Cruise By Easter Island

The day I developed tender envy

We had an extra hours’ sleep tonight, so it wasn’t too much of a challenge to get up and finally meet up with Roscoe, who was in his usual early morning perch. Thanks to those who told me where he would be!

It was another gorgeous calm sunny day. We skipped the morning talks and took ourselves to the pool. It was 74 degrees again, the sea was like cobalt blue glass, and there was not a single cloud in the sky.

After lunch Brian needed to return to the cabin to catch up with some work, and I took advantage of the indoor time to make my latest necklace, armed with the 2 needle nosed pliers. The necklace is alright, but not nearly as nice as those made with Julia’s bead kits.

When we had originally seen our itinerary, we saw that it included Easter Island. However, after making our booking I saw the small print, which said, “Cruise by”. This meant that we were not actually going to stop and sight see on the island, we were simply going to cruise by. This was disappointing because I had heard that cruise ships do anchor there, and send their passengers ashore on tenders so they can see the splendour of the island.

During his noon announcement the Commodore had said that we would be stopping briefly at the tender port on Easter Island for a medical evacuation, and then we would return to pick up the medical team again after seeing the statues, and sailing around the island.

When we got close to the port, there larger than life, was the Costa Luminosa, with her tenders going back and forth, ferrying her lucky passengers ashore to see the wonders of the island. I would not normally want to be on any other ship, but I must admit I was suffering from extreme tender envy. Why should they get to go ashore, while our tenders were securely in their place on our ship, and we were relegated to sight seeing from deck 10 port side?

One of the tenders from the Luminosa came up to QV, and the crew made the transfer of the medically compromised passenger and medical team members. It is always so sad to see someone leave the ship like that; I do hope they will get the medical care they need. Easter Island is a long way away from anywhere.

After the tender left, we headed around the southwestern end of the island towards the statues. James Grant-Peterkin gave an excellent commentary as we sailed along the coast, and finally we reached the statues. As expected they were not that easy to see with the naked eye, but were very clear through binoculars. We stopped a while to get a good look at them, and then continued going around the island in a counter clockwise direction.

We retreated to our balcony for champagne and biltong, and watched the island go by. Our Spanish speaking neighbors continue to be an extremely rowdy bunch, and they were having yet another party on their balcony. It was impossible for Brian and I to carry on a conversation, so we had to be content with just watching the beautiful scenery before us.

Eventually we reached the Luminosa again, and our medical team returned on board. With much blowing of both ship’s whistles we headed off into the blue Pacific once more.

When walking down the corridor to go for dinner we came across a couple clutching plates with food piled high on them. They had arranged to meet in a friend’s cabin to have dinner, but they had forgotten the cabin number, so were searching the ship for them, meanwhile their dinner was getting cold. We didn’t know their friend, so we were not able to help them in their search.

Although it was disappointing not to be able to see the statues up close and personal, Easter Island is very interesting and we had a very good day. I learned that there is a whole lot more to Easter Island than just the statues. A close up experience would have been nice, but I am very grateful to the Commodore for providing us with a wonderful day looking at the island. And there were Godivas again – and a very good night…………….