… to Easter Island, Chile …

… also known as Rapa Nui, a Polynesian island 2,237 miles from mainland Chile. The entire island is a Unesco World Heritage Site, one of the world’s most isolated inhabited places. Our biggest challenge was getting ashore after our arrival; six foot swells buffeted the tenders (the ship’s lifeboats) on the way to shore. There is no pier or dock on Easter Island, so the ship’s crew rigged up a landing site with one anchored tender, and a small floating plank dock before stepping ashore. The tenders pulled up to the anchored tender, and passengers stepped from one tender to the next, onto the platform, and then ashore. However, in the swells, the tenders moved independently, and the leap from one to the next had to be well timed to ensure passengers were not injured. In addition, the plank dock bobbed up and down in the waves, making the transfer even more exciting. Late in the afternoon, the original plank dock broke, and a second malfunctioned as hundreds of passengers waited on shore to re-board the ship. The crew was amazing, pitching in to help, and everyone made it back safely. However, two of the lifeboats were damaged, and will be repaired in Sydney.

Easter Island is tiny - only 15.3 miles long by 7.6 miles wide. The large stone statues or moai for which the island is famous were carved from 1100 to 1680 AD according to radio-carbon dating. 887 statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections. Although they are often referred to as “Easter Island heads” the statues include complete torsos, with the figures kneeling on bent knees with their hands over their bulging stomachs. The hands have long fingers and fingernails. Some of the statues have been buried up to their necks by shifting soil.

The landing site was a beach with 7 standing moai or fragments, a lone moai, and 3 or 4 moai laying down. The separate red headgear was made to simulate a top-knot; it is believed that the island was ruled by people with red hair.

   

Easter Island has no real tourism infrastructure; we shopped at a few rudimentary souvenir stands selling small moai and shell jewelry, walked along the beautiful beach, and had a soda at a refreshment stand, whose colorful owner was roasting chicken over lava stones.

   

An excursion took us to several sites with more moai. At the first stop, 15 standing statues were placed along a lovely beach, facing inland, with a few more moai toppled in the sand.

   

The island has 3000 inhabitants, and more than 4000 horses, most of them running wild. Horses pose the biggest threat to the moai, using them as back-scratchers, toppling them, and trampling the carefully arranged stone platforms on which the statues stand. 2000 head of cattle are also raised here, along with a few sheep and goats.

  

Our favorite stop of the trip was the ancient quarry where the moai were carved. Moai were everywhere! These statues had no eye sockets, because the sockets were carved only when a statue reached its resting place. Each statue is thought to represent a single deceased person, and all originally had eyes. One theory is that the statues were carved at the quarry, gently worked free of the surrounding stone, and moved with ropes and logs carefully down the slope. The statues remaining here may have fallen while being moved. Many are buried up to their necks, but all have bodies beneath the surface.

 

Our last stop was in Tahai; a line of moai sat on a beach, facing inland as before, with their backs to the ocean. The most interesting moai here has its eyes replaced as they originally were and is the only moai on the island with eyes. 

   

We drove through the town of Tahia; a jumble of small buildings and houses, it is the only place on the island with electricity and water. All water is brought from this town to the farms and other homes on the island.

And then the tender ride back to the ship. We were very fortunate to get aboard after only a short wait; some passengers waited more than two hours in the heat and humidity before being ferried to the ship. This delay in departure means we will have to do 21 knots an hour in order to reach Tahiti in time, on Thursday morning. Fortunately we will have to spend extra time re-fueling, so our visit to Papeete will last into the evening. Until then, several more relaxing days at sea, where we will gain an hour every night, meaning a very good night’s sleep!