Papeete to Boulder, Faster than my Luggage

Thursday, 23 October - Sailing out of Bora Bora

Despite the wonderful circumminibus tour of Bora Bora—how many folks get to hang out with 3/4ths of the Polish Philharmonic, as one of Silversea’s cruise directors call them—Bora Bora was a bit of a disappointment compared to Moorea. Unlike Moorea as far as I can tell this small island has little worth seeing in the interior, but the ocean views and the color of the lagoons are something else. This no doubt explains the numerous “unique” hotels that consist of bungalows over the water. Actually, the place is lousy with them. We sailed out Thursday evening shortly after one of the magnificent automated sailing cruise ships of the Star Clippers line automated its sails and, uh, sailed out as it passed a “unique” hotel that consists of bungalows over the water. But, of course I’ll be back to Bora Bora and will either reiterate my remarks if I relive my experiences or do a double take upon seeing something that gets me beside myself.

Friday, 24 October - Papeete, Tahiti Nui, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Needless to say, it was in the 80s and fantastic in Tahiti. It's Tahiti for heaven's sake. This was the last arrival for me on this cruise. So the sail in with my friends on the ship, including Meralda Warren from Pitcairn Island—remember, just about everyone on Pitcairn is named Warren or Christain—was sad. I finished my preliminary packing, said my goodbyes to those disembarking the ship and heading for the hotels for their day rooms (all the flights to LA are either really late in the evening or really early in morning) and then took a walk around downtown Papeete. (PPT, Papeete International Airport is actually in Faaa or Faa’a or Fa’a’a, depending on which sign you read.) I walked a couple of miles total, mostly going in little loops around this little town, the first “city” since leaving Valparaiso, Chile two weeks ago. I wanted to make the most of it. There was even a rush hour traffic jam and parking problems. Even visited the wonderful food market and saw the unique way a local tried to appear to lose weight.

I was granted "double extended late disembarkation" on the ship and allowed not only to stay on after the 10 am disembarkation time or even the 2 pm "this means you" time for us 250+ day people but given to 6 pm—after all the newcomers had already boarded and had their muster drill—to be able to use the ship as an hotel in Papeete, right downtown. They even let me keep my cabin and suitcases so that I could come and go all day and shower. I left finally after sitting on the stern of the ship with friends and having tea, getting off the ship as it prepared to sail out within the hour or so later.

The ship’s efficient concierge, Endo, arranged for a van to the airport and was waiting for me at 6 pm on the pier to see me off. (He was glancing at the line handlers about to cast off the lines I think and seemed very happy to see me disembark.) I arrived 15 minutes and $15 later at the airport and then waited for an hour with one of the ship’s entertainers who was on the same flight for the Air Tahiti Nui Airlines check in for the 10 pm flight to Los Angeles to commence and then another hour for Passport Control to open. But I ended up at the Tahiti Nui Business Class club room as an example of not every good deed being punished. I got in by noticing that an elderly lady passenger from the ship was sitting abandoned in a wheelchair in front of immigration check point and offered to push her through. The other disembarked ship’s guests each greeted her but hurried away when Passport Control opened. (Did I mention that this last cruise segment didn’t have the most friendly group I’ve ever sailed with?) The airport redcap hired by the women, a retired Serbian translator for VOA, had disappeared apparently. (It's a French thing or maybe a consequences of the Tahitian culture with doesn’t include accepting tips.) As luck would have it, the woman was traveling Business Class on my flight. I pushed her in and the attendant at the lounge called me "un homme bien". (I would have been offended being called a "home dog", but I let it go.) They let me in the woman’s guest anyway even though my seat was in steerage. (Note: if you fly economy class on Air Tahiti Nui, all the Tahitian men are really big and have lots of tattoos. Actually all the locals were very friendly, some not so big but all with tats.) The lounge unlike the rest of the airport was air conditioned and had free wireless Internet (54 Mbps wireless and 1 kbps Internet as far as I could tell) plus free beer and wine. I let the booze go. I'm full of the stuff and it's was a long flight.

