Myra and Gerry South Pacific 2018

Over the past two days we have visited two French Polynesian Islands, Rangiroa and Bora Bora.  Rangiroa is the biggest atoll of French Polynesia – it could contain the entire island of Tahiti in its center.  From the air, the atoll appears to be a large pearl necklace laid upon the water.  It contains 3,467 residents – about four times as many as Fakarava.  Rangiroa is known for the production of Black Pearls (even though they actual are gray).  We toured a Pearl farm where we were told about how cultured pearls are produced, observed the process and of course, went to the shop where the pearls are sold. Cultured pearls are cultivated using a process developed in Japan many years ago.  The process starts most of the time with the slight opening of black lip pearl oyster shells, and the grafting of small pearls into the shell.  They are then put back into the ocean where they are tied together and protected from predators and allowed ...

French Polynesia consists of 118 islands from five Archipelagos, the Society Islands, Tuamotu, Gambier, the Australes and the Marquesas.  It is what France calls an "overseas country" which allows for it to have a great deal of autonomy but not independence.  It does have its own government but it has been somewhat ineffectual - they have had 14 presidents in the last 14 years and the current president has been in office for four of them.  It is a marvel that he may actually finish his full, five-year term, something his 13 immediate predecessors have not come close to. The primary language is French and the currency is the Polynesian Franc.  The exchange rate is roughly 100 Francs to one US dollar. This part of the Pacific was mostly untouched by World War II.  Bora Bora had a US base that was mostly used for supply purposes but the islands themselves were untouched by war. Seventy percent of the population of French Polynesia is in Tahiti which is also t...

Today is our last full day at sea.  Tomorrow we reach the French Polynesian Islands and will  be getting off of the ship each day to explore a different island. The Pacific Ocean was named by Ferdinand Magellan.  The story goes that when he found it the seas were extremely calm and therefore named it "Pacifico" - which translates into English as "Peaceful".  As we have seen from the waves crashing into South America, Easter Island and Pitcairn, the ocean is a lot of things but peaceful is probably not one of them. The total area of the Pacific is over 169 million square miles.  All of the land masses on the planet could be placed in the Pacific Ocean and there would still be room left over.  The beautiful blue color is just magnificent.  Every time we have sailed before we have always seen and passed other ships and an occasional airplane.  Since we left Pisco, Peru  - 10 days ago, we have not any airplanes nor have we seen another sh...

After two wonderful days at sea we arrived at the Pitcairn Islands. I n 1790, the mutineers of the  Bounty (think “Mutiny on the Bounty”)  arrived on Pitcairn island, an island that is only 1 mile wide by 2 miles long.  The group consisted of Fletcher Christian and eight other mutineers from the Bounty. The islanders (233 in 1937 yet only 42 today) have had quite a history, surviving on an island that had little contact with the outside world.  It is a part of the British Empire which continues to provide financial support.  They also offer 10 acres of land free to anyone who wants to settle on the island.  This offer has been in place for years but so far nobody has taken it.  The island is almost totally dependent on cargo ships that come quarterly from New Zealand with supplies.   While it rarely makes the news, in early 2000 it made it for the wrong reason.  A visitor’s 11 year old daughter was molested and an inve...

Today we left Easter Island and are on our way to Pitcairn Island, the small island approximately 1200 miles west of here that was introduced to most people around the world by the "Mutiny on the Bounty" movies.  It is a beautiful day on the Pacific with wonderful blue seas so we decided to summarize our two days on Easter Island.   While Easter Island belongs to Chile, it does have its own Flag (which looks like the shape of the island). Rapa Nui is the name of the island (also known as Easter Island). Rapa Nui is the language (closely linked to Tahitian and New Zealand Maori). Rapanui is the name of the people of Polynesian descent that settled on the island. As we spend our relaxing day cruising toward the Pitcairn Islands, we tried to capture a few thoughts about Easter Island.  This was on the top of our Bucket List of places to visit.  We feel so incredibly lucky that the winds and swells were tame enough for us to get off the ship a...

We were lucky to be able to get off the ship and have our second day on Easter Island.  Yesterday was dedicated to visiting the most important sites on Easter Island.  Today was dedicated to more of the natural wonders of this beautiful island. Our first stop was Rano Kau.  It is the largest volcanic crater and possibly the most beautiful natural spot on the island.  Part of the wall on the far side of the crater near the ocean has collapsed giving you a beautiful view of the this crater in its entirety with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop.  Our guide told us that his mother used to wash clothes and obtain water for their home from this crater.  It is difficult to imagine climbing down and back up this huge volcanic crater! Our next stop was Oronga - the far side of the crater where the collapsed wall is located and where the annual Birdman competition was held every year from the 1700’s to 1867.  In a previous blog post, we described this...

