Sunday, April 16, 2006

Departed FLL at 7:00 pm on DL1201, an MD-88, 2-hours up to Atlanta. The MD-88 has a crowded first class section. No food, just bloody marys and crackers. Arrived Atlanta 15 min early. Good thing, as the connecting flight left from concourse E while we arrived at “A.” Took the shuttle train. Met another couple Easter Island bound. Dick and Jean Smith. They’ve signed on for three segments and have cabin 117, the one we wanted. They signed up immediately after getting the brochure.

Flt 427 is a B-767 with a combined first class and business class cabin. Fully reclining seats. I could not see any difference in the seats of the amenities or the food service between First and Business class. Food was good, although the server kept getting our selections mixed up. We slept a little until awakened for breakfast 45 minutes out of Santiago. Paul’s legs cramped up. Probably dehydrated.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Cost $100 each to enter Chile. Lindblad meet and greet lady already had our luggage on a trolley by time we got to baggage claim. She took us to a private Mercedes Benz van staffed by Lindblad-hired crew who took us to Grand Hyatt along new highway. Lindblad had a welcome room waiting for us with OJ and cookies. We’re in room 201

After a nap, lunched in the lobby and strolled around the grounds. Was able to log onto the Internet and check my e-mail.

There are apparently 108 passengers signed up for this trip, a nearly full ship. Lindblad ran a cocktail party and dinner for everyone at the hotel and Tom Ritchie introduced Pete Puleston and Jim Kelley with whom we’ve traveled before. Most all of the guests are Lindblad veterans of many voyages. Many, like us, have sailed with Tom Ritchie before.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

We set our alarms for 4 am Tuesday to catch a 5-hour flight out to Easter Island. The island is two hours later than Santiago, the same as Denver Colorado. We arrived before local noon at Mataveri Airport, a 15,000 ft. runway that bisects the island. The story is that NASA lengthened and strengthened the runway to serve as an emergency-landing site for the space shuttle. We are at The Taha Tai hotel. Another contingent is at Hanga Roa, a hotel with the same name as the town.

After lunch we are bussed in little Mercedes Benz vans to a quarry called Puna Pau, where the reddish stone originates that were carved to form the maoi (statue’s) top knot, or hat. A number of carved cylinders are lying about. Later, we visited Ahu Akivi, the first restored altar of the island, with its characteristic seven statues.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Easter Islanders famously exhausted their natural resources, trees, and thus were unable to continue to build the large outrigger canoes that enabled Polynesians to visit the other islands of the Pacific.  Isolated, and perhaps affected by the periodic Pacific droughts (El Nino), the islanders made war upon each other, and by time Europeans came upon the islands in the 1700's, had destroyed many of the maoi, or monolithic statues carved from volcanic tuff. In the 1960’s a tsunami scattered the toppled statues, further compromising what was left of the Polynesian society that created these remarkable monoliths.

At about that time a group of young archeologists began to document the scattered remnants and began the work of restoration. We met three of these scientists who recounted what they have been able to reconstruct of the society that created the statues, the society that destroyed them and the early European visitors, whose drawings and written record of what they found documented the destruction throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Their biggest coup was the donation of a heavy-lift crane by a Japanese company, which also contributed funds to enable the reconstruction and restoration of several sites, which we visited. At Ahu Tongariki, our archeologists completed the reconstruction in the 1990’s.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

After visiting the extinct volcanic crater that is the most prominent feature of the southern part of the island, we boarded rubber Zodiacs for a wet ride through the breaking surf out the National Geographic Endeavour. This is the same ship, then named Caledonian Star, that we took to Antarctica and to Spitzbergen in the high arctic. She has been extensively refitted and renovated with flat-screen plasma TV monitors, all new navigation electronics (following the encounter with a 100’ wave off the Falklands, 5 years ago). She is fresh from dry dock in Chile, where an internet satellite dish was installed and a connection run to each cabin, plus a wireless internet access in the public spaces. We are in cabin 116, the same cabin we had when we went to the arctic. This is the first time the “Little Blue Ship” has explored the South Pacific, so it will be an adventure for the crew as well as the passengers.

April 21, 2006 at sea 26º 25.86”S; 113º 53.11”W

We are heading almost due west at about 13 kts with a slow ocean swell from the NW. The day passes quietly with lectures in the lounge on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Sea Birds of the South Pacific by Brent Houston. In the evening Capt. Lampe introduced his staff and hosted a welcome aboard cocktail hour and dinner.