Saturday, 25 October – Boulder, CO, USA

Connection in LA went ok, and I arrived back in Boulder—with a much appreciated pickup at DIA by my buddy Paul—before dark on Saturday, a full 8 hours before my luggage which appeared by some miracle on my doorstep overnight. (Second note: Baggage recheck after Customs at LAX requires somewhat more time than a 2½ hour layover.)

This concludes the formal trip report for this most remarkable voyage except for some editing and perhaps a “Lost at Sea – IV” planned for when I get over my jet lag and pay almost overdue bills. Thanks all for letting me share my thoughts and experiences and some of the 2 GBs of pictures. I very much appreciated the e-mail comments from those of you who were kind enough to keep in touch while I was so isolated from home. Above is a detail from one of my pictures of the HEADLINE on Easter Island. Fantastic visit there even if I couldn’t get a picture of me with my arm around one of them. I look forward to hearing soon from all of you as I prepare for my next journey.

MB

Tahiti Tahiti

Thursday, 23 October – Bora Bora

Official Ruling was Rendered

I saw the retired judge this morning and he “ruled” that the passport stamp was adequate "proof" that I had visited the island given that it is almost impossible to land any ship's tender there. Also two thirds of the island's population came onboard via their specially designed longboat and I bought a T-shirt and some other stuff and hosted half of the island's kids. I am a little dubious about counting Easter Island, though, since I didn't meet any of the people and of course I didn't get any 'documentation' of the visit. So, my official count will have to be 122 as of this cruise rather than 123. The three French Polynesian islands in the Society Island grouping (Moorea, Bora Bora, and Papeete) is commonly called Tahiti although that's really just the biggest one--just like the Hawaiian Islands are called Hawaii--is my last “country” for this trip.

Report on yesterday’s “Four Wheel Drive Safari” in Moorea

Yesterday’s afternoon excursion in Moorea was remarkably good. We went up and down various very steep roads, took pictures of the ship from the mountains whose pictures I had taken from the ship, and stopped at an agricultural school where a whole lot of high school kids watched us sampling various island fruit jam that they had prepared and then a gift shop where we sampled various island fruit flavored rum with no one watching until everyone was in a very good mood. The guide kept referring to the distinctive mountain that dominates the Moorean landscape as “Bali Hai”. It did look oddly familiar. It was matted and superimposed on the ocean on the beach in Kauai where the film Hawaii was filmed and then used frequently in other movies that were actually shot in Moorea. It also appears on the French Polynesian coinage. I took lots more pictures of the mountain and scenery as well as the coin. No need to get a coin when you can take its picture. Every French Polynesian franc saved is a French Polynesian franc earned so to speak.

Today’s excursion in Bora Bora

I wanted to take a tuk tuk or a Wiki Wiki double decked bus to the Bora Bora Hilton Hilton with some friends’ friends from Walla Walla to have pu pu’s and then mahi mahi, but no one seconded my prepared plans. Instead after taking my self portrait from the mirror image on the ship I took Tender #2 paradoxically to one of the two docks at one of the two anchorages on Bora Bora.

After waiting on the warf looking needy since I hadn't book a tour on this last official day of the cruise, I was able to join six others from the ship for a complete circuit of Bora Bora in a minivan with a very competent local guide/driver. The others were the 35 year old lovely "Cruise Staff" Manuella who speaks at least 4 languages very fluently, a retired Air Canada pilot and his very lovely but more than twice as old wife, and three of the Polish Quartet from the ship. Paid $30 instead of the $66 the ship was charging to do it in an official excursion in a bus. My trip had a lot more fun group. I came back to the ship to find that they had put my suitcases on the bed. See ya.

Actually, I'm very ready to come home. I believe they will let my stay on the ship tomorrow until mid-afternoon and be able to shower and change before heading to the airport in Papeete, Tahiti for my 10 pm flight to LA.

