Friday 13th February
Sailing around Pitcairn Island
At 11o'clock this morning we sighted Pitcairn Island. The island is very small and is famous for being the place that the mutineers from HMS Bounty fled to in 1790 after leaving Tahiti. We sailed slowly around the island twice. The photo shows Bounty Bay. This is where HMS Bounty was anchored. It is the only place where it is possible to land on the island. Bounty was set on fire just off Pitcairn. Descendants of the mutineers still live on the island. The buildings you can see in the photo make up Adamstown. This is named after the last surviving mutineer who brought some order to the settlement. It became a British colony in 1838. Viewed from the sea it looks lovely but Pitcairn is very isolated and only has about 50 inhabitants today.