Tahiti – Ingliando

On this day, about a month and a half after the Mutiny on the Bounty and having travelled 6,500 kilometres across open sea in a 7 metre boat, Captain Bligh and his men, many close to collapse, sailed into Kupang harbour on the island of Timor. The Bounty had left England on a mission to transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the British colonies in the West Indies, as it was believed that they would grow well there and provide cheap food for the plantation slaves. But on the return journey, relations between Bligh and his crew deteriorated rapidly after Bligh reportedly began handing out increasingly harsh punishments, criticism, and abuse. Eventually his acting-lieutenant Fletcher Christian decided to mutiny and set Bligh and eighteen loyalists adrift to face their fate in the open sea.