Thursday October Christian II in tor satisfaction and is an intrinsic part of the visitor experience. It‟s im- Adamstown. portant that we acknowledge our limitations and find creative ways to maximise our existing resources and we‟re all quite pleased with the results so far. Local resident, Roger Millard (left) and Division Manager, Kerry Young took charge of assembly. Positioned where „Stick‟ , the last of the timber Longboats stands, the island‟s Longboat story comes to life. Carol cleans up whilst local „Dem Tull‟ Editor, Kari Young takes a closer look In his book, ‘A Passion for the Sea‟ author Jimmy Cornell recalls his visit to Pitcairn Island An accomplished sailor and successful author, Jimmy Cornell has sailed 200,000 miles in all oceans of the world including three circumnav- igations as well as voyages to Antarctica, Alaska and Spitsbergen. Thousands of sailors have ful- filled their dream of blue water cruising with the help of Jimmy Cornell‟s books, among them the bestseller World Cruising Routes. With 150,000 copies sold to date, this is one of the best selling nautical publications in the world. Jimmy Cornell‟s books have been translated in- to several languages. He visited Pitcairn on his own yachts in 1978 (Aventura) and 1999 (Aventura Trois), the last as party of the Author Jimmy Cornell Millennium Odyssey round the world rally. There are few places in the world more enigmatic than Easter Island, and arriving there on your own boat, making landfall at this very special island after 2000 miles of empty ocean, must be one of the most powerful experiences for any sailor. This was our second visit, having called at this Polynesian outpost of Rapa Nui on our first circum- navigation, nearly quarter of a century earlier….. No less fascinating, although for very different reasons, was our next destination: Pitcairn. As this section of the Millennium Odyssey, from Valdivia to French Polynesia, was run as a pursuit race, with individual boats stopping the clock when they arrived at one of the islands, and restarting them as they left, both at Easter Island and at Pitcairn there were only three Millennium boats there at the same time. Because of the very special signifi- cance of Pitcairn, the leading boats had agreed to coordinate their arrival so as to be there together. Furthermore, as the islanders are Seventh Day Adventists, it was decided to perform the Millennium Flame ceremony on a Sabbath. The arrival of three Millennium yachts at the same time caused such a stir in the tiny community that any other day would have done just as well. As on Easter Island, we were strongly advised not to leave the boats unattended as, according to our con- cerned hosts, several boats had been lost in Bounty Bay while the crew were visiting ashore. Unbelievably, two of the incidents involved the same owner, on subsequent visits, several years apart. The joke among the islanders was that the original Bounty was finally burned by the mutineers not in order to destroy any evidence of their pres- ence on the island but because they could not cope with moving the ship every time the wind shifted, just as visiting yachts have to nowadays. We certainly sympathized with the mutineers! Their descendants continue to be intrepid sailors and they showed that by the impeccable manner in which they manoeuvred their longboat through the raging surf into the tiny harbour. Four men had come out to bring us ashore at first light, their names sounding like a roll call of the original mutineers: Young, Warren, Brown and, as to be expected, Christian. They were too young to remember us from our previous visit but once ashore we met several old friends who greeted us warmly. Ivan met some friends of his own age whom he and Doina had joined in the tiny classroom twenty-two years previously, instantly raising the school population from seven to nine. Once ashore, we were all loaded onto several quad bikes and whizzed up a rough track into Adamstown to be greeted at the church by what looked like the entire island‟s population of sixty-seven. I had kept in contact throughout the intervening years with Tom Christian, a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, the man who started it all. Tom accepted the Millennium Flame on behalf of the small community, a gesture that I found highly symbolic listening to his comments as the heir of the best known mutineer in history. We were then treated to some beautiful singing, including two moving good-bye songs that Pitcairners normally sing to departing ships. Each crew was then adopted by a separate family, first for lunch, then for a tour of the island on one of those four-wheeled monsters. Loaded with tropical fruit we were taken back to the boats just before nightfall and, as the anchorage looked just as precarious as when we had arrived, rather than spend another rolly sleepless night we all decided to leave immediately. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT JIMMY CORNELL AT: [email protected] . Pitcairn and the Saga Shipping Company British Saga Shipping Company representative, Ross Furlong was presented with a hand- made model of HMAV Bounty when Deputy Mayor, Simon Young, recently visited the company in the UK. The Saga Rose anchored off Bounty Bay The Bounty model, which now takes pride of place at the company‟s head office in Kent, acknowledges the longstanding relationship Saga Shipping has had with Pitcairn since the 1960s.

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