Pisco to Easter Island - Our First Full Day at Sea

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 Polynesian (Easter Island, Pitcairn Islands, and French Polynesian Islands) and are colonies of three countries which are vast distances away.  Easter Island is a colony of Chile. Pitcairn is a colony of the United Kingdom. The French Polynesian Islands are colonies of France. Easter Island is 2200 miles from Chile and Pitcairn is 9,240 miles from London.

-  The human settlement of the Polynesian Islands can be traced back to Taiwan starting in 4,000 BC.  They settled the islands forming a triangle in the Pacific with the northern point of the triangle being the islands of Hawaii, the southwest corner of the triangle being New Zealand, and the southeast corner of the triangle being Easter Island.  The Polynesians never settled in South America yet there is a clear history of trading with natives of that area.

-  The Polynesians were a seafaring people who built double hull canoes with sails to transport people among their islands.  They sent their people out in various directions in smaller canoes to determine if there were other islands.  They would see clouds hanging over land (warm air rises and forms clouds) before they could see land.

-  Easter Island was discovered in this way.  Unlike other Polynesian Islands, it had no streams to provide drinking water.  However, it was forested with beautiful palm trees covering 70% of the island and had three volcanic craters that collected fresh water.

-  Easter Island was inhabited in 700 AD by the Polynesian people who brought bananas, sweet potatoes, and taro.  They also brought mohote for the bark to make clothing.  They also brought chickens and rats (a good source of protein).

-  In 1722 Dutch explorers arrived on the island the natives called Rapa Nui.  The Dutch named it Easter Island because they landed on it on Easter Sunday.

-  As they approached this island, whose inhabitants had been isolated for 1,000 years, they saw the massive Moai (pronounced mow eye) statues with their backs to the ocean.  Unfortunately, since the island inhabitants could not communicate well with the Dutch the true meaning of the Moai was a mystery.

-  No other Polynesian Island had statues such as these. While the people on the other islands existed, the people on Easter Island appeared to have thrived.  There is no other reason for the massive statues to have been carved and erected.  However, the actual meaning of these beautiful statues remain mysterious.

We spent part of the day outside on the deck enjoying the wide open sea.  This cruise is full yet there are many open spaces for relaxing.  There is no land in sight nor will there be for the next three days.


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