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Bounty Mutineer Descendants Quarantined

David and Marcie strike a pose during their recent visit to the Galapagos Islands.

Nine of Cups
©2009 Latitude 38 Media, LLC

"We’ve been witnesses to history here!" reports Marcie Lynn of the Denver-based Liberty 458 Nine of Cups. Currently sailing from the Galapagos to French Polynesia, she and her husband David just made a pit stop at remote Pitcairn Island — famous as the hideaway of the HMS Bounty mutineers.

Shortly after their arrival, the Nine of Cups crew were included in an emergency general meeting of the population, where residents voted to close their borders to any incoming ship/yacht traffic until further notice based upon the WHO’s recent statement raising to level 5 the worldwide H1N1 flu alert.

"As an isolated population," Marcie explains, "healthy Pitcairners are at a severe risk to their population from possible outside infection. Because we are already here, because we came from a non-infected area and have spent the last 2-3 weeks ‘quarantined’ at sea with no symptoms of any illness, we can either stay or leave." The next question for Marcie and David, however, is whether they’ll face quarantine restrictions when they make landfall in French Polynesia at Mangareva in the Gambiers archipelago.

We’ll look into that. In the meantime, check out the mini-profiles of this crew and others in the May edition of Latitude 38 — on the streets today. And see the Puddle Jump website for more info on this annual westward migration.

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