One island that has been very difficult to operate radio from is Bouvet. Landings are difficult, and one team travelled all the way there at great expense but had to turn around as rough seas made landing impossible.
I met Tom on the island when I stayed there about 12 years ago. He's a cousin of mine - my grandmother was born there and I'm a descendent of Fletcher Christian too. I was there for a month and had a great time. The island is small but very hilly so there's lots of walking around and exploring that can be done. There's definitely a feeling of remoteness when your boat leaves and the realisation that there's no way to leave until it comes back again!
Reading _Serpent in Paradise_ cured me of any desire to spend a lot of time in Pitcairn. The author does a great job conveying what it was like living there as an outsider. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/415696
Note that book is from 1997, before the sexual assault trial against thirteen of the ~20 men who lived on Pitcairn. Most were convicted.
“ Land is granted on a leasehold basis and there is currently no charge. New Migrant Home Land Applications may be made to Island Council at any time within the 2 (non-consecutive permanent residency period. However, a request will not be progressed until such time as the applicant(s) are on-island”
It’s 2-years, just a grammar/spelling error. But the open parentheses is aggravating
> … Olive Christian, wife of the accused mayor, daughter of Len Brown and mother of Randy Christian, both of whom were also among those accused, called a meeting of thirteen of the island's women, representing three generations at her home, Big Fence…
2.
"Live Like a Local When you Stay at Big Fence with Steve & Olive Christian":
> A study of island records confirmed anecdotal evidence that most girls bore their first child between the ages of 12 and 15. "I think the girls were conditioned to accept that it was a man's world and once they turned 12, they were eligible," Tosen said. Mothers and grandmothers were resigned to the situation, telling him that their own childhood experience had been the same; they regarded it as just a part of life on Pitcairn.
> One councillor told him, "Look, the age of consent has always been 12 and it doesn't hurt them."
What in the bonkers hell. It seems like the place was just Child Abuse Island (r) (tm). Made their own little cult home. Crazy business.
This bit about how they were not subject to the Crown because they'd mutinied against the HMS Bounty's officers is an even better story. Unbelievable stuff.
Glad they were subject to the law. Though it looks like they're all free now, and presumably back at the noncery.
It's quite possible that the people involved did their time and the island is moving on from the events of the past. It seems uncharitable to paint an entire island with the brush of a single, very bad event that happened years ago. Imagine if every country had to be judged by the worst thing that happened in the country's history.
Age of consent in Japan wasn’t 13. That was the national age of consent, but literally every prefecture had a higher age specified in local law, and the higher number is what mattered.
Changing the national age was largely symbolic, although it did have the beneficial effect of enabling national police instead of just local police to go after these cases.
And silly, as the law (esp. international) usually cares more about de facto control in situations like this. Crazy argument to raise, but I guess if you can't argue they aren't nonces...
I've always wondered why the UK bothers to keep up such a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Would've been 10x cheaper for the budget to buy the residents 50 houses in Australia and just keep the island as a nature reserve.
If the UK loses Pitcairn, the sun will set on the British Empire. Literally. Without Pitcairn the UK will be entirely in the dark part of the day for the first time in centuries.
This has been done. Pitcairners were relocated to Tahiti (they hated it and all came back to Pitcairn after just 6 months) and then later to Norfolk Island (most of them stayed, but around 40 of them moved back to Pitcairn after a couple years).
Saying "they hated it" when referring to their return from the migration to Tahiti is underselling things a bit. Over a third of them died from sickness having no immunity to things having been isolated so long. The island lifestyle there was completely unlike Tahiti of the past due to the influx of non-Tahitian people, and they basically lived in slums. Luckily they were able to sell copper sheathing from the Bounty to pay for the return journey back to Pitcairn.
Does Pitcairn have Internet, phone and television?
Yes, there is internet on the island, all homes and government buildings have their own Starlink Terminal.
There is no Cellular service for mobile phones however international communications are easily achievable via mobile phone apps like Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp etc. There are two mobile satellite phones on Pitcairn for emergency use only, should the main telecommunications system fail.
There is 1 Free-to-air Television Station at present, ABC from Australia however entertainment and news can be streamed easily via the internet.
——
It would be nice to have fiber. How much would it cost to get fiber hooked up to a remote island like this?
In that page there's a picture of a signboard with distances to other places around the world.
Interesting that Pitcairn-South Pole distance is twice that of Pitcairn-New York distance. Unintuitive to me.
On a tangent, I like the idea of living in tiny somewhat isolated but reasonably developed islands (ie., not the rainforest type islands — personal preference) and sometimes think about moving to some place like that for a year or so. Might help that I'm an introvert. Probably not Pitcairn though.
Has any of you lived in places like Svalbard, Faroe Islands etc? What is it like?
> applications must also attach a police certificate or letter from every jurisdiction in which they have resided in, disclosing whether they have any convictions and the nature of those convictions.
Presumably to prove that you have a criminal record before approval? /s
edit: this was a joke about their mutiny, was unaware of the criminal issues brought up in another comment
Comment was probably an attempt at a humorous reference to the rapper’s recent accusations of sexual abuse and the Pitcairn Island child sex abuse scandal.
I have friends, also hams, that have travelled there for a DXPedition: https://pitcairndx.com/.
It is seriously remote.
[edit]
More detail about the island: https://pitcairndx.com/the-island/.
Transportation was by the ship Braveheart, one that often takes hams to remote places. https://pitcairndx.com/transportation/. One fun thing that they did was EME operation, a technological challenge bouncing signals off the moon https://pitcairndx.com/eme-2/
One island that has been very difficult to operate radio from is Bouvet. Landings are difficult, and one team travelled all the way there at great expense but had to turn around as rough seas made landing impossible.