Big Sea, Little Boat

   A Friday welcome from Joe McDonnell

   On this day in 1789. Lieutenant William Bligh and his companions landed on the Dutch Island of Timor after a 3,600 mile journey in an open boat. Bligh had been Captain of HMS Bounty until a mutiny on 28 April resulted in he and the loyal members of the crew being cast off in the Pacific Ocean.
   Bligh's future looked dim when the line between the Bounty and his 23 foot boat meant for ten was cut. With nineteen men in the boat, there was only seven inches between the sea and the rail of the boat. The mutineers gave Bligh some bread and water, some navigation equipment and four cutlasses, but no charts. Bligh was a master navigator and felt confident he could make it to Timor (present day Indonesia), the nearest place they could hope to catch a ship back to Europe.
   Bligh's first destination was the island of  Tofua where he planned to gather more supplies. The island's location was marked by a plume of smoke from its volcano. The natives on the island were friendly at first but gradually grew hostile. By day four, Bligh realized an attack was imminent. As the crew were loading their boat and shoving off, the natives attacked. One crew member was killed before the boat got away.
   The men realized landing on any other island could lead to disaster at the hands of the natives, and agreed to head straight for the Dutch island of Timor. Daily rations were set at an ounce of bread and a quarter pint of water per man. They immediately ran into stormy weather and mountainous seas that threatened to capsize the boat. To keep up morale, Blogh told stories and got the men to sing and pray.
  The boat passed through the Fiji Islands but they didn't dare stop.  The islanders had a reputation forc cannibalism. Finally, on May 28, a month after the mutiny, they sighted the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Bligh landed on a small island and the men gorged on berries and oysters. They sailed northward inside the reef for four days, aware that the natives were watching them.
   They rounded the north tip of Austalia and headed into the open sea again for Timor. Twenty-five hundred miles down, just 1,100 to go.
   This last stretch was some the most difficult with constant cold. On June 14, they sailed into Kupang Harbor on the west end of Timor. It would be four more months before they could catch a ship back to England. Bligh was a hero in England. The mutineers came to bad ends. Bligh's reputation has suffered. Thanks to popular culture he's seen as a tyrant. But it takes a tyrant at times to make a passage.

                                                                       Turn left at Australia