The close of the day finds Oso only 160nm north of Pitcairn Island, one of the most remote settlements on the planet. Only about 1nm by 2nm in size, the island sits about 1100nm west of Easter Island, and about 320nm east of the Gambier archipelago in French Polynesia.
Pitcairn is most famous as the final home of Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers from HMS Bounty. After casting Captain Bligh and 27 other supporters loose in a small open boat, the mutineers sailed from near Tahiti before settling on Pitcairn and sinking the Bounty in an attempt to evade the British authorities from tracking them down. Today, most of 30 or so island residents are descendants of the mutineers.
There are no protected harbors on Pitcairn, and it’s small size means that even the leeward side of the island offers only limited protection. So for a small boat like Oso to stop there, a conditions of low wind and a smooth sea state need to coincide.
Over the past week, our daily evaluations of the forecast has included pondering a potential stop at Pitcairn. As we approach the point where we’d need to turn south, the wind conditions look pretty good – a moderate front is passing by the island, followed by light wind conditions.
But the sea state looks to be a bit of an issue, as there is swell from both the south (churned up by Southern Ocean storms) and the north (not clear where that’s coming from) combining with the trade wind chop from the east to make a bit of a jumbled mess. It’s ok while Oso is moving as the sails tend to stabilize the boat a bit, but the thought of anchoring in these conditions brings back bad memories of similar very uncomfortable days and nights anchored off Easter Island.
So in the end, we make the difficult decision to pass Pitcairn to port and press on towards French Polynesia. That’s the way of traveling aboard a sailboat – we’re slaves to the weather.
All’s well aboard.
Day Twenty Two
22 25.1S 130 40.9W
172nm (+1 hr for time change)
