What makes Pitcairn so special to us? Well, for starters, the island itself is strikingly beautiful. Pitcairn is a tall rock rising steeply out of the sea far from anywhere with a rocky and mostly inaccessible coastline, lush green valleys filled with banana trees and pandanaus palms, breathtaking ocean views, sparkling turquoise blue water at […]
The Captain says that the only thing harder than getting to Pitcairn Island is leaving. He is absolutely right. Picton Castle sailed away on a beautiful Monday afternoon in fresh easterly breezes after an eight day stay. Each of the two watches was able to spend four days ashore exploring the island and getting to
Pitcairn Island- The Story of Picton Castle at Pitcairn 2010 begins… Read More »
Picton Castle sailed past Henderson Island, one of the Pitcairn Islands, on Sunday afternoon. There are actually four islands that make up the Pitcairn Islands – Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno. Pitcairn is the only one that is regularly inhabited, although the islanders make occasional expeditions to the other islands. Henderson is a raised atoll,
“It feels like I belong here, like this is home” one of our gang aboard said the other day. Over the past three months, the crew have come to know the ship and each other well, increasingly becoming more than friends or coworkers as we all depend on each other and on the ship to
By Captain Daniel Moreland and Maggie Ostler The Picton Castle is only about 9 miles from Pitcairn Island -we can see the moon setting over the west end of Pitcairn, we are still under full sail including studding sails and the sun rising in the east makes the clouds and our sails look like gold.
Introduction by Maggie Ostler Reflections by Billy Campbell Maintaining a good lookout is a prime and fundamental tenent of good seamanship. Look-out is a condition. On the Picton Castle we assign a crew to be posted on the focslehead 24 hours a day in one hour shifts by watches. The Forward Look-out scans the seas
With only 375 miles to go for the Picton Castle to reach Pitcairn Island – we are all getting pretty excited!!! In order to look after the ship whether she is anchored or hove-to offshore and also not to put too many of our crew on the island at once (and thus not overwhelming island
Brad was washing his clothes in buckets of salt water on the well deck on Sunday afternoon. He had been putting off this task for a while, thinking that it has been sunny and beautiful for so long that doing his laundry would surely bring rain. His clean clothes supply couldn’t hold out any longer,
On a long ocean passage in the tradewinds in the Picton Castle, or any other deep sea sailing ship, life falls easily into a gentle routine. It feels like we left Galapagos ages ago, but then I think back to something that happened last week and it seems like yesterday. Being at sea causes a
By Chief Mate Michael Moreland After a late wakeup call, a quick glance out to weather from my porthole reveals our near perfect sailing breeze is still with us. She trots along the long Pacific swells with the clean, fresh wind on her port quarter. All sails set and drawing nicely, a pull on a
