Mangareva - The End of the Voyage (But Not The Journey)

 

We arrived in Mangareva today. Unlike in Pitcairn and Rapa Nui, the ship was able to dock directly to the pier, as it's in a large protected lagoon.

This marks the end of the sea voyage part of the trip, but far frome the end of the journey!  I will disembark from the ship and continue on my own -- I don't yet know for how long. I will just play it by ear until I decide it's time to go home.

Mangareva is part of the Gambier group of islands in French Polynesia and the most remote group. It's a 4 hour flight from here to Tahiti! It's fairly sparsely populated with less than 1500 people on the island.  Very few tourists, no big resorts, only a few small markets in the main town of Rikitea. The main export here seems to be the famous black pearls. Though often marketed as "Tahitian pearls" they really come mainly from here in the Gambiers. This is the largest island in the Gambiers and it's ringed by an atoll creating a large lagoon with 4 other islands: Taravai, Aukena, Akamaru, Temoe. The airport itself is not on any island but rather on the atoll!

On the last night aboard, the ship hosted a Disco party with Grant as DJ spinning 80s music.  There were laser lights and even a smoke machine!

Disco party aboard the ship!

There is internet here but it's very poor quality since it's run by the French government. But it's about to get a LOT better!  The lodge I stayed at had requested two of the passengers to bring a couple of Starlink kits with them from the USA, which they did!  Using a Starlink is the best way to get high speed internet here, and it works very well (although technically illegal). Looking around the houses on the island we spotted several Starlink antennas.

Cathedral in Mangareva.
Thousands of Polynesians were killed during the construction of this church.

Goodbye Charlie, you will be missed. Even on Pitcairn Island!

Charles Mattheson Love was an learned geologist, esteemed anthropologist, intrepid explorer, vivid storyteller, all-around great guy, and my friend. I had lost touch with him in recent years and meant to reconnect with him. Now I will never get that chance again. I was saddened to learn that he had passed away last month at the age of 80. His obituary.

I thought back to the times I had spent with him, the wonderful and remote places around the world that I had traveled to with him, and the numerous fascinating stories he told -- many of which relate directly to this great voyage I am currently on. Charlie was a great storyteller; he had a way with words that brought to life the story he was telling so as to make you feel you were actually there.

I first heard of Charlie Love on my first trip to Easter Island (Rapa Nui) when I ran into some associates of his. I mentioned my fascination with the island and my desire to solve its great mysteries. They said, "Well then you should meet Charlie. He's a scientist currently doing research on the island. He has many of the answers you seek." I then desperately wanted to meet him and we even tried to set up a meeting but due to time constraints I was not able to meet him that time.

I did meet him later that year at the university in Wyoming where he was a professor and joined him on a geology tour of the Midwest, covering Utah, Wyoming, and ending in Yellowstone National Park and Montana. During this trip I got to know him, his intellectual acumen, and his storytelling skills.

Later I accompanied him on a trip to Peru, exploring the Inca civilization at Machu Picchu, and the much older civilization at Caral.

Finally I did another trip to Easter Island with Charlie. Charlie had already done much research on the geology of Easter Island and was well known to many of the islanders.  Have you heard that Easter Island had many trees in the past? It was Charlie who first made that ground-breaking discovery. This time he was leading a tour group on the island.  During the day would would explore some part of the island and the moai, and in the evenings I would sit with Charlie and discuss the theories of the mysteries of Easter Island, or listen to one of his many stories. By this time I had developed my own theories, which overlapped with Charlie's theories in some areas, but disagreed in others. In particular our theories differed markedly in the details of the method of transport of the gigantic moai statues[1].

Once I mentioned to Charlie that I wanted to visit Pitcairn Island and he said "I've been to Pitcairn but it was under less than happy circumstances." He then went on to tell his story. It took place many years ago, perhaps 20 or 30 years back. He had been working on Easter Island doing research there.  After he was done he boarded a small sailboat heading to Tahiti, which would be a several week voyage. However soon after setting sail he fell seriously ill, perhaps a stomach virus, I'm not sure.  After several days instead of recovering he just kept getting worse and he became weaker and weaker. Then disaster struck, the boat was caught in a severe storm. The wind and huge waves tossed the boat around violently. Charlie was on deck and was thrown against some object, cracking 3 of his ribs. Now the situation was dire. They were still hundreds of miles away from any island and Charlie was close to death. The nearest island was Pitcairn, so they plotted a new course and headed straight for Pitcairn. When they got close they radioed ahead that they had a critically injured passenger onboard in need of immediate medical treatment. Though he was barely conscious by then he vividly remembered the scene. He said a crew came out in a longboat to pick up Charlie and take him to the island for emergency medical treatment. The Pitcairn crew was being directed by a nimble barefoot woman with a mix of Polynesian and Caucasian features. He would later learn her name: Brenda Christian, a direct descendant of the mutineer Fletcher Christian. "Brenda Christian saved my life," Charlie said.

