Pitcairn Island January 23

Quick Review. Key figures Captain Bligh and his First Officer Fletcher Christian are sailing HMAS Bounty on a mission to Tahiti.  They were to transplant Bread Fruit plants and bring them back as a cheap source of food for slaves.  After leaving Tahiti on return voyage there is a munity led by Christian.  Bligh and 18 loyal sailors are set adrift in a long boat.  Eventually they make it back to England in one of the greatest feats of open boat sailing and navigation lost to history.  Christian and the Bounty return to Tahiti, gather supplies, Tahitian men and women and set sail for parts unknown.  Eventfully they find and settle on Pitcairn Island, a small island truly in the middle of nowhere.  Those are facts not often in dispute.  We have learned that everything else is very controversial and depends on whom you are speaking too.   Some say Bligh was a tyrant and merciless captain who drove Christian to mutiny to save the crew.  Some say Bligh was man of the times and actually kinder to his crew than most and Christian was despondent and unbalanced.  He led a mutiny with men unhappy about leaving wives and the pleasures of Tahiti.  You can find books, narratives and eye witness testimony on both sides.  Movies tend to go with the mean Bligh; it makes a better story.

Our visit to Pitcairn Island was to meet with the descendants of the mutineers, hear their story and buy their locally produced items.  Here is our day.

This is a picture approaching the island.  You can look 360⁰ and not see another piece of land.  We are two days sailing from Easter Island. 

This is a picture of the homes and community buildings on the Island.  You are looking across Bounty Bay.  Between us and the land 211 years ago the Bounty was burned and sunk by the mutineers.  We actually arrived on Bounty Day, the 211^th anniversary of the ship burning. 

We did not go ashore.  The population came out in their long boat to board our ship.  There are 62 people on the island.  Ten are contract employees: teacher, immigration officer, doctor and nurses plus their families.  They come to the island on two year contracts.  Seven are visiting people.  There are 45 permanent residents currently on the island.  There is a general store, community meeting room, one room school, church, and medical center.  The children stay here until they are 15.  Then they have the option to stay or go to New Zealand to finish their education.  Electricity comes from a generator run three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening.  That is sufficient to keep food in refrigerators and freezers safe.  Hot water is heated by wood in individual homes.  They have satellite TV, internet, and telephones.  They receive a subsidy from England and a quarterly supply ship from New Zealand.   Their primary source of income is selling stamps and other items made on the island.  You can find these on their website.

This is the long boat coming out to our ship.

The long boat holds the entire population of the island plus the immigration officer.  We had our passports stamped (for $10 each).  These are all descendants of the original mutineers that stayed on Pitcairn Island.  All of their goods for sale are stored under the floor boards.

These are pictures of the sales on the Lido deck of our ship.  It may look like a mad house but it wasn’t.  Noreen is in the picture but you can’t find her.  The two bearded gentleman in the second picture are descendants of Fletcher Christian.

While many mutineer family names were represented, Christen is the most famous.  Two family tables from his line.

The Islanders gave a presentation on the history and life on the island.  They need some help with their PowerPoint slides but I’ll save that for my next visit.  We had a very interesting day.  We were not aware of the all the controversy that surrounds the history of the Bounty mutiny. 

Now it is off to Tahiti, two sailing days away.

Hope all is well. 

Easter Island

We’ve been having quite the adventure while sailing the South Pacific.  After leaving Lima on January 15th we arrived at Easter Island on the 20th.  At first glance it appeared that we couldn’t tender to shore due to high swells on the only docking area.  However the Captain moved to the North side of the Island and the locals worked with the crew to figure out a way to land the passengers.  We ended up tying a work barge to a rock pier and then a ship’s tender to act as a bridge between the shore and the disembarking tenders.  No limited mobility passengers could go ashore.  Remember you can click on a photo to make it larger.

Close up of the landing site.  The boats are tenders from our ship working on developing the landing area.  This is the only beach on Easter Island.  Note the Moai in the background.

So much for getting onto the Island.  The official name of the Island is Rapa Nui.  This is the National Park.

This Moai is one of the largest and fully restored on the Island and is known as Ko te Riku.   There are approximately 600 Moai restored across the island.  This one includes the Top Knot (hat) that all completed statues had at one time.

