The Living Side of the Island

Our bus took us to a reconstruction of a Tahitian temple.  The old religion was totally displaced by the religions brought by explorers and settlers, but this was an example of the former worship areas.  There are still some original worship places up in the mountains, but since they are inaccessible, the government built this as a tribute to their ancestors.

If you read French, you are strictly
forbidden to climb on these, but if you
only read English, you are just forbidden.

Currently about 60% of the islanders are some type of Protestant, 30% are Catholic and the rest are other religions.  We saw many churches as we traveled.

A Protestant church

The Catholic Cathedral

Everywhere we went there were statues.

The one on the left was in the lounge area for the National Assembly, the ruling body of Tahiti.  French Polynesia is under the control of France, but has strong local government.  The one on the right was in the Queen's Park, named in honor of the first Queen of Tahiti after foreign discovery.  She ruled for 50 years.  The name "Papeete" means water basket because there is a spring where the Queen used to get fresh water for her bath.

Now only eels and koi swim in the springs.

A monument to Queen Pumare IV

Tahiti combats graffiti in an unusual way.  They hold The Tahiti Graffiti Festival every year to honor well done works of art and to cover the blank sides of buildings.

The people we met were all friendly and welcoming, starting with this band which welcomed us on the pier.












As we sailed away, the sun setting over the mountains gave us a different view of the harbor area.

Then, as a final gift from "Paradise on Earth," we were treated to this sunset over the island.

Paradise on Earth

This is how an early European explorer described Tahiti, because of its warn, sunny climate and the extremely friendly native women.  I do know that a number of beautiful flowers grow here.  We took a drive along the southern and western side of Tahiti Nui, the larger of the islands, to a botanical garden.  I will leave it to the botanists to give you the names-- I just thought they were beautiful.

The next stop on our bus tour was to visit some caves. They reminded me of the Fern Grotto on Kauai, but on a smaller scale.  The tropical vegetation was lush, with long ferns hanging over the openings to the grottoes.

Even though the sign said "No Swimming" there was a man in one of the pools.





Some of the trees were clinging to the rocks as little streams cascaded by.























This post is getting a bit large, with all the pictures, so I will save the rest of our visit to Tahiti for the next blog.

A Strange Experience

This fellow greeted us in Tahiti.

Last evening we had a  strange experience.  We walked on land.  The ground under our feet did not go up and down or tilt from side to side.  It has been 11 days since we have had this experience, so it felt a bit strange at first.  However, we soon got used to it.  We were not supposed to arrive in Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia, until the morning of the 26th, but we were able to get in on the afternoon of the 25th.  We perhaps could have arrived even earlier, but we had to wait for an Italian ship to leave the pier.  This is a popular stop for cruise ships with 3 others docked in the same area.  There was a ship next to us when we went to bed, but it was gone this morning.  A ferry came in next to us this morning.  I do not know where it came from -- perhaps Bora Bora.

We walked around Papeete for a while last night, just to get off the ship.  Since we had not had dinner, we decided to take advantage of the "food trucks."  These are not what I expected.  Food trucks I have seen before had one window where you ordered your food, paid for something that had been prepared before, like a sandwich and drink, and walked away to eat it in a local park or bench somewhere.  These were food trucks on steroids.  Three sides of the truck opened to reveal a full kitchen.  A grill was placed outside and full meals were cooked to order.  You sat at tables with either chairs or plastic stools and your food was delivered to you piping hot. I planned to get a picture of the trucks in daylight, but we left at 5:30 and the trucks were just beginning to arrive.

So Near and Yet So Far – Easter Island

Our Cruise Director had been to Easter Island 5 times before and was only able to get onto the island 2 times, 40% of the time.  Now it is down to 33 1/3%.  The forecast called for rain, but that did not slow us down.  We just laid out raincoat and umbrellas.  The waves were not too big, and the wind was manageable.  However, the “ocean swell” was about 3 meters.  The opening of the tender landing is about 3 meters above water level.  This means that any additional water height from a wave would wash sea water into the ship.  Add to that the fact that there could be 0 – 10 feet difference between the height of the tender port and the door to the tender, and the captain decided that we would not be going ashore “for the safety of the crew and the passengers.”  It is disappointing, but understandable.

