Pitcairn Island New Border Controls - Amendment

Created by sue. Last modified on 2009-05-04 11:34:27
Contributors:
Countries: Pitcairn Island

Dear Noonsite,

Pitcairn being a small isolated and vulnerable Island does need to take particular care to protect its borders.

The following steps have been put in place....

While Pitcairn's borders will not be closed (to visiting yachts), we will require a formal declaration from all skippers regarding health of passengers and crew, a brief travel history including the date and place of last port of call and a brief health check conducted by the Pitcairn Island Medical Officer for all arrivals..

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Best Regards,
Leslie Jaques,
Commissioner for the Pitcairn Islands.
4 May 2009.

The following information was posted on a bulletin board (3 May) for people heading into the Pacific, by the editor of Latitude 38 magazine. Marcie on Nine of Cups is on the Seven Seas Cruising Association board. The information received from the Commissioner for the Pitcairn Islands (above), does however clarify the current situation.

I want to relay some important info which will be of interest to any boats heading to French Polynesia this season via the Galapagos and Pitcairn.

Marcie and David Lynn of the Denver-based Liberty 458 Nine of Cups recently arrived at Pitcairn and 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 on 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."

Marcie continues, "We're now trying to determine if a similar situation exists in Mangareva, the Gambiers, which would mean, of course, we could be turned away from there upon arrival and then could not return to Pitcairn. We know several yachties there and they're checking out the situation for us."

It is possible similar measures are being taken at other French Polynesian ports. The Pitcairn site www.government.pn should have some sort of posting soon (at the time of posting this was not the case).

Our thanks to Nancy Zapf, Susanne Ames and Jeremy Shaw for alerting noonsite to this situation.