NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2026 Mar 4, 14:56 -0800
Why will A.I. take over as the internet's fountain of information? Maybe because there are so many Wikipedia articles left to rot by their human editors. There are plenty of cases in navigation and related topics. I saw one just today.
Recently, I noted that the subSun point was above an island just off the coast of Australia inside the Barrier Reef. The island is called "Restoration Island" and was named that to honor the date of the restoration of the British monarchy under King Charles II but primarily it got that name, given by William Bligh, because it was the salvation of Bligh and the Loyalists after their open boat voyage following the mutiny on the Bounty. But if you read in the Wikipedia article on HMS Bounty, you'll find this account:
28 May: Landfall on a small island north of New Hebrides. [nope] Named "Restoration Island" by Captain Bligh
30–31 May: Bounty launch transits to a second nearby island, named "Sunday Island"
1–2 June: Bounty launch transits 42 miles to a third island, named "Turtle Island"
3 June: Bounty launch sails into the open ocean towards Australia [nope]
That's got the geography quite wrong!
The article on the mutiny itself appears to have it right, which is another interesting feature of Wikipedia. You might wonder why no one noticed this problem with the Bounty article. But they did! If you visit the "Talk" page on the Bounty article, the error is noted and available for any of the volunteer editors to fix. Just recently? No... This was noted and written up some seven years ago!
If you would like to see this little island in Google Maps, you can start at a spot known even today as Bligh Boat Entrance. That's the gap in the reef where the boat left the rough ocean and entered the relative calm behind the Great Barrier Reef. You'll find Restoration Island about 25 miles northwest from there, very close to the mainland.
Attached is a different sort of map of the voyage of the Bounty. I'm working on globe views for my Lunars and Advanced Lunars workshops which are coming soon...
Frank Reed
Clockwork Mapping / ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island USA
