Having passed within the reef Bligh took a mer alt in order to determine the latitude of the channel through which he had just passed – 12 degrees 51 minutes South – and recorded his DR longitude: 40 degrees 10 minutes West of Tofua. In fact the distance is more like 32 degrees, which goes to show just how hard it is to estimate the rate of progress at sea, even for an expert like Bligh. They then headed north, looking for a convenient place to land where they would not be at risk of attack from the natives. They found a suitable island and feasted on oysters and berries, their morale much improved. It now began to look as if they might have a chance of surviving. To be able to sleep ashore was, in Bligh’s view, almost as valuable to them as food.
Bligh followed the coast of Cape York Peninsula to the north, and passed through the Torres Strait into the open sea to the west, just as Cook had done in 1770. Given the extraordinary intricacy of the navigation among the many reefs and islands, he dutifully felt he should record directions, and regretted his failure to do so:
I … think that a ship coming from the southward, will find a fair strait in the latitude of 10° S. I much wished to have ascertained this point; but in our distressful situation, any increase of fatigue, or loss of time, might have been attended with the most fatal consequences. I therefore determined to pass on without delay.10
The remainder of the voyage was, if anything, even more testing than the earlier passage from Tonga. They survived on dried clams, and Bligh managed to catch a booby with his bare hands: he divided the blood among those who were in the worst condition and kept the rest of the bird for the next day. A small dolphinfish later gave them some relief, but the crew were growing steadily weaker, and Bligh began to fear that some of them would not last much longer. The boatswain ‘very innocently told me that he thought I looked worse than anyone in the boat. The simplicity with which he uttered such an opinion amused me and I returned him a better compliment.’
At three in the morning of 12 June 1789 they at last sighted land:
It is not possible for me to describe the pleasure which the blessing of the sight of this land diffused among us. It appeared scarcely credible to ourselves that, in an open boat, and so poorly provided, we should have been able to reach the coast of Timor in forty-one days after leaving Tofoa, having by that time run, by our log, a distance of 3618 miles; and that, notwithstanding our distress, no one should have perished in the voyage.11
Bligh recalled that the Dutch settlement was at the south-west end of the island, so he headed that way, and finally found his way to Cupang (now Kupang), where he landed on 14 June. Although only one of the castaways had died (in the native attack on Tofua at the outset of the voyage), Bligh and his crew were a shocking sight, some scarcely able to walk as they struggled ashore:
An indifferent spectator would have been at a loss which most to admire: the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown, would rather have excited terror than pity. Our bodies were nothing but skin and bones, our limbs were full of sores, and we were clothed in rags: in this condition, with the tears of joy and gratitude flowing down our cheeks, the people of Timor beheld us with a mixture of horror, surprise and pity.12
Unfortunately, their problems were by no means over. The Dutch East Indies were extremely unhealthy and the various endemic tropical illnesses, including malaria and dysentery, were to take a heavy toll on Bligh’s crew – as they did on so many European visitors. The Dutch Governor, himself fatally sick, nevertheless made sure that the castaways were well looked after, and on 20 August Bligh was at last able to take passage to Batavia (modern Jakarta) in a small schooner. On 14 March 1790 he reached Portsmouth with eleven out of the open boat’s original crew of nineteen. The remainder had died of illness either in Indonesia or on the homeward voyage. Fourteen of the mutineers who had decided to settle in Tahiti were hunted down there, and four of them drowned when the ship in which they were being brought home for trial was wrecked off the Great Barrier Reef. The ship’s name was Pandora and, predictably, the cage in which the unfortunate prisoners were being held came to be known as ‘Pandora’s box’. Three of the surviving mutineers were hanged, but another, the young midshipman Peter (‘Pip’) Heywood, was pardoned and later enjoyed an illustrious career as a marine surveyor.13 The ringleader, Fletcher Christian, and eight others, together with some men and women from Tahiti, escaped to Pitcairn Island, where they remained unmolested even after they were discovered there in 1808. Their descendants live there today.
To have brought an overladen open boat across nearly 4,000 miles of tropical sea, without charts and with grossly inadequate provisions, stands as one of the most remarkable feats in the history of seafaring. Of course luck must have played a part in Bligh’s survival and that of his crew, as did their powers of endurance: they were certainly a tough group of men. Bligh’s own bloody-minded determination to see the mutineers brought to justice probably helped to keep him going. Were it not for his skill with the sextant and geographical memory, however, they would have had no hope of reaching Cupang. The mutineers no doubt had reason to complain about their commander’s behaviour, but they fatally underestimated his extraordinary navigational abilities.
Day 6: Up again at 0400. Colin says we’re very close to where the Titanic went down. More fabulous weather with wind S force 2–3. Sighted a Sanko Line ship and tried to raise her on the radio-telephone – no luck. More sextant practice.
After supper Colin talked about his time as Gunnery Officer on board the battleship Prince of Wales when she and the battle cruiser Hood were in pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. When the battle started Bismarck had the ‘windward station’ – this gave her an advantage, just as in the days of sail. Bismarck’s rangefinders were pointing downwind whereas Prince of Wales and Hood were ploughing into heavy seas that showered theirs with spray. If Colin’s guns had found Bismarck’s range sooner she would have had to alter course and maybe Hood would have survived. But Prince of Wales did manage to score a crucial hit on Bismarck.1 There were tears in his eyes.
We also talked about the Battle of Jutland. Colin said that the British Commander-in-Chief had struggled to determine his exact position as he was closing with the German fleet because poor visibility had prevented any sights being taken. Strange to think that these great warships relied on sextant and chronometer to find their way – just like us. 2
Saecwen was not much better equipped in navigational terms than the Bounty. Like Bligh we steered by magnetic compass and fixed our position by the sun and stars. It is true we had a ‘Walker’ log to measure the distance we travelled through the water – a mechanical device that sat on the stern counting the turns of a brass impellor that we trailed behind us. This was more sophisticated than the kind of log that Bligh would have used, but it was still a piece of nineteenth-century technology. In addition to an old-fashioned lead-line, we had an electronic echo sounder and a radio direction-finder (RDF), both of which would have amazed Bligh. But the echo sounder could measure depths down to a few hundred feet at best, so it was helpful only in coastal waters, and since the marine radio beacons had a range of no more than a couple of hundred miles the latter too was of little use to us in mid-ocean. Fairly accurate radio-based navigation systems, like LORAN, had been developed during the Second World War, but the receivers were bulky and expensive and we did not have one. Early forms of satellite navigation were already available but only for military purposes, and GPS was still on the drawing board. We carried a radio-telephone, which