Youngest is my early riser.
Every morning no later than 7:20, he's downstairs and mostly raring to go. We've fallen into a routine of snuggles and breakfast and then some sort of semi-education TV.
He's a big fan of ocean things. And generically animals. So Wild Kratts. Octonauts. Dino Dan/Dana. But also Planet Earth and Life and other nature documentaries.
I love that our Disney+ subscription gets us the National Geographic channel.
So today, we scrolled around and found Sharks of Lost Island.
On it's own, it's a good documentary of the Pitcairn Archipelago and the state of the coral reefs there. One was just gorgeous -- they said it basically looked untouched -- and it was swarming with sharks. There were others that were also lovely but lacking in sharks which are, apparently, an indicator of reef health.
But what struck me, was the fact that Pitcairn (the island) is where the mutineers from the Bounty were marooned and their descendants still live there today.
Here's the thing -- I did not realize that was an historical event. I thought it was a story like Treasure Island or Master and Commander. (I mentioned this to my dad at lunch and he just shook his head and asked who taught me history. But honestly! I can pretty much guarantee you that this was never touched on in any history I studied. Never ever.) I had equated Captain Bligh to Long John Silver in terms of veracity.
So, yes, embarrassing, and yet the kiddo and I spent a good hour sussing out the story and looking up maps and the ship and the captains and on and on and on.
Now I need to find myself a book that includes the story more than Wikipedia and the like can give me. Because I'm just simply fascinated.
All in all, it was well worth it for the sharks, for the Bounty, and also to find that yes, indeed, the archipelago has been made into a marine reserve which should help protect those pristine reefs and hopefully allow the hurting ones to rebuild.
Garsh. I know all about the Bounty, the Pandora (which was the ship sent to scoop in the mutineers and made a sad botch of it), and the career of Bligh, both pre- and post-mutiny, but I couldn't recommend a specific book about it to you because I seem to have picked up all this in bits and pieces from others related to the time period. (I actually have Bligh and Christian's accounts but haven't read them yet.) The classic novel about it was written by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall and is said to be a fair and balanced telling. My only advice is not to fall into the Bligh/Bad - Christian/Good trap because the whole biznay was considerably more complicated than that. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI did mutter to myself that I suspected Robbo would be able to give me the scoop. I'll look for the o-fficial novel then and start there.
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