I am constantly amazed at the stunning differences as we move further west across the Pacific.  By the weekend we will be in Tahiti.  One day no internet and the next day service!

In Arica, Chile the markets are piled high with fresh produce and prices that are cents to our dollar.  A week later we are dropping off eggs to nine families that have lived on Pitcairn Island together since a mutiny centuries ago.  On Easter Island, the world’s most remote location, there is a modern runway for jet aircraft yet hundreds of horses run wild across the island and down the streets of town.  What is normal you might ask.

We’ve moved from the world’s most remote island to the second most remote–Pitcairn Island.

It was here that the mutineers from the HMS Bounty sailed their captured ship and burned it in the harbour to avoid detection by the British navy. In 1957 the remains of the Bounty were discovered by a National Geographic expedition.

The original settlers were able to survive by farming and fishing but their were serious tensions among the settlers. Today Pitcairn Island is inhabited with less than 60 people from nine families. This makes it the least populated jurisdiction in the world and the last remaining British overseas territory in the Pacific.

With no dock on the island we could only anchor offshore and have all the residents come aboard for a few hours to tell us their stories and sell us some souvenirs. As is the custom, our ship both sold and donated a variety of supplies to the islanders.

For power a diesel generator runs from 6:30 in the morning until 10 p.m. at night with hot water provided from a communal wood fired boiler. Contact with the outside world is via a freighter that comes from Aukland, New Zealand every three months.

It makes our ship the Amsterdam seem like a palace.