Legal Ruling?

Wednesday, 22 October - Morea, French Polynesia (Opunohu Bay)

 

A legal ruling is in order. Arrived this morning at Morea, French Polynesia after a pilot boat flying the Tricolor loaded the local pilot and immigration officials at Papeete, Tahiti. Those of us disembarking on Friday in Polynesia had to get our passports stamped before leaving the ship this morning. It’s the first time I’ve seem my passport since boarding Silver Shadow on Sept. 17. To my surprise, my passport showed an entry stamp for Pitcairn Island although none of us set foot on the island. So, is the Tahiti island group of French Polynesia my country 121 or 122? Of course, it would have been number 123 if we had landed on Easter Island. I asked a lawyer on board and he said yes. (He had just had a bloody mary which may have made him more pliable, however.) There’s a retired Calif Superior Court judge onboard. I will ask him when I see him.

 

Took a couple of mile walk this morning along the road where the tender landed with a retired high school teacher and active viola player. He’s a member of the Travelers Century Club with 218 countries (or 219 perhaps). He looked troubled by the passport stamp issue. Please advise.

 

The locals wear flowers in their hair but have the affectation of speaking French when strangers are about. The local’s small houses along my walk were quite lovely. After lunch I will be taking the ship’s excursion titled, MOREA FOUR WHEEL DRIVER SAFARI. It is marked with a symbol of a hiker with a pack and walking stick. The tour booklet says this means, “Tour is recommended for those guests who are physically fit.” I believe this means a demonstrated ability to actually tie one’s own shoelaces.

 

 I will add to this journal entry, including pictures along with additional notes from today’s tour and from Bora Bora and Papeete in a day or so if not immediately after getting back home this weekend. Just wanted to say high from Tahiti. Who wouldn’t?

 

 

Pitcairn Island 218 Years Later: Been There, Done That, Bought a T-Shirt

Sunday, 19 October – Pitcairn Island

 

Today’s stop at Pitcairn Island was the highest highlight of the cruise. We lingered at Bounty Bay (Yes, named for HMS Bounty and all that. The ship’s remains is right below the surface of a nearby cove. Somebody said something happened with that ship some time ago, something about Charles Laughton and Clarke Gable. You might have seen the movie). We lingered for a few hours controlling the position with the bow thrusters since the sea was too rough for anchoring but long enough for 27 of the 41 residents of this volcanic rock very far from EVERYWHERE to come onboard in an oversized powered rowboat with a gonzo tiller. They brought T-shirts, handy crafts that they make in case a ship comes by, honey, and a lovely bunch of coconuts and other local produce and set up a set of tables in a hallway on Silver Shadow. The well behaved friendly guests (NOT!) onboard immediately stormed the tables making a scene I haven’t observed since Klein’s basement closed. But the local’s visit in this most isolated and remarkable spot was one of the very best port visits ever in my almost two years of shipboard traveling to 120 countries! (Ed. Note: would have been 121 by now if I could go to the bathroom in Easter Island and Pitcairn on this trip, but I don’t feel cheated on these ports in any other way.)

 

Here’s some isolated observations from our 4 hour visit here:

 

