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