This picture gives you an idea of the size but it isn’t the largest Moai on the island.  Our volunteer photographer was a little off level.

There are other Moai in the park.   The Ko te Riku is in the background.

Probably the most famous place on Easter Island is the quarry known as Rana Raraku.  I’m sure you remember seeing this type of picture.  Well, maybe not with us in it.

The quarry is full of Moai in various stages of completion.  Below is a picture of one carved on the front but still in the rock face.

This Moai is the largest on the Island.  It is believed that once it was carved they determined it was to large to move and was abandoned.   I’d love to give you the height and weight details but I don’t remember them.

In this picture you can see the top of the head of the large Moai.  If you look closely in the center you can see the broken top of the start of a Moai.  Apparently not all carvings were successful.

One theory is that the Moai fronts were carved vertical and then split from the quarry face and lowered down to the base.  Then the back and details were added.  In this picture, taken from the top,  you can see the large field of Moai at the bottom of the quarry.

Easter Island is known for it’s herds of wild horses.  They aren’t really wild since they are all branded but they do run wild.  Interesting sign at the quarry that warns of wild horses and they are all over the place.   They are also not the least bit concerned about you walking around them.

Around 1982 the Japanese had the islander's cooperation for a lot of research.  To thank them they paid for the restoration of a Moai religious of Rano Roraka pictured below.

The story is that the Japanese brought in a crane that erected this line of Moai.  They found the top hats but since they didn’t know which hat went with which Moai, they weren’t going to put any on.  One night the islanders came in and used the crane to put one top hat on a Moai.  Thus you see it that way.  The second picture shows the line of top hats which still lie by the Moai.

This is a Moai lying on the ground.  Speculation is that it fell over and the Islanders couldn’t raise it back up.  Note that the horses don’t pay attention to the no trespassing sign.

Finally, a picture of our ship off the Easter Island coast.

Easter Island was a interesting place to visit.  It is certainly far off the beaten path as it took us five days of steaming to reach it from Lima.  Interesting about the Pacific.  The Caribbean is almost constantly a smooth sailing sea.  It often doesn’t even seem you are on a ship unless you look outside.  The Atlantic is choppy with short intervals between waves giving the feeling of raising and falling into wave troughs.  The Pacific is a series of widely spaced swells, no white caps or visible foam, but the ship has a constant rolls side-to-side or bow-to-stern depending on how we are aligned with the swell.  The sea appears calm but there is an undercurrent of power that constantly challenges the ship.  And it is BIG.  Not a ship, bird, or anything insight for the entire time we have been away from land.

Next is Pitcairn Inland and the mutineers.   Hope all is well with you.

The Equator, Machu Picchu, and Lima, Peru

We crossed the equator a little after midnight on January 12th and will be in the Southern Hemisphere for a while.  We’re assuming since it was so late and we’ll be crossing again, there was not big ceremony.  This is the third crossing for us.  We had our Pollywog Ceremony on a cruise up the Amazon River a few years ago.  The ship will cross back into the Northern Hemisphere toward the end of February.

We can mark Machu Picchu off our bucket list.  It was an great trip full of just the right number of adventures to make it really memorable.  We started our journey in Manta, Ecuador on January 12th.  After a look around the city we took a charter flight to Lima, Peru.  From Lima we took a LAN commercial flight to Cusco.  Cusco is the primary jumping off point for trips to Machu Picchu.  It is also at 11,00+ feet altitude.  The altitude had a definite effect on both of us.  It was very easy to get winded just going up a flight of stairs.  The hotel we stayed at is a former monastery established in 1626, Hotel Monasterio.  You can see more about the hotel at  Hotel Monasterio

This is what Cusco looks like.  All the towns are built in valleys and spread up ridge lines.

Everyone has a cell phone and PC.  If you wonder how they get a signal over the mountains and into the valley, look at the mountain tops.  They have a few antennas.

The picture below, taken outside of Cusco, shows a group of local women with some Lamas moving up a mountain trail.  Note the hats.  The high hats and the flat hats (see woman on extreme right) indicates their heritage as original Inca (flat hat) or post Inca period (high hat). 

