A Pitcairn sailing adventure in 2010

by Pat Goldstiver on 24 Apr 2010 It all started with a lady falling into a ditch. Her name is Chrissie and she is the partner of Paul who owns an elderly ketch called “Southern Cross” and the ditch she fell in just happened to be in Rikitea, the only town on Mangareva Island, the main island in the French Polynesian group called Gambier Islands, which are about as far away from Tahiti as you can get.

In fact it is a five hour flight to get there. So what was “Southern Cross” and her crew doing in Mangareva? They were running a “taxi” service to the Pitcairn Islands, 298 nautical miles to the south east – an even more remote destination – for passengers who booked through an adventure company called Pacific Expeditions. The only way you can get to Pitcairn Is. is by boat.

There is a supply vessel which runs from New Zealand to Pitcairn Is. every three months; otherwise it is by small boat charter or in your own yacht. A few private boats do visit from time to time. My involvement came about when I received urgent text messages asking if I could go to Mangareva to replace Chrissie as “chief cook and bottle washer “as she had been medivaced back to New Zealand because of her injuries.

One week later I was flying out to Tahiti on the first leg of my next adventure - but first I had to Google “Mangareva” and find out where the heck it was! Not to mention Pitcairn Island.

Of course I knew of Pitcairn Island, home of the mutineers of the “Bounty” – in fact I even hoped I might have a hereditary claim to kinship of one of the mutineers – Thomas Burkitt, but just exactly where it was I had no idea. I was about to find out.

After a very pleasant flight to Tahiti I boarded another smaller plane for the five hour flight to Mangareva. Thenl there was another stage to the journey before I saw my home for the next month. The airport is located on a flat atoll on one side of a huge lagoon and the town is on the other side on a very mountainous island, so a fast ferry is there to meet the plane.

For luggage I had an extra bag of boat parts plus a box marked “fragile”of other boat gear, plus my own bags, but the crew were very helpful and it wasn’t a problem. We pulled into the dock and there was “Southern Cross” tied up on the other side and Paul, the skipper, waiting to greet me and the five passengers that were joining us for the trip to Pitcairn.

It was still raining as we trudged off through the mud to do the shopping and Customs formalities. Every time we arrive or depart Mangareva for Pitcairn we have to do the passport business at the Gendarmerie, because we are leaving French Polynesia and Pitcairn has its own Passport control.
At this stage I had had my first quick look at “Southern Cross” and stowed my gear. I was a little dismayed at the
very basic accommodation and lack of maintenance below decks, but I reckoned the boat itself was sound enough (and it had a new Cummins engine, the rig looked OK and it had 2 good life rafts!).

However we lost two of our passengers before we even left the dock. They elected to go on the supply ship which also happened to be in port at the time bound for Pitcairn, as they deemed the boat to be unseaworthy. What’s in a coat of paint!!

The passage to Pitcairn proved to be a bit bouncy (hurray for my Paihia Bombs Seasick Remedy) and the passengers were not interested in food, which for my first attempts at cooking on the boat was all to the good.

Bounty Bay is the launching bay for the long boats, and it also was way too rough for us, so we anchored around in the lee of the island. The long boats are huge open boats (although a canopy can be bolted on for long trips) that act as a ferry for passengers of the cruise ships that occasionally stop there as there is no wharf facilities and ships large and small have to anchor off. Sometimes it is even too rough for the big ships to stop!

After we got all the passengers to put their gear in dry bags and put on life jackets, the long boat arrived to take them and me to shore.

Paul stayed on board to mind the boat and do some repair work. What a buzz it was, surfing in through the narrow gap with rocks and waves crashing each side of us and rocks looming very quickly in front of us, however the Pitcairn crew knew just when to swing the mighty tiller over and we gently came alongside the dock where willing hands helped us climb up.

There are no cars on the island and quad bikes are the mode of transport, although there IS a bulldozer (it got parachuted on to the island) and a tractor (it got floated in on a makeshift barge) and so with no further ado my gear (and me) was loaded onto one of these quad bikes we set off up the “Hill of Difficulty” – as the very steep road up from The Landing is known, - to my host’s house.

My hosts were Tom and Betty Christian (descendants of the mutineers as most of the 50 Pitcairners are) and wonderfully hospitable people they are. Betty is a fantastic cook so you sure don’t lose any weight staying with them, even with all the exercise you get! The Pitcairners have limited means of income and home stays are one way to make some money. Postcards, stamps, T Shirts, wonderful wood carvings and honey are their other ways of making a dollar, so they love tourists.

The next day Tom and Betty’s daughter, Jaquie, took me on a tour of the island (on the back of the quad bike of course) and you certainly should not have a fear of heights to live in this place.