T his morning we arrived in Easter Island!  It was great to see land. To get to the island we had to be tendered from the ship as there is no deep port.  We were extremely concerned that we would not be able  to get off of the ship because the swells were bad.  We have read that many times, passengers are not able to get to the island for that reason. Fortunately, we were given the go ahead by the local authorities and our captain to go ashore. The tendering  process went like this:  - arrive at 7:00 to get our Passports to take ashore    - receive our cards that designated our assigned tender  - wait until almost 9:00 to receive clearance to go ashore  - board our tender around 9:20  - arrive on land at approximately 10:00  - hand in our clearance forms to the local agriculture authorities  - purchase our $80 per person Park Passes  - meet our tour group The actual tender boarding was very difficult ...

Today was a very peaceful day at sea.  We have been fortunate to have relatively calm seas and we continue to enjoy the great food available on this ship.  As with our other days at sea we went to the 4th lecture on Easter Island this morning. Tonight we will be eating at a "specialty" specialty restaurant - La Reserve - a French restaurant that is a shared venture by Oceania Cruses and Wine Spectator.

We are amazed at the beauty of the South Pacific Ocean.  Usually on our trips at sea we see other ships, planes and numerous birds.  That is definitely not the case on this one.  We have not seen another ship since leaving Pisco Peru on Tuesday evening nor have we seen planes or birds.  All we see is the beautiful, blue Pacific - as far as the eye can see.  What caused the “collapse” of Easter Island?  There are theories and facts we heard from our third Easter Island lecture this morning. Somewhere between 1722 and 1774, Rapa Nui hit a tipping point with tribes competing for resources.  From skeletal remains, it is known that they resorted to warfare (skulls hit with blunt instruments) and cannibalism.  The Moai were tipped over either because warring tribes wanted to ensure their enemy no longer had protection or because they no longer believed their Moai Mana existed. The Moai that are standing today are ones that have been restored. As ...

This is our second day (of four) days at sea on our trek to Easter Island.  We are loving the lectures about Easter Island and want to capture the information we learned this morning: • The 5,000 year human migration from Taiwan to the South Pacific ended with Easter Island. • 700 – 800 AD     Polynesians arrived on Easter Island • 800 – 1000 AD   Settlement occurred  (population increased, plants established, animals) • 1000                   Platforms of Moai were carved • 1650                   Moai carving stopped • 1722                   First Outsiders arrived (Dutch) • 1723 -1774         Collapse of Easter Island It is believed that the Moais were carved (and were similar to the smaller Polynesian Tikis) because the people were so i...

Today we started our four day,  2,200 mile trek to Easter Island. Our four relaxing days at sea began last night with a ship that began to gently rock in the Pacific and felt like riding on a train.  It is still gently rocking.  To get us all ready for Easter Island, Oceania is proving a set of enrichment lectures by James Grant-Peterkin, the British Honorary Consul to Easter Island.  He first visited Easter Island at the age of nineteen, did his studies in Cambridge focusing on Linguistics and anything relating to Easter Island.  He has lived on Easter Island 11 months of every year for 18 years. His presentation highlighted some things about the Pacific that were fascinating.  - The Pacific is the largest ocean in the world and is so large, it is separated into 3 areas for studying purposes: Micronesia (northwest), Melanesia (southwest), and Polynesia (southeast).  -  The islands we will see on this trip are all...

We stayed on the ship!  We have never done that when a ship was in port but three months ago we went to Paracas, which is near the port of Pisco, flew over the Nazca Lines, took a boat to the Ballestas Islands and had a desert adventure complete with racing through the dunes and having a dinner in the desert under the stars.  So, we are here again and stayed on the ship.  All in all, it was a wonderful day. We had an appointment with a personal trainer to go over the equipment and provide us with a program we could follow over the next several days and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and getting organized! One of the  Oceania perks is that all the specialty restaurants on-board do not charge an extra price (except La Reserve which is run by Wine Spectator and is a dinner/wine pairing evening).  However, the number of times you can visit these restaurants in controlled by the type of state room you have. Before boarding, we were informed t...

Today was the official beginning of our cruise.  We were sent many emails from Oceania about the boarding and embarkation process.  We were told there were no facilities at this port.  People in the Owner’s suites were to board at 11:00, Concierge level rooms at Noon, and the rest of the rooms at 1:00.  We left our hotel at 11:00 for the half hour drive to the port.  Thank goodness we left when we did!  The process that was followed was simply first come, first served. The process went something like this: -  We were dropped off at the port where there was a line of people with buses and taxis jostling for space.  There were no Oceania representatives - just port police and port porters. -   A bus would come up and luggage was loaded underneath the bus and people boarded the bus with their hand luggage. -  Once full, the bus would leave and come back for next group of people, all the while fighting for space a...