When I had a chance, I asked Brenda if she remembered my friend Charlie Love who had been on the island many years ago.  Her eyes lit up immediately and said "Oh yes Charlie!  He had 3 broken ribs!" and she smiled with clearly fond memories of Charlie.  I looked at her with amazement at how good her memory was, and also smiled with her as I felt a many decades loop was finally closed.

[1] Once, toward the end Charlie approached me with an annoyed tone and grudgingly confided to me after much consideration that my theory was probably right, or at least that he couldn't refute it.

Mutiny at Pitcairn!

We had so much fun on the first day at Pitcairn that the passengers and crew REALLY wanted to spend a second day on the island, but the Captain steadfastly refused to allow it! So we split into two groups: those supporting the captain, and those wanting to remain on the island for an extra day.  After a secret meeting in the aft cargo compartment, those of us opposing the captain decided to mutiny!  Under cover of darkness and with Timo's help, we stole the Zodiac and headed back  to the island.  It was tricky negotiating the large waves in total darkness and more than once we nearly crashed the Zodiac against the rocks!

Once on shore we deliberately punctured the Zodiac and let it sink to the bottom of the sea to destroy the evidence. We knew they would come looking for us in the morning so we split up and found separate hiding places. Robbie and Esa climbed up to Christian's Cave while I opted for Sailor's Hideout. Grant went Downrope and hid by the petroglyphs. Sandy and Penny went Tedside and hid with Mrs. T, the giant Galapagos tortoise. The rest hid behind the bar at Christian's Cafe (Steve & Olive's house).

Ok this entire post was made up[1], but cool story huh? 

[1] Including this sentence!

Pitcairn Day 1

At last we have arrived at Pitcairn! I had been anticipating this moment for years now and this  is one of the reasons I chose to join the leg of the voyage. I read about the history of Pitcairn and had been wanting to visit it for some time now. I explored various ways of getting here until I found that this voyage stops at Pitcairn.

The waters around Pitcairn are treacherous with heavy waves and sharp rocks. There is one dock but it's far too small and dangerous for any ship to land there. So ships must anchor some distance off shore, and wait for a longboat from the island to come out to meet them. We had radioed ahead so they were expecting us, and the longboat came out to pick us up.

The crew of the longboat was led by a striking woman with a mix of Polynesian and Caucasian features.  She was lithe, limber, and barefoot.  She was in her 70s but she moved like a woman in her 30s. Though I had never seen her before I was pretty sure I knew who she was. When I had a chance to talk to her later, I confirmed it -- as I thought she was indeed Brenda Christian, a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789!

Brenda Christian, a descendant of Fletcher Christian

I agreed to be the cameraman for the day working with Grant, the ornithologist, as the official Darwin photographer Tom was busy with the other scientist. I helped Grant record scenes for a documentary he's working on. We had two missions for today:

• Photograph the petroglyphs.  This was of personal interest to me as well. These petroglyphs were made by early Polynesians around 1100 AD, long before Europeans discovered the island. The Polynesians lived there for some time, built stone temples and monuments (most of which were destroyed by the Europeans), and then abandoned the island for unknown reasons. It is also unknow where they went to, but one interesting theory is that this is the group that first went to Rapa Nui!

• Find and photograph the endangered bird species, the Pitcairn Reed Warbler.

We accomplished both missions. 

Use at your own risk!

Steep path at Downrope

To get to the petroglyphs we had to descend a treacherous path down a steep cliff called Downrope (because it once had a rope but the rope is no longer there). Brenda was our guide and she led the way, nimbly negotiating the cliff path (barefoot of course) with no difficulty at all. We followed behind going more slowly over the slippery rocks.

