Transit at Pitcairn Island. Tuesday 24th // Mardi 24/02

John’s article on Easter Island and Pitcairn.

I’ll upload today’s photos tomorrow…If that makes sense!!! Except by the time you read this it might even be yesterday…Considering that on Wednesday 25^th, i.e tomorrow for us, we will be 9 hours away from you!

Texte de John sur l’Ile de Pâques. Quand vous lirez cet article, probablement demain Mercredi, nous aurons 10 heures de décalage avec vous !

Je mettrai un article Mercredi sur notre transit à l’île de Pitcairn, et notre rencontre avec les descendants de Fletcher Christian et des mutinés du Bounty. Je n’ai pas encore sélectionné les photos que j’ai prises aujourd’hui. Pour vous faire patienter j’en mets quelques unes prises ces jours derniers.

Bises.

Christine xxxxxxxxxxxx

AFTER A FEW MORE DAYS AT SEA: TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2015

We left Easter Island on the evening of Saturday 21^st and it is already Tuesday 24^th – does that mean at last I am getting used to being on this boat with 2800 other “people” (plus the 900 crew who appear always to be the best educated/brought-up people on-board)? In all cases it is less “stressful” than the first few weeks!

Easter Island went really well for us. I had initially understood that we would moor off the northern coast, far from the village. As, at that time, there were no more “Costa” excursions available, I had worked out a full day’s walking programme for us along the coast to visit a “hidden bay” and numerous statues on the northern coast. But the older couple (from dinner), who wanted to visit Easter Island with us, would they be able to do the 8-10km up/down march among the coastline and rough tracks? That was first problem. Thereafter we found out that if we did not do the Costa excursions we would have to buy a $60 per person “visitors permit”. We then learnt that we would moor in the port near the village on the west coast – far too far to walk to the northern coast! The day before arriving at Easter Island I started queuing at 7am for the numbered tickets allowing us to get off the boat next morning after the “priority” Costa excursions (queuing at 7am for an 8am opening of the ticket distributing office!) – but even at 7am there were already 300-400 people queuing before I got there! That meant that they (rightfully) would get off before us and all the buses/minibuses/taxis/private cars cum taxis would probably be gone before we got ashore!! (The population is only 5400 on all the island and we were 2900 tourists and some part of the 900 crew needing transport to go visiting!). By “miracle”, Christine stopped by the Costa excursion desk the same morning (after my soul destroying queuing) and got some “rare extra” tickets for a Costa excursion!! (Additional tickets in response to the overwhelming demand!!).

Great – so next day we got ashore at approximately 9am and spent the next 4 hours with a mini-bus, visiting a first site with 3 platforms and a total of 7 statues not too far from the port, then a drive along the southern coast (which I adored – volcanic rocks running into a “wild sea”, herds of wild horses, tree-less, un-inhabited barren volcanic landscape etc) to a site with 15 statues on a platform. And then to the major volcanic quarry where the statues were being carved out of volcanic rock and where there are several hundred statues at different levels of completion still awaiting to be transported to the ceremonial platforms- completion which they never got due to over-exploitation of natural resources (above-all trees) on the island, resulting famine for the population, civil war, the emergence of a new religion (the “man-birds”), the partial destruction or at least the abandon of the big statues and finally emigration of the original Polynesian population from the island.

After the quarry and a drive back along the south coast (the island is only 23-25km long and 7-10km wide at most), we then got dropped off in the main street of the village and looked for a taxi to take us to another major site – the seven warrior statues facing the sea! But the only taxi we found wanted $200 (which dropped to $150) for a 14 km round trip which still seemed a bit too “steep”. So we stayed in the village, looked in the shops, had a terribly expensive “ordinary” salad for lunch and walked back down to the port, looking at the other statues, by the roadside, on the way back and along the coastline.

We then spent some time looking around the “tourist stalls” on the port, tried again to get a taxi to see the 7 warriors (still wanted $130 – “drop it”!) and then went back on-board at 17h00. The sea was quite rough and the transfer between shuttle boat (the ship’s rescue boats) and ship itself was “agitated” – that morning an elderly lady we knew by sight had got her leg caught - and damaged - between the bobbing sides of the shuttle boat and the cruise boat! 