• The local group included a uniformed policeman. I asked what a cop does on an island of 41 related people (very related, this is a gene puddle. Everyone has the surnames Christian or Warren), all decedents of Fletcher Christian and 8 of his coconspirators to left Tahiti on the lam and scuttled HMS Bounty here. The answer from a delightful mom who brought her kids onboard—more on them below—was that since everyone was related and had dinner together, the cop’s job was to resolved personal disputes. I imagined that this referred to a radio being too loud or the four or five kids on the island playing on someone’s lawn, although some worse problems were in the news a few years ago. It is a very small and isolated place where everyone shares, perhaps a bit too much. Look it up.
• Regarding law enforcement, I saw our ship’s Security Officer on deck. He stopped by where I was standing and said to me, “Let’s go ashore and steal some stuff since the whole island is on this ship, and no one would suspect the ship’s security officer.” No fooling. He’s a fun guy, but don’t do anything hinkey.
• About half of the island’s kids were huddled under one of the craft tables. I asked the boy if he was bored. He said, “Very!”. So I went to our Cruise Director and asked if she could do something about this. She immediately sent one of her staff to take the kids on a tour of our ship—which has 10 times the total population of this island—and they sat at the bar having Cokes and then played shuffleboard for a while. It was my good deed of the day. I asked the boy if he know the girl and if she was ok. She said that she was his sister, and she immediately said, “I’m very ok”. They let me take my picture with them.
• Chatted quite a bit with Sheila Christian (who sold me a T-shirt), a New Zealander who married “this weird guy who said he lives in a small town, but I didn’t know the half of it until he took me back home to HERE”. She’s been on Pitcairn a couple of years and says she doesn’t want to leave ever. Pitcairn has electricity for 4 hours twice each day. They get CNN International (unlike Silver Shadow which seems to be locked on FOX Noise Channel) and have a good Internet connection. The kids told me that they hate newspapers since the Internet is much better. Go figure.
• Speaking of communications, I met the current local ham and had a nice conversation. (He had an ICOM microphone on his lapel. He told me he was the “communications guy for the island.”) He gave me his VP6 call letters but said he doesn’t go on the air much since “the Internet is a lot more fun.” Tom Christian, VP6TC, the famous ham I and every other ham of the early 1960s talked as our first “DX” contact in the Pacific, is still an active ham but is in New Zealand getting a pacemaker at the moment.
• We took on a passenger, a local woman who is going to a crafts fair in Tahiti. She will be catching another cruise ship back to Pitcairn in November.
• At noon, the local folks climbed down the pilot’s rope ladder into their very large tiller boat and putted away after loading on cases of Coke, some wine, and an assortment of pillow chocolates and other goodies, and we took a 290 degree heading and speeded up to 17.2 knots for the two day 1600 mile journey to Moorea, French Polynesia where we will arrive at 10 am on the 22^nd.

 

The interactions with the locals—most of all there are—was infinitely more satisfying that actually setting foot on this rock, of course. Pitcairn is now under the administrative control of New Zealand rather than the UK (the reason for the change of amateur call letter prefix changing from VR6 to VP6 it appears). So the locals have always spoken England as well as a Polynesian dialect and despite the crude joking onboard this ship, they seemed genuinely friendly and happy to meet us. Perhaps they are too accepting in this regard, I’m afraid to say, since the crowd on this cruise segment seems to me to be—with a few very notable exceptions—to be the most spoiled grumpy bunch I’ve every traveled with. I don’t have to hang out with every one of the 249 of so guests of course, but it was a dark spot in an otherwise brilliant morning when a 70ish guest came from our Pitcairn “mall” set up by the Paranormal, uh, Panorama Lounge hallway and said to me, “This is all show business. These folks are milking us for all we’re worth, selling us overpriced T-shirts and poorly made handicrafts. They really have dozens of ships visiting every month, and they are all putting on an act by saying they are all alone here.” (MB note: The Captain said that there are about a dozen ships of any kind that stop here a year and many can not even board the locals, much less set guests on shore.) Even though I’ve never talked to this guy before, I responded that I thought the experience of meeting the locals and seeing what they had to sell was fantastic and that even if what he said might be true (it isn’t off course), that is part of what this kind of cruise is all about. He snarled at me and said, “You must be a better person than I am.” Instead of just shaking my head and walking away, I felt the need to say, “I agree with you completely.”

