A South Sea odyssey

By James Stone

Visiting the Pitcairn Islands was a unique experience. In fact, just getting there and back again was quite something. The islands, which are a British overseas territory in the middle of the southern Pacific, have always held a strange fascination for me. Indeed, any former British colony where you will still meet Britons today has a unique appeal. How have they evolved differently in the hundreds of years away from the motherland? What are their accents like, their view of themselves and of Britain? With the dawn of the technological age, these differences are threatening to become less pronounced.

The Pitcairn Islands consist of the islands of Ducie, Henderson, Oeno and Pitcairn, although today only Pitcairn, which is the second largest, is inhabited. Although discovered by European in the 16th century, the Brits, as they were wont to do, eventually commandeered them in the 19th century.

The story of the Bounty mutineers is well known but worth recounting. Led by Fletcher Christian, 18 of the Royal Navy crew that had set off on the trip from Tahiti in 1789 mutinied, while 22 including the captain remained loyal. The loyalists made their way to safety via the island of Tofua to Timor. The mutineers, after a detour to the island of Tubuai and a return to Tahiti to drop off some crew, made their way through Fiji and the Cook Islands and eventually came to settle in Pitcairn Island. Of the 50 or so inhabitants who reside there today, many still bear the surnames of the mutineers and a number are descendants of Tahitians that had been enslaved on the ship. However, by the time a US ship arrived on the Pitcairn Islands in 1808, just one man, John Adams, nine women and a number of children survived. The remainder of the crew and the Tahitians had been killed in internal fighting.

My journey to the islands was almost as epic. After flying to Tahiti and then on to Mangareva, it was a 29-hour boat ride to the islands. Having done my homework, I knew I would be able to gain passage on board one of the few ships that makes the journey each year – getting off again was another matter.

With little in the way of local knowledge I was kindly taken in by one of the nine families in the capital Adamstown, who said they were directly descended from the man himself. The language is quite incredible – a mix of English and Tahitian, which, while mostly intelligible, gave me the sense sometimes that I was speaking to someone from a different century. Most of the people I met were fiercely proud of their history and seemed quite detached from any patriotic feeling for Britain.

Walking around the tiny island was an incredible experience. There is one road but nobody seems to bother with it. I spoke to one couple who enthused that the introduction of satellite television meant that they could now pick up broadcasts from New Zealand. I mused that technology could just spell the end for this fascinating community.

When after a wait of a week and a half for a freighter to turn up to take me to New Zealand, the remoteness of the place really set in. If you are used to it, I can imagine the islands are a wonderful place to live. While enjoying the tranquillity and the quiet, the sight of hundreds of miles of sea all around me was unnerving for someone so used to city life. The seven-day journey to New Zealand was the longest week of my life.