Pitcairn Island - January 24

Pitcairn Island – January 24

After a very boring day yesterday lying on the bed with my foot up on the pillow tower I was looking forward to the stop at Pitcairn Island today but Captain Mercer announced that while we would make a brief stop to deliver supplies, no one from the island would be allowed to board as about a third of the island's 59 people have the flu. They apparently picked it up from a ship a couple weeks ago. Usually many of the islanders board the ship and do a presentation and then have handcrafts to sell... it's kind of a fun and unusual day. We can already see the island in the distance; I'm hoping we will be going around it so that I can see from our port side balcony... I'm still not up for leaving the cabin. I'm able to hobble around fairly well and am surprised that I can put my weight on my left foot already, but the rest of my body still feels like it was run over by a truck; I must have hit the ground pretty hard!

 

For those of you that don't know why Pitcairn Island is noted for – it is where the Mutiny on the Bounty took place – all of the inhabitants are descendants of those sailors. Tonight will be a formal night with a Pirate theme – I'd kind of like to see what type of costumes are being worn by both passengers and crew.

 

We still have two more sea days before we reach Tahiti. There hasn't been much of interest out there in or on the sea to talk about – no critters except a (very) few flying fish. Our first day of the crossing we did see a couple whales and some dolphins but that's been it. The water has been extremely good; some swells, but almost no waves. I'm ready for a storm with some bouncy seas.

 

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We are now heading away from Pitcairn. I only got half lucky; we stopped with the port side toward the island while the supplies were loaded for the islanders so I did get a few pictures from the balcony, but we went all the way around the island in a clockwise direction so we looked out to the sea instead of the island. The first picture, Jim's shot, was taken from an area on our deck just below the bridge – looking out over the bow.  They have opened the bow to passengers several times while we are stopped or going very slowly.  I don't think I've mentioned that they have painted across the front of the superstructure " 2013 Grand World Voyage".  It's pretty cool – I'll try to get a shot of it sometime.

 

In the Captain's noon message he talked about the cyclone that is just passing over American Samoa, but said it appears to be going the other direction and we should not get closer than about 600 miles but we will begin to hit the remains on Saturday and our weather will change. He also said that the weather in Tahiti and the surrounding islands is predicted to be rainy.

Jim just brought me some sushi from the buffet for my lunch so I'll post this after I eat.