 

It’s 79 degrees. I just had a nice lunch of bowtie pasta in a custom made mushroom sauce and Nasi Goring (sambal on the side) with a dry California Chenin Blanc as Pitcairn disappeared off the stern. Time to enjoy the last two sea days before Moorea on Wednesday, Bora Bora on Thursday Thursday, and then off the ship (boo) on Friday for the overnight trip home. The cruise has gone much too quickly. Champagne Room tonight for dinner despite the $30 over charge. Oh well. Someone has to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Island GPS Track & Lost at Sea - III

Documenting the Easter Island Circumnavigation

 

The GPS track of the ship’s route is above for those interested in our circumnavigation of Easter Island. For all it’s worth, the more the other guests got grumpy yesterday about the boat (albeit a very big boat) tour of Easter Island and its maoi, the more I got in a good mood. The day was fantastic, and I suppose I got to see enough of the place that with the narration for the two ship’s lecturers I felt that I had really been there. Setting foot on land would have been nice, but many of us would have been happy with a seaward excursion had it been offered as the alternative to a long dusty bus ride.

 

Persona du Bateau

 

Also we sailed around Easter Island I became aware that a rumor is going around the ship that I am a professional reporter who is writing an article about this cruise. I didn’t believe this until a guest who I have not met before came over to me and told me that the wrong salad dressing was on their salad at last night’s dinner and proceeded to spell their first and last name slowly.

 

Of course, my dinner with the Hotel Director a few nights ago may have had something to do with my new persona du bateau. Michele is a 47 year old Napolitano who was running the Silver Whisper last February on my cruise from Sydney to Hong Kong. We had planned to have dinner then, and it finally was able to get scheduled on this cruise. The HD is in a way at the same level of management as the captain and of course has a much larger staff. He runs the operation of the cruise ship, although the captain gets to move it around on a frequent basis. With some thought it is easy to understand how the duties of these two “bosses” divide and they don’t seem to need to spend much time with each other.

 

We hit it off quite well and had a fantastic dinner. (Do you think that maybe the chef made some extra care in the food for us?) I spent some time before the dinner thinking about how not to say anything that might sound like a complaint, and certainly not to mention any individual or anything that might be traced to any individual. It was a social dinner with a kind of business slant, with him getting my opinion from a perhaps educated if not process oriented point of view and he enlightening me about a profession that I have no knowledge of. We also shared personal “life stories” and drank a lot of very nice wine. Michele is recovering from a painful divorce, and that came up. I was honored that he chose me to dine with. His pager only went off once during the dinner. Something about “a hose breaking.” I’m sure his interest probably had to do more with a guest possibly getting hurt or the cleanup of the carpet. The Captain (actually Staff Captain) would be more concerned with actually fixing said hose. See how this works?

 

As luck would have it, the Tour Desk Manager of the previous two cruise segments did come up. Actually, the Hotel Director brought it up. (It was in the section of the dinner conversation titled, “Boy, do I get a long queue of guests at my office when someone screws up.”) I politely asked how this guy would be viewed for future cruise assignments with Silversea. The answer was one word: “Finito”. I guess the white rabbit is permanently down the rabbit hole. I have to admit I asked a Head Waiter who was the only countryman of the ex-Tour Manager a few nights later if the guy who is now gone had some personal problems that would have generated such poor performance. The response was, “Colombia has many GOOD things. Don’t be discouraged.” As I said, it’s a very personal experience on a small ship, and I have lots of friends on the crew.

 

In the Middle of the Ocean

 

I suspect that a great deal of folks who have not done ocean crossings feel that the deep ocean affects shipboard comfort in an, uh, adverse way. Yes the ocean is miles deep here and we are very far from land, but of course only the first 20 feet of so of the water matters to this ship. More water below the keel is of marginal interest. Storms near shore can be a lot more troublesome, and ships in general often leave port to “weather the storm” at sea rather than take a chance being battered by the dock or snapping the lines and drifting into say a gasoline tanker. The cruise lines usually plan the routes across the ocean to avoid the latitudes of possible storms. Equatorial cruises mostly experience no weather at all, doldrums being what they are. Itineraries that cross the North Atlantic in winter, for example, are an exception as are Caribbean cruises in September or October. There’s a reason such trips are heavily discounted: most experienced travelers should know better than to book a heavily discounted cruise. It’s like paying to see the “best ballerina from Romania”, say. Ya get what you pay for when the itinerary is cheap and sometimes a lot more than you wanted.

