Thursday, January 26, 2023 – Photo of the Day – Cruising the Pacific Ocean

Terry Bishop | Featured Lecturer

The Great Pacific Explorers – Abel Tasman

The Dutch make an impression in the East Indies and the Pacific

Terry Bishop was raised and educated in the west of England. For 35 years he was a psychiatric nurse, a child protection social worker, and a senior manager in Youth Justice and Child Care.

Terry has led groups of walkers/explorers across many of the battlefields of Europe and has explored historic sites in the USA, Africa, and beyond. He has trekked the foothills of the Himalayas, ventured across the Namib Desert, and driven relief supplies from England to Belarus post-Chornobyl.

A real-life Troubadour, he seeks to inform and entertain, incorporating humor, music, and song. Terry is also an accomplished folk musician and has produced two films on social issues.

He and his wife Julie share their time when not cruising between homes in Rochester, England, and Andalusia, Southern Spain.

Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast, Netherlands, Tasman started his career as a merchant seaman and became a skilled navigator. In 1633, he sailed to Jakarta, Indonesia. He participated in several voyages, including one to Japan. In 1642, Tasman was appointed to lead an expedition to explore the uncharted regions of the Southern Pacific Ocean. His mission was to discover new trade routes and to establish trade relations with the native inhabitants. Tasman sailed eastward and reached the coast of Tasmania, and named it Van Diemans Land. He then sailed north and discovered the west coast of New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt.

James Grant-Peterkin | Featured Lecturer

Mutiny On The Bounty

Relive the world’s most famous mutiny by Fletcher Christian and his men.

James Grant-Peterkin is a Cambridge University graduate and the British Honorary Consul on Easter Island. He has been studying Polynesian culture, linguistics, and archaeology for over 20 years, most of those while living on Easter Island, and is the author of the guidebook “A Companion to Easter Island”. He has lectured extensively on Eastern Polynesia on cruise ships and at educational institutions worldwide.

The mutiny on the Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship’s open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 4,000 miles in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice. Christian discovered Pitcairn which was an ideal haven. Eventually rivalries arose, Christian and others were killed leaving one original mutineer surviving.