Of Mutiny and Atolls

Back in 1789 when the notorious band of mutineers seized control of the HMS Bounty after putting the captain overboard, they hid out from justice right here, on Pitcairn Island. I expect that it looked then pretty much exactly as it does today, and a less hospitable island is hard to imagine. Nonetheless, some 47 intrepid souls currently live there, many of them descendants of the original mutineers and most of them over the age of 55. They are actively trying to increase their population, so if you’ve ever imagined becoming a virtual castaway on one of the most remote islands on the planet, Pitcairn might be just what you’re looking for.

They have visits from a supply ship once every three months, but there’s no airport, so getting on and off the island requires a lot of patience. Every house recently was furnished with solar panels, so they have electricity, and Internet. They’re British citizens, and His Majesty’s Government is the island’s only employer. I can say without hyperbole that there’s no place like it on Earth.

But what you see above is all I saw of it. About half the passengers did manage to get ashore, but I was not one of them. The seas were rougher than they had been at Rapa Nui, and my bad knee was still hurting from the previous tendering experience. Also, the captain warned us that we would have to walk half a mile uphill, that there was no shade, nowhere to sit down, and no restrooms. It turned out that some of those things were true, although the islanders mustered a few ATVs to taxi people up the hill, and the church did open its bathrooms. But I learned that after the fact, and spent the day gazing at the island from a distance, wondering if I could ever survive in such rugged isolation, and enjoying the sight of greenery after five days on the pure blue sea.

Leaving Pitcairn behind we struck out across 1250 more miles of empty ocean to Fakarava atoll. Here Azamara had planned a brief time for us, consisting of photo ops with these lovelies,

musical entertainment,

and ladies making leis for us. These leis were works of art and I waited to have one made just for me. The long wait as one lady carefully made my lei gave me the opportunity to speak French with her, and try to scrub my brain of Spanish for a while, which is a lot harder than I had imagined.

I also visited the grocery store, which you can count on me to do just about everywhere we go.

Yep, that’s all food from France. It’s true that Fakaravans, and all French Polynesians, are French citizens, but still it’s jarring to see the store filled with French products, the exact same ones we used to buy when we lived in France.

There was just time for a quick dip in the warm turquoise water, where I learned a couple of obvious lessons in a hurry. 1) the South Pacific is very salty, although Google swears that the Atlantic is even saltier. 2) one floats in salt water, especially if one has an excess of, ahem, fat cells. I could barely keep my feet on the bottom, which was rocky and full of coral so it was probably just as well. But my dreams of snorkeling my way through the rest of the islands definitely got shaken up, because if all I can do is float face up on the surface like an otter I’m not going to see a lot of fish or coral reefs. I have to learn how to get my feet under me, a humbling lesson at my age.

And then came a super-sad moment. I was loving my lei, and planning to keep it in the little fridge in my cabin so that I could enjoy it for days. but as I walked up to the tender a crew member informed me that we couldn’t bring flowers on the ship, and pointed to a big pile of abandoned leis. I briefly considered bursting into tears, but one look at the crew guy’s face told me he meant business. I also thought about starting a mutiny of my own, but soon thought better of it. Why Azamara paid those ladies to painstakingly make gorgeous leis for us, only to have us throw them away after only an hour or so is something I’ll never understand, but it made me feel a bit sick. So this picture with my lei will forever be my best memory of Fakarava, and now we are sailing to Mo’orea.