 

The discussion above seemed appropriate to be included here because of the few incidences of my mentioning “swells” and “listing” and “sea water streaming into the ship”, “coffee flying out of cups”, “small tables rolling across the room”, etc. Stuff like that. Perhaps I exaggerated. Me? In reality it should be understood that this is a big hotel that does float, but it’s a big hotel that is 610 feet long and weighs almost 30,000 tons. (Of course, most Hiltons for example are not weighed as a rule.) It would be impossible to run a huge kitchen, multiple restaurants, a theater, conference rooms, and all the business offices of a ship (or a hotel) if the darn thing kept tilting over and bouncing up and down to a great extent. Yes, there is some movement from time to time, but 99% of the time if there is noticeable movement it is very slow and you have to look for it—by sighting against a railing or windowsill—and most of the time there is no perceivable feeling of motion. This is what you would expect of a hotel, and that is the experience just about all the time. People do have stories of rough days at sea, and it does happen of course. In almost two years worth of traveling on smallish cruise ships, I have experienced about three days where I’ve rather been on land. But all the other times that motion was felt it was subtle and not at all anything like that of a car, train, or anything smaller than a very large building. This is a hotel after all.

 

OK, you want to know about waves and swells. It’s the latter that I’ve mentioned from time to time, you might have noted. Waves are caused by the wind. They are generally very short period: that is close together. They’re the things that develop whitecaps when it’s windy and might spray the rich but cheap folks on the lower decks who insist on sitting on their verandas on windy days. Waves are not usually an issue for big ships. They cut right through them. The swell, however, is much more interesting. Swells are caused by storms thousands (!) of miles away. This part of the Pacific is known for as a high swell area because of the typhoons in the Oriental waters this time of year. My oceanography friends (?) explain how the propagation of waves from far away bunch up as they propagate from afar to form the swell, and problems can develop when the local waves and a large swell are at crossed directions of course. But at any rate, the swell is very long period, up to 100s of feet apart but can be quite high. It’s swell that makes ships slowly pitch up and down. (Rolling isn’t a problem with modern stabilizers. That’s a good thing, of course.) You might notice the swell—currently I estimate at 10 feet peak to trough—and the almost nonexistent waves in the above picture I am about to take from the bow and will include above. We are truly in the middle of the ocean now, 26.5S 116.5W. Look on the globe. We’re about a third of the way from Easter Island to Pitcairn Island. That’s the middle of the ocean by anyone’s measure. Right? The GPS trace on the in room TVs show a pulsating circle with only blue for the entire screen. (Note the distortion on the HDTV 16:9 aspect ratio set showing a 4:3 picture on ALMOST EVERY CHANNEL FOR THE LAST 5 WEEKS. (But this is not bothering me, the TV distortion freak that I am, see.) The weather is clear now, the wind light, temperature at 9 am MDT (same time zone for today only as Boulder) is 70 degrees with highs expected about 80. Water temperature is about 72 or so I estimate. It is a glorious day as it almost always is in the “middle of the ocean.” Oh yes, this hotel bobbed like a cork for a few moments as we entered a few ports in Peru and Chile, but it was a fun E-ticket ride as long as you held on. It is not like that at sea, and most generally on the high seas. Again, the rich folks who book the suites on Deck 9 at the bow may have their designer luggage roll in and out from under their beds, but high and forward is not the best place on a pitching ship. The very very rich are not like you or I. Those of us who think about it book cabins amidships and low. So there.

