I am in hell ..

"I am in hell .." yelled Fletcher Christian, as he debated whether or not to set Captain Bligh adrift from his ship, The Bounty, during the famous mutiny in 1789. I'll have a bit of a quandary myself this evening, so thank God for TV catch-up. There are two programmes on at 9 o'clock tonight that I'm dying to watch. BBC Four is showing the first in a series of Photography programmes, introduced by ex-picture editor Eamonn McCabe but - dare I say, even more exciting - Channel Four is beginning a series based on The Mutiny on the Bounty - recreating the epic open boat voyage by Bligh and some of his crew across thousands of miles of empty Pacific ocean ..

It's a subject that absolutely fascinates me! I mean, to the extent that I went all the way to Tahiti just to see the 'tropical paradise' that caused half of Bligh's crew to mutiny. (Turns out it's now just a crowded busy island full of French people and crazy motorways. It wouldn't lure me back, let's put it that way!) Anyway, Bligh's skill and bravery at navigating all the way back to Timor - by memory - is something that amazes me, and I hate the Hollywood image of him being a bully and a tyrant. He wasn't. He was just a perfectionist who felt let down when, eventually, his crew couldn't match his high standards. The thing that impresses me most is that, contrary to the common view of a salty old sea-dog, Bligh was actually only 34 years old when he led his men to safety. Incredible!..

Now, being a photography blog, I suppose I need to get back to pictures. Er, well here's a Kodachrome shot from my own epic voyage, when I went round the world for 6 months. Hell? My God, it was Heaven..