April 22, 2006 at sea 25º38.667”S; 118º52”W

I am plotting the ship’s position on Admiralty chart 4061. We are headed for Ducie Island, an uninhabited atoll where we will attempt some snorkeling. The wind has increased and the long ocean swells are making the ship roll a bit. The staff has put out rope handholds for crossing open portions of the public areas. In the morning, Expedition Leader Tom Ritchie gave a lecture on “Corals and Coral Reefs,” followed by a snorkeling lecture. I’ve brought my own vest, mask and tube. I picked up a pair of fins for use during the rest of the voyage.

April 23, 2006 24º 40.08S”; 124º 47.82”W

Approaching Ducie atoll. It is unlikely that we will be able to launch Zodiacs or the glass bottom boat. Confused seas running 10’+, wind from the north 38-40 kts, gusts to 48 kts. It is raining. Lots of folks gathered on the bridge to watch the instruments and the seas and to identify the occasional bird flying IFR.

It looks like the ship will circle Ducie for a while, but the prospects for clearing weather does not look good until tomorrow. Ducie proved too rough to attempt any sort of landing given that the winds were running full gale and the seas were quite high. Capt. Lampe and Tom Ritchie made the decision to simply circle the island and set out slowly (9 kts) for Henderson Island. With the wind astern, the motion of the ship became more comfortable. Rosie took lunch and dinner in our cabin as the ship’s doctor was afraid she might have some viral infection and didn’t want her to infect the rest of the passengers.

April 24, 2006; 29º 19.99”S; 128º 20.00”W; Henderson Island.

This is an uninhabited coral atoll with a fringing reef. The scout Zodiacs found no especially good landing site. We would have to beach the boats on the reef and wade through the surf on sharp coral outcroppings. The decision was made to dispatch the SCUBA divers, the snorkelers and then take the glass bottom boat out for the rest. An early snag with the heavy-lift crane’s hydraulics delayed the launch by 15 minutes, but by 9:30 am, they had it sorted out and were launching boats. Rosemarie and I have signed up for the 11:30 glass bottom boat excursion. This is a new boat for the Endeavour, and this is the first time it is being used, so the protocols are being worked out. It is a great option for persons of limited mobility or non-swimmers. They need to work on the seats a bit, however; they are a pipe construction with webbing, but to see down the viewing port, you sit on the hard pipe. Later users learned to bring a big beach towel as a cushion.

The glass bottom boat gave us a good view of a not-very-active reef.  This part of the Pacific is fairly sterile and the reefs are battered regularly by storms.  Interestingly, my camera recorded fairly accurate views of what reef we did see.

In the afternoon, Tom Ritchie decided to attempt landings through the surf and over the reef, onto the beach.  He warned that this was only for the agile.  We decided this was not for us.  One of the early Zodiacs in, driven by Dennis Cornejo, capsized in the surf and they had to send a crew out in a rescue Zodiac to right it.  Not easy, they weigh 800 lbs.  It carried one of their new Yamaha 4-cycle engines and the crew spent several hours washing off the salt water, drying it and flushing it with motor oil.  In the end they retrieved everything from the capsized Zodiac except one paddle, which floated away.

At 4:30, Paul took an hour-long Zodiac ride along the surf line while Rosemarie elected to stay aboard ship.

Continued

Statues (maoi) lined up, backs to the sea on a altar (ahu)

The eye sockets are empty Apparently the eyes (fashioned of coral) were inserted only on ceremonial occasions

Most of the 1000+ maoi are toppled, apparently the victims of internectine warfare between different tribes or groups.  Each successive ship that visited after Captain Cook noted fewer and fewer statues still standing.  A tsunami in 1960 washed away the maoi at Tongariki

This is the volcanic crater where the statues were carved.  They were fashioned horizontally and then cut away from the root and shoved upright into a pit where the backs were finished.  That is what we see above.  The mystery is how these huge monoliths were transported to the coast many miles away and lifted onto the ahu bases.

In this maoi, the eyes (reproductions - only one eye was ever found) are installed and the top knot or hat, fashioned of a red stone found in a different crater is balanced on top of its head

Our ship, the National Geographic Endeavour anchors off Easter Island