 

The next morning, January 13th, we were scheduled to take the train to Machu Picchu.  We were under the impression that the train left from the station in town, about 10 minutes away.  In fact we had to go to a train station located two hours away due to rainy season flooding.  The roads were bumpy and narrow in many places and it was a long trip.  However we got a very good feel for the country-side, housing, and local commerce as we drove and stopped along the route.  We also got to travel through the Sacred Valley and see some of the sights along the Urubamba River.  We began our journey from Cusco’s 11,000 feet to Machu Picchu’s 7,000+ feet.  Everyone began to feel better after the first drop of 1,000 feet.

The picture below shows an Inca grain storage facility in the Valley.  The corn was dried and stored in these buildings until needed.

The picture below shows construction of a large house.  You can see the bricks which are made locally from mud and grass as a binder.  This is a very nice and larger house than normal but it shows the construction material.  It is unfinished.  Many structures are unfinished as the taxes are much less on unfinished homes.  Some call Peru the unfinished country for this reason.

 

We took the Hiram Bingham train (Hiram Bingham Train).  The trip to Machu Picchu was scheduled for two hours but ended up taking five.  You may have read about Machu Picchu being cut off by mud slides periodically.  Well, we were caught in a mud slide about 30 minutes from our destination.  We were very happy to have a dinning car and club car.  There are two ways to get to Machu Picchu, by the Inca Trail or the train.  On the Trail you have the choice of a four, two, or one day trek across the mountains.  After the train you have a 20 minute shuttle ride from the station to Machu Picchu.  Being adventurous Noreen and I chose the three minute walk across the train station to the shuttle.

The picture below show hikers and porters at the start of the Inca Trail getting ready to go.  They use the porters and donkeys to carry the luggage and camping supplies.  Note the power of the river showing we are in the rainy season.

The bridge crossing the river to the start of the Inca Trail.

As I mentioned earlier, our train ride was made more memorable by the mud slide covering the tracks.  Below is a picture of Noreen at our dinning car table and the club car.

A shot of our club car.

I would like to say at this point that Noreen and I would have much preferred the four day hike along the Inca Trail and camping in the rainy season.  We just didn’t have the time.  Maybe on our next visit.

This is a picture of the mud slide area that held everything up.  There is only one rail line and it is narrow gage.  There are occasional sidings that allow trains to pass each other or clear the track for mud slide clearing equipment.  The other picture below is the train behind us also stopped for the mud slide.  This is one of the standard trains you would take if you weren’t on the Hiram Bingham.

 

Finally we arrive at Aguas Calientes, the town supporting Macho Picchu.  I’d love to show you a picture but we were running very late (mud slide and all).  We had to rush to the shuttle to still have some daylight at Macho Picchu.  You can walk up to Macho Picchu in two hours or take the shuttle.  While walking takes longer, the shuttle is more adventurous.  It is straight up a very steep grade and the road is just a series of switchbacks.  Very few guard rails and very steep drops.  The shuttles have been known to overturn now and then.  To give you an idea of the trip, this is a picture from Macho Picchu to the town area. 

This picture shows the end of the Inca Trail as taken from Machu Picchu.  It is the line running from upper left to lower right.

 

At Last!!

I’m not going to go into a history of Machu Picchu.  You can get very big books about that.  Here are some highlights we found.

This picture gives you an idea of the inaccessible location.

And the slope of the area.

Now some general shots of Macho Picchu.

 

Noreen says we have to have a picture with me in it.

And we were both there.

Our return trip was much less eventful.  No mudslides so we had a quick trip back on the Hiram Bingham.  Dinner aboard was very nice.  Another two hour bus ride but it was dark so not much to report from that.  Our original schedule was to be back by 7:00 PM so we could see some night activities around Cusco.  With all the delays we didn’t back until 11:30.  To bed after a long day and up early the next morning for a quick 50 minute flight to Lima.  You know how much Noreen loves to fly and not a bar is sight at the airport.  No big concern until we had to turn back from the taxiway with a problem.  Next takeoff attempt was more successful and we arrived back at the ship about 1:30 PM.  The next day we spent in Lima recovering from the altitude and seeing the city.  We set sail from Lima the evening of January 16th.

We are currently two days out of Lima for Easter Island.  The Island is 2.237 miles from the mainland of Chile and four days at sea for us.  The seas are running with a 10 foot swell and temperature 72⁰.  The ship is rolling at just the right amount to rock you to sleep.  Sea depth is 14, 447 feet.

