Why Henderson Island?

A danish author named Arne Falk-Rønne who, like me, was fascinated by the Mutiny on the Bounty story (Capt. Bligh was also the master of Capt. Cooks's vessel on the third voyage) visited Pitcairn Island to research a book he was writing about the story of the mutineers. Pitcairn Island (and Norfolk Island off the eastern coast of Australia) is the home of the descendents of the mutineers..

I read Mr. Falk-Rønne's book about this visit and here first heard about Henderson Island.

While visiting Pitcairn Island Mr. Falk-Rønne accompanied the Islanders on one of their infrequent visits to Henderson Island, and mentioned this in a chapter of his book. Since I read this chapter I have been fascinated by this very remote unihabited island.

I looked in the Copenhagen telephone diretory and found a man named Falk-Rønne, and called him to ask whether he was a relative of the author. I was lucky - it was the author's son, and his father was visiting him at just that moment from his permanent residence in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa. We discussed Pitcairn and Henderson Islands and for quite some time on the phone and agreed to meet a few days later. Unfortunately, Mr. Falk-Rønne called me and told me he had to travel, but gave me a telephone number in the south of France where I could call him in the future and arrange a new meeting. We did talk on the phone several times, but he died before we could meet each other in person.

Mr. Falk-Rønne told me, quite mysteriously, that there was a story he wanted to write about his experiances on Henderson Island. These experiances had shocked him so much that he never was able to get around to putting the story on paper despite the span of years since his visit. He promised to tell me the story when we met, but I never did hear that story and have no idea whatsoever why that experiance had been so shocking and so difficult to write. He did, howver mention that the Henderson Island surf had been very dangerous, and I have a "feeling" that this has some connection to the story.

Arne Falk-Rønne was a very prolific author of travel books - and had experianced many adventures around the world. He wrote three books that contain information about Pitcairn Island (and Henderson Island):

• Sydhavets Syv Bølger ( The South Sea's Seven Waves ) 1969
• Paradis om bagbord ( Paradise on the port side ) 1977
• Mytteri i Sydhavet - i Bountys kølvand ( Mutiny in the South Seas - in the wake of the Bounty)

All these books are in the Danish language, and I am unaware of whether they have been translated to other languages.

Contents of this website

Henderson's History	Henderson's Geography	Henderson's Flora and Fauna
Why am I interested?	First hand accounts.	Links and Books.
Map of the Island.	Pictures of the Island.	The Monkey Story

"Robert Tomarchin, a 27-year-old U.S. citizen and his pet ape Moko" - in 1957 .
Photo courtesy of Dr. Herbert Ford , of the Pitcairn Islands Study Center at Pacific Union College.

The Monkey Story: Read the true story of Robert Tomarchin and his chimpanzee left on Henderson Island by a Canadian yacht in 1957! New information has also come to light and is now presented here.

The Monkey Story