January 21 2025 (day1)
Early this morning we anchored offshore outside Hangoa Roa, the main town on Easter Island. Easter Island discovered in 1722 by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen. He landed on Easter Sunday 1722 and named it Easter Island. Today the island is part of the South American country Chile and the main language spoken is Spanish
For days the big question was, are we able to land. In order to land, the sea swell have to be 4ft or less to have a safe tender operation to shuttle people to shore. Generally only 1/3 of the Cruise Ships who visit are able to land here. Luck was on our side, as the swells were down to 4ft.
By 10 AM our shore excursions group was ready to leave the main ship. Getting onto the tender was quite something with the sea swell. After a rough ride we made it to shore.
For today we had a tour to visit 4 different Moai sites. the first site had about 6 different statues.
After an half hour stop we carried on to our next site called Rano Rarahu Park. here we found statues in all kinds of shapes and sizes. There were over 300 statues in various states of repair This was also the site of the quarry where all the moai’s were carved.
After visiting this park, we drove for 10 minutes to get to our next site near the ocean. All the Moai statues on the island are facing away from the Ocean. At this site found an ingredible Row of 15 statues.
From here we went to our last stop at the beach park, where we found another couple statues. The fact remains, how did they move the statues from the quarry to the different sites over the island, some as far away as 5 miles. The larger statues are nearly 30 ft tall and weigh 80 ton.
After getting back to the dock, we boarded the tender for another rough ride to the ship. The unloading was quite eventful, because some passengers just don’t listen to the crew to sit down till they are called to embark the tender boat. End result was, they ended up banging their heads and ended up on the floor. That will hopefully teach them a lesson for next time.
Overall, What a Fantastic Day.
Cheers
Cor and Carol
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