We hope you found this interesting.  Please post comments and let us know what you think.  We expect the next entry will be after Easter Island (January 20th) in about a week.

Stand-by for Future Developments

I found out why we haven’t been able to blog recently. I waited until we were two days out of Lima to update and couldn’t post.  According to the Microsoft “Techspert” on board the reception is too weak in the South Pacific to send photos and such. We only have text capability.  So I writing an update to let you know we are alive and well.

Since our last post we’ve been through Ecuador, Peru, and Chile.  Our visits to Machu Picchu and Easter Island were a great success.  We can take those off our list.  We’ll send a review and pictures when we can. 

Right now we sailing five days at sea enroute to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia.  We have a quick stop at Pitcairn Island to visit with the descendants of the mutiny on the Bounty crew on January 23rd.   They come aboard rather than we going ashore. 

We should be able to post a full blog when we get closer to Tahiti.  I’m going to try two small pictures on this one.

 

We really enjoy your comments so keep them coming.  And thanks for the well wishes on our anniversary. 

 

Ken & Noreen

The First Few Days

Welcome to our first official blog entry. We are on day six of our cruise. The ship is very nice and the food is great. If you are interested in what the ship looks like you can take a virtual tour at the Holland America website. There is a section on ships. We are on the MS Amsterdam.

Up to now our trip has been over familiar territory. We have been to our first port, Grand Cayman, many times. I did a SCUBA dive and Noreen enjoyed the ship and a full day of relaxation. Our second port was Puerto Limon, Costa Rica on January 9^th. This was another port we had visited previously. I choose a very nice Zip Line in the morning. Then Noreen and I spent some time walking around the local area.

As I write this we are transiting the Panama Canal on January 10^th. This is our third visit and second full transit. After we exit the Canal the ship will turn south and head for Manta, Ecuador arriving on the 12^th. In Manta we’ll leave the ship for a three day overland trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. We won’t have any access to the internet so you will not hear from us again until January 15^th or 16^th.

An exciting event was our 34 anniversary which we celebrated on January 7^th. This picture was taken at dinner as we prepared for the next 34.

The picture below was taken from a platform during my zip line. If you look just to the left of center you’ll see a sloth hanging upside down. He(?) is light gray and white. Costa Rico has a very active rainforest and we were accompanied by sloths and howler monkeys most of the time.

In the picture below we are entering the first lock, named Gatun, of the Canal. You can see the altitude difference with the ship to the left and the one in front of us.

This next picture shows our ship has risen to the original height of the ship to the left after the lock was filled. We are now ready to proceed from the first lock.

You may have heard of the “mules” that guide the ship through the Canal. In the old days of canals, there were really mules that pulled barges through the canal. You can see many picture of this happening in places like the Erie Canal. The mules were replaced by steam engines and now by modern diesel engines as you can see in the picture below. They have kept the name of Mules. The Mules do not pull the ship through. There are two on each side of the ship, one forward and one aft. They guide the ship and help keep it centered in the lock. Note the cables running from the Mule to the ship in the lower left. The ship moves through the Canal mostly on its own power.

In this picture you can clearly see that we have exited the first lock and the second lock has lifted the ship higher than the ship that was to our left in the first picture. You can also see the next cruise ship waiting to transit and the slope that the Mules tracks follow as the ships rise and fall.

This picture is the ship getting ready to leave the first set of locks and enter into the lakes. There are three sets of locks all following the basic procedure you have seen here.

Finally we exit the Panama Canal and enter the Pacific as we transit under the Bridge of the Americas as seen below. The trip has taken about nine hours and covered 48 miles. It saved a trip of 7,872 miles to get to our point of entry to our point of exit. The weather was overcast with scattered showers all day. This was enjoyable as the Canal transit can be unbearably hot and humid. We found it that way last time and had a much better trip on this transit.

Noreen and I are getting settled in. Here is a picture of Noreen by our cruise logo on the bow area of the ship.

I didn’t realize that Holland America was going to take our itinerary down from the website but it only makes sense. I’m working on an electronic copy and will send it as soon as I get it finished. We’d like to again thank those who are helping to make this possible by assisting us at home and at work. We’re interested in your comments so join in the dialog.