 

 

Galley lunch today. I won’t hug the new pastry chef for making my lactose free chocolate desserts. He’s a tall guy with a mustache. It was a lot more fun with Annemarie, but she left in Valparaiso. I’m ready to come home. I miss everyone and a “real” life, such as it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Swell Day at Rapa Nui or Don't Have a Stone Face on Easter Island

Thursday, 16 October – Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Even with another hour gained to the same time zone as Chicago, the beginning of the breaking of dawn over Easter Island was not evident at 6:30 am. The Southern Cross was however, although it appeared upside down on the Southern horizon. Even alpha and beta Centauri were easily seen despite the very gibbous barely waning moon setting straight ahead over where a few bright lights were indicating this very isolated island’s presence. (This is intended to be poetic. Enjoy.) The sky looked like the Australian flag was indicating distress. Perhaps it knew something.

The view of the arrival to the planned anchorage at Hango Roa, the main town here, was also truly swell. So was the swell. A matter of fact, the swell was 15 to 20 feet and the ship now not underway and the stabilizers retracted to allow the little yellow boat full of Chilean officials to come aboard to have their coffee and check that we were not trying to enter this most western part of their country illegally was greeted by the 3^rd deck entry port opened to let them in. What came in was sea water as the huge and very long period swell was listing this 28,253 ton ship 15 to 20 degrees. The little yellow boat turned away and went back to shore as the port was closed and we pulled up the anchor and headed back out to sea. The Captain came on the PA and announced he had a “Plan B”. We then sailed around the island to the north side of the island where a lovely little beach lay, there was no swell, and weather was spectacularly fine, and where the little jetty that would have allowed to easy access to the island had been. The ship’s tender sailed out to where the jetty was a few weeks ago when A HUGE SWELL had taken it away and looked for an alternative access to the land. After a while—time for another little yellow boat to bring the officials who had driven across the island along with a bunch of tour buses—the tender came back and the captain announced that the weather was fine but the tender couldn’t get close enough to shore to bring the guests onto Easter Island after all. So we stayed anchored in this most beautiful cove, took pictures of where the picnic 120 of us had signed up for would have been, and also of the maoi that were on the beach. They looked forlorn as is their wont. (They also have stone topknots. Make of that what you will.) Many of the guests became very feisty and/or downright grumpy about seeing but not “bagging” another “country” (note all the quotes), but some of us were enjoying taking pictures of the huge stone statues like mad and discussing techniques of photoshopping these pictures with the ones we were taking of each other together as well as how to spend the $205 or so the all day tour and picnic now to be refunded would have cost. Note the maoi at the extreme right of the my picture as we were anchored at Honga Roa. The immigration officials left after a few hours of rubber stamping and the captain commenced a slow circuit of the island as the new port lecturer earned his keep (well, as much as ship’s enrichment lecturers earn anything) by giving a narration of all the maoi’s we passed, especially the row of them looking out at the point of rock called Tangariki. He then said that these were only really visible from sea and not easily seen from the $205 tour we had all saved the money from not setting foot on shore. One wag onboard even suggested that seeing hundreds of these “big heads” for 6½ hours might have been a bit much and that it was awfully nice to enjoy being at Easter Island without the hassle of being forcibly hurled into the tender (the swell was smaller but not nonexistent on the north side), without a long bus ride to see even more of these statues, and of not having to worry about eating a possibly lactose laden lunch. Guess who that was. Nevertheless, many of these fairly unpleasant to begin with crowd on this segment of the cruise were having hissy fits (I had found out that a group from the Travelers Century Club were onboard ready to add up this place to their long lists of countries visited), but the dozen or so friends I’ve made on this cruise all seemed to have pretty much the same attitude as I did. We had a great time in this fantastic and very special location and felt we “did” this unbelievable remote and strange place. We agreed that we felt as if we really saw it sufficiently and especially in this great weather. For the record, we are 2237 miles West of continental Chile and 1290 miles east of the next stop of Pitcairn. As I write this the port lecturer is giving a lecture of Pitcairn in the foolish hope that in 3 days we will actually land the tenders there. Even the ship’s brochure says that “few people EVER make it onshore at Pitcairn”. Something about a place called Disaster Hill, I seem to recall. But I’m looking forward to great pictures in another fantastic anchorage there and then the probable mutiny of the Silver Shadow by guests that will echo Fletcher Christian’s event of 1790.

