Reconnaissance of Rapa Nui Island

Note: I posted two articles together here. Read the Pitcairn one first to stay in order. It is dated April 26, 2013.

Rapa Nui is the Spanish name for Easter Island and that is where the MS Marina had been anchored the past three days.  You might remember from the last blog post that we got there a little earlier than we were supposed to because we had to get a lady to the hospital. We all had to hang on for a rather bumpy crossing from French Polynesia, due to the fact that the Captain had the peddle to the metal, all the way over from Fakarava. With all sincerity, I hope that that lady has had her surgery and she is fairing well because we didn't get to stop at Pitcairn Island. In the plus column though, we got an extra half-day at Rapa Nui.

Hanga Roa, the town on Easter Island from our ship

Welcome from Chilean Authorities

Rapa Nui surfers

How isolated is Easter Island?  It’s really isolated! The nearest inhabited land (50 residents) is Pitcairn Island (yes, the one we skipped) at 2,075 kilometers (1,289 mi), and the nearest continental point lies in central Chile, at 3,512 kilometers (2,182 mi). It is so far from anything else that it is rarely visited by cruise-ships. We are very lucky because only about 10-12 cruise ships stop by here in any given year. And isolation isn’t the only problem, there is no big dock here, so people coming in by sea have to endure a tricky transfer from their ship, to a tender that bounces up and down, on a 4-5 foot swell. Then the tenders themselves must dodge some nasty rocks, to land at a narrow landing area, that has room for only one boat at a time. We made the landing though, more than once, and I have plenty to tell you about from our time on the island.

typical shoreline, no easy approaches

We were up bright and early on the first full day to do something fairly aggressive. We hiked up the tallest volcano on the island and then turned around and descended the mountain on the other side. The hike was 10 kilometers in distance and included a 1500 ft. climb and descent. We began the climb in a rehabilitated forest of eucalyptus trees and climbed steadily to the top of Maunga Terevaka. At the peak we could look out past all four shores of the island to the four different horizons in the Pacific Ocean.  We also looked down on the other two volcanoes that formed the island. On our descent, we took a different route, passing by a few small farms of pineapple, corn and other crops and ended the hike, at the sacred site of Ahu Akiva.

our German/Chilian/Hanga Roan guide

Hanga Roa from up on the volcano

the ship and town from the summit

Mrs. Gym on the summit

Ahu Akiva is the most interesting of all the Moai sites.  Whoa, what’s a moai? A moai is a monolithic memorial to a noteable personage out of the ancient Rapa Nui history, erected at a burial site called an Ahu. These grand statues are the pinnacle of Polynesian culture and are unique to Easter Island. The typical moai represents a deified ancestor of the Rapa Nui people. The most interesting fact about these memorial statues is that they all have disproportionately larger heads then their bodies. This fact is why a pilgrimage to Easter Island was of interest to me.  My family is also known for its disproportionately larger heads and I was astounded to find out that an ancient culture actually worshiped this attribute.  I had to come to visit the Easter Island Heads.

This is where the hike ended

The seven navigators that face the setting sun at Eqinox

At Ahu Akiva, the seven moai situated in a line facing west, all face the sea. These are the only moai on the island that face the sea and that is what makes this site so special. In fact, these moai at Aku Akiva face the setting sun at the Equinox. Why are these ones allowed to face the sea, you might ask? The answer is because these moai represent the seven navigators that discovered Rapa Nui from  Polynesia, arriving sometime before 1200 AD. They get to look back from where they came from but all other moai on the island face inland.

On our second full day, we did not have an organized tour and we did our own thing. We got off the tender in the morning and took the first taxi driver we saw into a heated negotiation, on a flat rate fee, for a several hour road-trip. He wanted $150 and we got him down to $80. Then we went to Ahu Tongariki and Rano Raraku. Ahu Tongariki is a beautiful inlet on the south end of the island where 15 inward facing moai are lined up near the rocky shore.  They are quite stunning.