Although we may not have seen the 7 warriors looking out to sea (some other people we know got a taxi for only $20!!), we had a really good day. The weather was great – I even got sun burnt which only happens very rarely! We probably saw a hundred statues (out of the total of 800 on the island!), we now know very well what they look like etc. The scenery was sometimes quite “dramatic” above-all by the coastline and we have a reasonable understanding of how the island and its population “work”. We’ve been to Easter Island.

So that was Saturday. Today – Tuesday – was another exceptional day. We stopped just off the coast of the main Pitcairn Island where the mutinous crew of the HMS Bounty and it’s leader Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson – depending on which film you watched!!) decided to set up “home” with their Polynesian wives having put Captain Bligh in a long boat “to row his way home”. This stop over was not on the official Costa plan but was a very welcomed “extra”. The previous day, Professor Carlo gave us an excellent conference on the origins of the mutiny, Bligh’s exceptional “row home” over thousands of km of Pacific Ocean, Christian’s decision to install the mutinous crew (with wives and families) on a deserted island which was erroneously positioned on official Admiralty maps (and would not be readily found), his burning of the Bounty etc. But he also described the ensuing problems, most of the crew falling out and killing each other until there was only one sailor left – John Adams – with 8 surviving Polynesian women and 20 odd children!!

John Adams had only one book – the bible – and to avoid further bloodshed, he installed or imposed the effective rules of Christianity – which survive until today on the island, the 65 “present day”  inhabitants being strongly “Adventist Christians” and very democratic.

Pitcairn is effectively 4-5 islands (the farthest being 450km from the main island of Pitcairn), part of the British Empire (overseas territory) being managed practically from New Zealand.

The people live from fishing, some agriculture (no pigs – we learnt that Adventists don’t eat pork) and more recently tourism. Today we were told by a young man from the island that several cruise ships pull up by the main island every month from December to March (summer season) - thereafter it is only the supply ship which comes every few weeks (or months).

The ship pulled up some 1-2km from the coast (careful – there are volcanic rocks everywhere!!) at approximately 8.30am and a fast power boat came out from the island with some 30 odd islanders (more than half the adult population). The islanders laid out their “wares” on tables that Costa had set-up around the main swimming pool and then 2800 tourists surged forward to buy all they could as quickly as possible!!

The islanders were a mixed group of some very English looking people and some very Polynesian looking people but all with British names – Griffiths, Warren, Adams, Christian, etc. And they all spoke a very nice sounding, very polite “soft” English – no slang, but not pretentious and not BBC either! Their wares ranged from “pictorial” postal stamps and first day covers (probably the “major product” of the island), “HMS Bounty” tee-shirts, wooden serving dishes, spoons etc to some very nice walking sticks (of which we now have 2!) to some exceedingly expensive black pearl jewellery – between $500 and $2000 per article (of which we have none!). After 2 hours of frenetic commerce, that was nothing more to be sold (or bought) and the islanders got back onto their boat to the cheers and waves of both tourists and crew and went back to their volcanic island to wait for the next cruise ship that may stop on its way across the Pacific.

It was a very strong moment – here was the present day reality of the results of the mutiny on the Bounty, a long way from Clark Gable or Marlin Brando. Apparently, sometime after the end of Napoleonic Wars, the British Government “forgave” the mutiny (largely thanks to exemplary nature of John Adam’s “Christian society”) and had tried to move the population to the nearby Norfolk Islands which were considered more “hospitable” than Pitcairn. However after only a few years the population moved back to Pitcairn as they missed “their rock in the middle of nowhere”. And that was really the feeling we had as the ship sailed away from the island!

Vue depuis le pont 10.

Chaloupe de retour de l'Ile de Pâques. On serait bien resté plus longtemps!

Les pavillons du Costa.

L'entrée du restaurant un soir de dîner de gala...

Soirée de gala...

Effets de nuages dans l'eau à travers une vitre...On s'amuse comme on peut. Toujours l'Ile de pâques en arrière plan.

Dernières visions de Rapa Nui...

Ciao...

2 exemples de plats au dîner. Il y a quelques jours.