Having a great time. Really. Wish you were here to replace some of the grumps that are actually here. Gotta go. It’s “Ice Cream Social” time on the pool deck. They promised to have some sorbet for me. With nuts and raspberry sauce.

Robinson Crusoe Island - No Friday on Sunday

Sunday, 12 October – Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile

 

429 miles sailing from the Chilean coast is Mas a Tierra which oddly enough means “Closer to Land”. The Chileans upon realizing that 429 miles isn’t really close renamed the largest of the islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, Robinson Crusoe Island. Why this name was chosen is unknown other than a sailor named Alexander Selkirk was marooned here in 1704. He lived alone on this volcanic rock (the highest of a number of the incredibly green mountains here rises to 3,000 feet above sea level) for almost 4½ years before being rescued by a ship carrying a writer named Daniel Defoe. Hey, do you think….? Nah.

 

Selkirk’s journal states that by the time he was recued he could no longer speak intelligibly and “had only goats as friends”. He mentions one goat particularly fondly, but he told Defoe that he only saw it socially on Fridays. Perhaps the details got changed a bit in the novel. Actually RCI is pretty darn spectacular. There are 146 native species of plants of which 101 exist no where else and all sorts of interesting birds and about 1000 seals which are known for their bad breathe. Honest. (This might explain Selkirk’s interest in goats, not seals.) The very rare Double Skinned Seal lives here. I told a number of the others at lunch that this was so that they could swim through the ice when the water was frozen. A few wrote that down in their notes. The guide book also speaks lovingly of the red hummingbird which is famous for “its needle-fine black beak and silken feather coverage.” I believe Selkirk might have written the guidebook.

 

We arrived this morning during a rainstorm that seemed only to be only turning the unpaved streets to mud but made for a pretty nifty sunrise—we anchored at 8 am in the dark due to the ill advised time change to daylight savings time for all of Chile last night—and sailed out of Cumberland Bay four hours later apparently because the sun came out and the mud was drying out. I took the first ship’s tender (we call it “the cork”) and after documenting my visit to “country #121 upon landing made a little hike up a hill to the aeronautical radio and automated weather site for the airstrip on the other side of the island (they use a ferry to get people around the island from the airstrip to town) and then back around the town. The surprisingly pretty and well kept municipality of San Juan Bautista accommodates 100% of the entire islands population of 600. The town runs a TVRO dish and rebroadcasts a number of TV channels to the locals from a couple of yagi antennas on a pole. Since a total number of tourists of only a few hundred a year actually visit Robinson Crusoe Island, those of us who left the ship here pretty much made for 1/3^rd of the 2008 count. So it was pretty surprising that the couple of shops in town opened only for about an hour before closing for the day. It was equally surprising that the shops had picture postcards of OUR SHIP on them, island tee-shirts and hats, and the tiny post office opened. The crowd of ship’s passengers were a bit disappointed that the PO only could sell them regular Chilean postage stamps. That is, none of the stamps were unique to Robinson Crusoe Island, but ultimately that didn’t seem to limit the trade. I suspect the postcards mailed from here will arrive with the next shipment of spiny lobsters for which the island is famous. This might explain why there is a small restaurant on the wharf. It is named, “The Slow Restaurant”. Honest. I guess the pace of life (and restaurant service) is slow here. This is a this little rock in the middle of the South Pacific 500 miles from Santiago, Chile for heaven’s sake. It all makes sense. Even the goat thing.

 

By the way, the 2^nd sink in the bathroom in my suite is ideal for washing the mud off shoes. The Bulgari bath soap will make the sneakers smell very nice. Now for 3½ days at sea to find out if we can actually land at Easter Island.