Flightless bird petroglyph

The petroglyphs were numerous, covering much of the cliff wall, and quite interesting. Some were recognizable objects like a man, a goat, etc.  Others were very cryptic and undecipherable. One petroglyph was clearly a large flightless bird, which would now be extinct. Grant mused that it could even possibly be a Moa. I think it's this bird:

After finishing at the petroglyphs, we split up and searched separately for the rare Reed Warbler. It was difficult to photograph, but I managed to capture a few photos of it.

Endangered species Pitcairn Reed Warbler

Reed Warbler eating a banana. It was
previously not known that they can eat fruit
 

Here is my best photo of the Reed Warbler:

Pitcairn - The Most ISOLATED Island in the World

We are scheduled to arrive at Pitcairn tomorrow morning!

Pitcairn Island (pronounced "Pitkern" by locals) is one of the most isolated places on the planet[1]. It is most famous for being the island where the mutineers of the HMS Bounty fled to and hid from the authorities in 1790. In the 230+ years since then, Pitcairn has had an interesting if troubled, even tragic history. You can read about the detailed history of Pitcairn Island here:

• Wikipedia - History of the Pitcairn Islands 
• Official Pitcairn Government History of Pitcairn
  

Model of the Bounty

List of people aboard the Bounty

[1] It's not the most remote in terms of distance, but it's one of the most isolated in terms of the amount of outside contact, perhaps second to Tristan da Cunha.

How Remote Are We?

We've now been sailing for 4 full days, far out at sea. Very far out. We are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world. It feels extremely remote. Since we left Rapa Nui, the most remote island in the world, we have seen nothing but blue ocean in all directions, as far as the eye can see. Horizon to horizon. Not a single boat or plane. No birds. Nothing.

Exactly how far out are we? We are 1050 km from Rapa Nui and 1050 km from the next closest island, Pitcairn. Exactly midway between two of the most remote islands in the world.

Then today an interesting thing happened -- The International Space Station (ISS) passed directly overhead.  Why is this interesting?  Because it was only 400 km above us as it passed us by. That means the closest other human beings to us at the time were the astronauts on the ISS!

Passing the Time

We've now been sailing at sea for 8 full days. We are still 2 days away from the first stop at Pitcairn Island. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the work schedule did not allow for too much free time. But there would still be some free time. Here are some of the things you could do onboard between work shifts:

• Take a nap! In most cases if there was free time you would be better off using the time to catch up on sleep as it was difficult to get enough sleep with the work shifts.

• Read a book.  The ship's library had many good books to browse.

• Stargazing. On clear nights the stars were amazing! I took the opportunity to teach the crew and the other passengers about astronomy and the objects visible in the night sky. Some of the objects we observed:
• Large and Small Magellanic Cloud
• Andromeda galaxy
• Globular clusters (M7 and M8)
• Meteors
• Satellites
• Jupiter

• Attend a lecture. The scientists onboard occasionally gave presentations that you could attend.

Lecture on Pacific seabirds

• Give a lecture. I gave 2 presentations myself: one on my experiences traveling to the South Pole, and one on my Astrophotography work.

• Assist a scientist: You could sign up for an observing session to assist a scientist in their field research. One scientist needed help in spotting and identifying bird species and the other needed help in surveying ocean debris.

• Catch up on email. Thanks to Starlink!

• Fishing. We caught 4 large fish (mostly Tuna) while sailing. This resulted in the best dinners onboard!

Life On Board

This is no luxury cruise.  All the passengers are required to work and be part of the crew. We have to work 8 hours a day, broken up as two 4-hour shifts, 12 hours apart. So there were 3 shifts named Red, White, and Blue, after the colors on the Dutch flag:

Red:        12am to 4am and 12pm to 4pm

White:     4am to 8am and 4pm to 8pm

Blue:        8am to 12pm and 8pm to 12am

Meal times were fixed:  breakfast 07:30, lunch 13:30, dinner 19:30

The schedule made things very rigorous. The Blue shift was the best one because you could actually get some decent sleep time.  White was much worse and Red was the worst of all!  With those shifts your sleep time was broken up into few hour segments, unless you skipped meals which I ended up doing a number of times. Sleep is more important than food!  In addition we could also spend some time assisting the scientists on board. I did a few sessions of bird watching for the ornithologist, and debris watching to assist the other scientist doing a survey of ocean debris. With this schedule there was hardly time for other things, like blogging!

