Something For Davy Jones To Read

If you happen to be wondering why you didn’t get some mail that you know was posted to you from the “Pioneer Gem”, off Pitcairn Island, in mid-June, then we can tell you where it is. It’s down in Davy Jones’ Locker.

This is how it came to get there.

On June 18, the “Pioneer Gem’s” master radioed Pitcairn that his ship would be passing the island about two o’clock next morning, but as he could not stop, he would put the ship’s mail over the side. He said it would be in a yellow drum attached to a bundle of dunnage timber, which would make it more easily seen and would be a reward to the islanders for finding it.

Although the islanders were not keen to go searching for mail in choppy seas in the middle of the night, a few of them launched a boat as the ship was passing and went out to search for the mail.

They returned at 8 a.m. without having seen anything and con vinced that the mail had not been dropped at all. However, when they contacted the ship by radio again, they were told that the ship’s releasing gear had become fouled and that she had been 4± miles off the island to the north-east before the mail and timber were released.

A later search from the heights of Pitcairn still located nothing, and on June 20 a radio message was sent to the ship that the chances of finding the mail were slim. The mail has not turned up since—at least, not to the end of July.