15 moai at Ahu Tongariki

only one is still wearing his topknot, the others had them too but they "fell" off

the largest standing moai

a nice view from higher up

Rano Raraku is the quarry where all moai were made and where you can still see unfinished moai half-carved out of the rock. The quarry is made possible by the type of rock located at this crater. It is consolidated volcanic ash or tuff, a soft rock that the ancient Rapa Nui found to be soft enough to carve, using tools made of the harder rock which is more common on the island. We did the walking tour of the quarry and it was really cool. As a bonus, we also hiked around the backside of the quarry and over the crater’s rim, to view the stunning crater-lake that exists inside Rano Raraku.

moai scattered about the quarry

unfinished project

he was going to be a big one

beautiful crater lake behind the quarry

looking out from the lip of the crater

wild horses (the one second from left looks like our old horse
which I thought had gone to Paris)

The taxi driver then took us back to Hanga Roa, the town and only inhabited area on the island. We intended to do a little shopping before getting back onto one of the tenders. After viewing moai all day, I was also curious to see if any of the Hanga Roan locals were drawn to me because of my large noggin, thinking that they may have a potential deity in their midst. They weren’t.

We left Rapa Nui last evening at 6PM and started the long crossing to Lima, Peru. We are actually heading back into the tropics to get to Peru. We had veered just south of the Tropic of Capricorn to visit Rapa Nui. This morning the air temperature matches the sea temperature at about 26C. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow.

We hope for flat seas and sunny weather during the long crossing. My next post will be from Peru unless something amusing happens on the boat.

WEDNESDAY, 1 MAY 2013

April 26, 2013 - Passing up Pitcairn

April 26, 2013

Passing Up Pitcairn

Sad news yesterday, our ship’s Captain made the decision not to land at the Pitcairn Islands. This is really a shame because it is such an odd place that I really wanted to visit it and may not now get another chance. Let me tell you a little bit about why I am so disappointed in the Captain’s decision and then I will tell you why he made that decision.

For those of you that read, Mutiny on the Bounty or saw one of the five movies based on the event, you know that there was this ‘bad guy’ name of Fletcher Christian. Mr. Christian led a group of mutineers against a Royal Navy Captain, name of William Bligh. The mutineers took the ship and left Captain Bligh and his loyal officers and crew in a long boat with some food and water. The mutineers then picked up some ladies in French Polynesia and sailed over to Pitcairn Island where they decided to sink the ship and lay low with their women until the heat was off. The mutineers got rid of the evidence by sinking the Bounty, right where we were to anchor the Marina, in what is now called Bounty Bay. Bounty Bay is just offshore of Adamstown, the capital of the Pitcairn Islands and it is presently the home of the descendants of Mr. Christian and his band of mutineers.  I was very much looking forward to meeting one of those islanders and sending someone a postcard with a Pitcairn stamp on it. Adamstown is also really isolated and I wanted to see how a community like that had succeeded in surviving for all those years.

But alas, we are bolting past Pitcairn, doing something under 20 knots and bucking a headwind. Yes, I said twenty knots! What’s the rush? Well, that is the reason we won’t be stopping. Some poor guest broke her hip on a staircase and frankly did a nasty job of it. She is in the sick bay probably under heavy medication. Why not stop at Pitcairn and get her into the hospital there you might ask? Well, not only is there no hospital there, there is nothing that would benefit that poor sole on Pitcairn and the longer she waits for surgery the worse it might be for her. The nearest appropriate evacuation point is the airfield is at Easter Island, Chile which is another 950 nautical miles away and that is where we are heading, poste haste. The poor lady needs surgery and can only get it on the mainland.

The Captain has made his call. It was a difficult decision because many of us were looking forward to meeting the folks in Adamstown. However, most of my shipmates agree that the Captain has made the right decision and if I were in his position, I probably would have done the same thing. The only alternative of course was to lead a mutiny and put the injured lady and the Captain in a long boat. Then, we would set a course over to the Pitcairn Islands where we would off-load all the booze, fine china and good food. We could then sink the Marina in a bay that would henceforth be named Marina Bay. Just kidding...

When I said we were currently in an isolated area, I wasn’t kidding. You can go thousands of miles in any direction from where we are right now and there is no major population center. I now realize how big the Pacific Ocean really is and marvel at how people like Captain Bligh did it in those old sailing ships without diesel-electric engines, twin variable pitch propellers. internet, an espresso bar, casino and workout facilities.

Life is good if you don’t get seasick. We have been bumping along into what they say is a bit of a gale, running into headwinds and 3.5 meter waves. It is a workout just going to the bathroom! And I am sure many of you may be wondering how my dear wife is doing? She is just fine! She has not been sick once (that I know of) and has definitely got her sea legs now. We haven’t tried dancing yet though.