It is a very steep sided bit of volcanic rock measuring only a couple of square miles that rears up out of the ocean - it has no beaches – and you have to admire the mutineers for their fortitude (or desperation) in making Pitcairn their home.

Late the next day we set sail for Henderson Island. There are four islands in the Pitcairn Group and Henderson and Ducie were on the agenda for this trip. Henderson is 118 NM from Pitcairn and Ducie is a further 298 NM from there so we really were in the middle of nowhere and what’s more, way out of range of helicopter help (as is Pitcairn) or even help from Pitcairn should we have needed it.

We arrived at Henderson Is. the next day. It is uninhabited except for a few rare birds and lots of dangerous sharks in the surrounding waters. We then cruised around the island as the usual landing beach was too rough, looking for a quieter location to get another passenger, Viekko, ashore. (He belongs to the “Century Club” which is a travel club that well travelled people belong to, so they can tick a box and say they have been there!)

We were close in to the reef, marvelling at all the flotsam and jetsam – hundreds of fishing buoys and nets that were littering the pristine beaches, when we suddenly lost steerage.

This was to be the first of six occasions that this happened. Luckily Paul was super quick to jam the motor in reverse and we eased away from the reef to deeper waters where we could sort out the problem. (It turned out to be a hydraulic leak which we never did find). After that scare Paul unloaded the rubber ducky and outboard and took Veikko to shore for his photo – ( the rubber ducky got dumped on to the reef by a wave for their trouble, resulting in bent propeller blades) – and then after dinner we set off for Ducie Island, sailing into a spectacular moon rise and a beautiful night.

When we arrived late afternoon the shores of Ducie Is. were also being bombarded by huge surf and again a landing was out of the question. However Paul thought it might have calmed down in the morning and after setting the anchor alarm, we settled down for a good night’s sleep. Most of them did – I was up and down like a yo yo as the surf sounded mighty close to me!

In the morning it was still rough but there was a little lee where a landing looked possible – not by boat though, only by a person. The plan was that Paul would take Veikko in by rubber ducky where upon he would slip over the side and swim and wade ashore, while Paul stood off outside the surf. Sounded feasible. Except that when Veikko found he could not touch the bottom he panicked and would not let the rubber ducky go. It was then picked up by a large wave and dumped upside down. Result – one drowned outboard, one oar snapped in half and Veikko covered back and front in coral scratches and gashes.

I was on the foredeck of “Southern Cross” watching through the binoculars and I was truly scared for them. They kept getting pushed back again and again. Veikko was in shock and was not a lot of help but eventually Paul with a heroic effort got the boat beyond the surf line. He then had to get back to the yacht which fortunately was down wind. He had swim-fins so he swam the ducky out.

I had a long line floating off the back of the boat in case they missed but they made it – totally exhausted. We got the coral cuts attended to and was about to get the ducky and outboard up on the yacht when we were hit by a sudden squall and the anchor breaks out so off we floated (downwind).

Had it been half an hour earlier I would have suddenly been made “captain”. As mentioned earlier there would have been no outside help if the injuries had of been more serious nature and I could not have affected a rescue off the island if they couldn’t have got themselves to the yacht. Needless to say Paul and I had many discussions after that when things settled down!

The outcome: - Never again would Paul allow himself to be put in that situation, no matter how much the passenger might whinge. (no photos of this, I was too busy!)

After a rough trip back to Pitcairn for more supplies we set off for Mangareva. With following wind and seas we had a very fast passage and although Veikko wasn’t happy because he wouldn’t be able to tick off his islands, it was more than memorable in many other ways.

This was just the first of many interesting similar adventures.

At one time one of the five or six children on the island had his fifth birthday and the whole population was invited to a Public Dinner. The food was amazing with everyone contributing their favourite dish. Most of the islanders are Seventh Day Adventists so there was very little alcohol consumed but there was lots of eating and talking.

I met an elderly Pitcairn carver called Len Brown and ordered a model of the “Bounty”. It is truly a thing of beauty and I got it home and through Agriculture safe and sound. Considering that the wood is harvested at Henderson Island and my (possible) connection with the “Bounty”, it has been given a place of honour in my home.

We departed Pitcairn Island on the 26th March and had a marvellous trip back to Mangareva, stopping at two other islands on the way home. Again the surf was roaring though and landing was going to be a problem. This was very disappointing to me as I had hoped to get some snorkelling in the beautiful lagoon that was visible from the yacht. It was too deep to anchor “Southern Cross” so I had to steer the boat around in circles while Paul took a couple of passengers in to shore.

This time it all went well and they came back to the yacht very excited about everything they had seen – not to mention the little black sharks that were literally at their feet when they waded back out to the rubber ducky.

The next day was departure day for the guests and me also and the end of my Pitcairn odyssey. This was one wonderful adventure that I will never forget.