A shift would involve taking a turn at the helm steering the ship, pulling on the ropes to hoist or lower a sail, or other miscellaneous tasks. There were many sails on the ship (10 sails and a total of 900 square meters of sail area!) so there was much "heaving" and ho-ing" of the myriad ropes. The sails were extremely heavy so it sometimes took 3 or 4 people pulling on a single rope.  All ropes had to be pulled by hand; there were no motorized winches. 

Current GPS location. Our maximum speed achieved under sail was 9.7 knotts.

These videos below may give you an idea of what the seas are like.

Here are some of the meals we had on board:

The Invincible Chilean Armada

Photos and Video credit: Esa Piispanen

 We spent the first night still anchored offshore of Rapa Nui. Wet actually lifted anchor and set sail this morning.  But we didn't get very far.  Within moments of setting off we were pulled over by the cops! A police cruiser from the Chilean Armada (Navy) came racing after us with sirens blaring and made aggressive zigzag moves to cut us off. Then they pulled alongside of us and demanded that we stop. We yelled back (in Spanish) that we are a sailing ship and we cannot stop. The best we can do is slow down.

What was this all about? It turns out that Tom, our official photographer was capturing drone footage of the ship as we were departing. He sent the drone from the ship all the way to Anakena beach and back again, where there is an Ahu[1] with Moai, and is part of the Easter Island National Park area. Therefore it requires a specific permit to fly a drone. Tom did have a permit to fly a drone, but unfortunately the permit had technically expired the day before. Someone had seen the drone, reported it to a National Park official. They checked the permits and found that it had expired.  So they called the Armada, which came chasing after us!

They demanded to see the footage captured by the drone, so Tom stepped onto the Armada boat with his laptop and played the video for them.  The video showed that it contained footage of the moai.  At this point we didn't know what they were going to do.  Would they arrest Tom and take him back to the island?  Demand that he pay a high penalty fee?

In the end they simply confiscated the memory card containing the footage, and then let us continue on our way.

[1] Ahu is the platform upon which moai are mounted

Boarding the Oosterschelde

 Today is the day to board the ship! I and the other passengers assembled on the docks near the restaurant La Kaleta. The waters around the island are too rough and treacherous for the ship itself to dock here, so it was anchored some distance offshore, and we were shuttled to the ship in groups of three in a small zodiac.  

The Oosterschelde is fairly comfortable compared to other boats I've been on. It's got hot showers, its own water desalinator to make drinking water from sea water, and a bi-level salon for meals and relaxing. I did not expect to have internet but someone brought a Starlink so we did!

Beautiful Moai

I had taken numerous Moai photos on previous visits to the island so instead this time I will post these beautiful photos from a brilliant Rapa Nui photographer and friend Pathy.

Credit for all photos/videos below goes to Pathy Hucke Atan:

You can find more of her fantastic photography on her instagram: @rapa_nui_magic_visual

Please give her a follow!

An Umu for the Ages

Much like I did the last time I was here, I threw a big umu[1] for all my friends on Rapa Nui. I purchased everything needed for the umu; meat, fish, veggies, drinks, ice cream, tablecloths, plates, utensils, LED string lights, car battery (don't ask!), etc. The meat consisted of: an entire lamb (!), a whole side of beef ribs, a bunch of chicken, and a whole large tuna. Main veggie was camote (sweet potato) and onions, tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce etc, for a salad. It was held at my friend Jhonny's house in Te Hoe Manu. We dug a pit in the ground and put in some burning coals. On top of that was placed the meat and camote, and covered it up. We let it cook for about 4 hours. 

In the meantime, the guests started arriving.  About 30 people in all came!  Many I knew from before, others I just met at the party. It served as my farewell party as I would be boarding the ship the next day, as well as a chance to reconnect with my friends. It was so much fun!

When the food was ready we took it out of the pit. Jhonny said a few words and so did I. Then we sat down to eat.  The meat was oh, so tender!  The fish was served raw, as ceviche. The salad and veggies were great too, and we did not skip ice cream for dessert.  Everything was so delicious and everyone raved about it! 

But the most delicious thing of all was spending time with friends!

[1] Umu is the Polynesian word for a big feast, called a curanto in Spanish or a luau in Hawaiian.