Pitcairn Island!

I woke up this morning, knowing that it would be different from every other morning I have woken up to so far. I knew that we would be approaching Pitcairn island, and by lunch, I should definitely be able to see land on the horizon. Sure enough, when I went up to the bridge at noon for my watch there was a beautiful little green island on the horizon directly in front of us. As we got nearer and nearer the excitement in the bridge grew and grew. Alex contacted the locals over the radio a few hours before we arrived at our waypoint. We arranged to trade some food, coffee and fuel to the islanders in exchange for some of their famous fruit. We also found out that it would cost us $30 each if we wanted to go onto the island. There was little argument amongst the crew and the excitement grew even more when we knew that yes, we would be stepping foot unto solid land today! The ship drew nearer and nearer to the island and after a little while we could see a boat leaving the island headed towards the ship to come pick us up. We exchanged goods and then left the Farley and jumped on the long boats.

I may never forget the feeling of stepping foot onto solid ground for the first time. For the first 10 minutes or so, I felt quite off balance and even a bit sick. Land sickness! Who woulda thought?! We were told that we had an hour to stay on the island because it would be getting dark and it wouldn’t be safe to take us back to the Farley on the long boat once the sun had set. We decided not to waste any time and started up the dirt/concrete path up to the town center. We passed a small square where there was a church and post office, however we didn’t stop. I did peak into the window of the little general store; it was small and there wasn’t much inside. It looked more like a store that I would have set up with my friends in my basement when we were little kids to play with. There was a sign posted on the door with prices for a few different items; nothing too out of the ordinary in the inventory or prices. A local notice board was across the street from the general store; we took notice of the signs for “sea scouts-after school program for kids” and prisoner mail delivery directions.

We continued on towards the ‘eco walk.’ Sarah and I were so amazed to be seeing trees and flowers, and the silence! The peace and quietness of the island made us only talk in whispers for the first few minutes. It was sooo nice to be away from the constant hum of the engine. And the fresh, tropical smell! We stopped to say hello to a few locals as we were walking, but we really just wanted to cover as much ground as we could and to see the local scenery. A young English couple, Kat and Joe, met up and walked with us. They have been on the island for about a month now and Kat hopes to get some funding to do Humpback research using Pitcairn as a base. She’s thinking her research might help develop tourism on the island. Kat and Joe took us along the eco-track, and then up to Christian’s cave. In the cave we saw two beautiful nesting Tropics birds-I’ll have to look them up but they looked like white kingfishers, with orange beaks. In any case the birds weren’t too disturbed by us trekking into their caves as they didn’t leave their ground nests once while we were there. After a quick few breathes and a photo op in Christians’ cave we headed down the cliff face again, but in a different direction as it had started to rain and the rocks were a bit too slippery to traverse over. Joe led us through a tunnel which opened up into the forest which we had to make our own trail through to get back. By this time our hour was just about up and we had to head directly back to the dock for the long boats. We all were thinking that it wouldn’t be such a travesty if we happened to not make it back to the long boat before dark and we’d have to stay overnight but the thought of dealing with Alex afterwards was enough to make us all continue down to the longboats.

The whole time we were walking we were talking with Kat and Joe and asking them all sorts of questions. We were curious about island life: what happens in emergencies, where their supplies come from, how the locals live, what sorts of energy they use etc. etc. They were curious about the work that we do with Sea Shepherd and Kat specifically was interested in the research I did with whales as she is looking to get into humpback research around the Pacific Islands.

It turns out that:

the island is run off of diesel generators.

Kids leave when they are 16 for school and hopefully to find partners-sometimes they come back sometimes they don’t.

Almost every type of fruit and vegetable imaginable is grown on the island since there have never been restrictions on importing non-native plants

There are outside professionals employed by the island (police, doctor, social workers, teacher etc)

There are about 70 people living on the island

Pitcairn has the best communications technology in the South Pacific with satellite tv, high speed internet and cheap, reliable phone service

After a very quick hour on the island we gathered back at the long boats and headed back to our home on the Farley. It was sad to leave the land and I would have loved to have stayed there for a few days at least, but we’re not on this trip to tour around but rather get work done. Tomorrow we’ll circle Henderson Island looking for illegal drift nets and long lines to pull in and then be on our way to the Galapagos. I hope that everything goes as well in the Galapagos as they did today. When we got back to the ship, everyone was so pumped up and excited about our little adventure. Now it’s back to our shifts and routine life again.