The next best thing which he could do was to have the local representative give a narration as we slowly circled the island.  Any pictures we took were with maximum magnification and the moai (statues) are still small and not too clear.  If you want better pictures, I suggest you look on the Internet.

Easter Island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday, hence the name of the island.  There have been other names suggested, such as St. Charles by the first missionaries and 

Rapa Nui for the original inhabitants. This is another volcanic island first populated by Polynesians several centuries ago.  Over the years all the trees were cut down to clear pasture and crop land.  Now there is an effort to reforest the island, partially to combat erosion. 

Easter Island is most famous for the large stone figures standing facing inland.  In most places there is a single statue, but along the coast there are 2 places where several moai are lined up along the shore.  Each statue represents an ancestor who was head of the family. 

Some of the moai are located in the heart of the town but others seem to stand alone guarding open fields. The smallest is about 3 feet tall, and the largest is over 10 feet tall and weighs about 8 tons. All of them face away from the sea, so all we saw was the back side.

No one knows how the figures were transported to the final site since all were carved from volcanic rock at a single quarry near one end of the island.  There is no definite time period when this was done, but the newest statures are the largest.  By the time Europeans discovered the island, new statues were no longer being carved.  In fact, there are a couple hundred incomplete carvings remaining in the volcano site.

All the moai were carved from this
extinct volcano.

After the moai  were no longer carved, the inhabitants came up with a new way to select the ruler.  Each village chose a strong young man to represent the village.  These men were specially trained for the "bird man" quest.  Once a year they would assemble at the top of a high cliff overlooking 3 small islands. They had to climb down the cliff, swim across the rough water to one of the islands and wait for the arrival of a particular type of bird.  Next they had to snatch an egg from the nest, tie it to their forehead, swim back and climb the cliff, all without breaking the egg.  The leader of the village represented by the first successful "bird man" then poked a hole in the egg and ate the contents.  He became ruler of the island for 1 year, but it was not all glory.  He was put in isolation for 6 months, talking only to the chief priest.  Then he had 6 months to rule before the whole process was repeated.  The last contest took place in the mid 1800s.

We may try to visit Easter Island again some day, but I think we will fly the next time!

Marooned (Almost)

Today we visited Robinson Crusoe Island, and almost did not leave!  The “All Aboard “ time came and went, the sailing time came and went, and still we had not moved.  Once before we were delayed because the anchor “did not come up properly.”  This time the captain came on the PA system and said that when the anchor was raised, a large rock was stuck in it.

You cannot properly stow the anchor with a large rock and you certainly did not want to sail for several days with the anchor hanging over the side.  How to remove that rock?  They tried raising and lowering it, to no avail.  They raised it all the way and dropped it.  They were about to tie a rope to the bottom of the anchor and raise the bottom above the top to tip out the rock.  Fortunately, they tried dropping it one more time and the rock came out.  Hurrah!  And so we did not become castaways on Robinson Crusoe Island.  While all this maneuvering was going on, the tender was waiting to be lifted back on board.  The mist came down from the mountains and gave us this beautiful sight.

This is the island where a sailor aboard an unseaworthy ship demanded that the ship be repaired before setting back out to sea.  "I would rather stay on this remote rock than go to sea in that ship!"  The captain said, "OK" and left him there.  The ship later sank, but he was stuck there for about 5 years before he was rescued.  Upon hearing the story, DeFoe wrote Robinson Crusoe,   a book whose complete title is much longer.  They say the book has been translated into about as many languages as the Bible, and it has inspired many other books and movies, including "Robinson Crusoe on Mars."
Pirates do not have much to do with the book, but that seemed to be a good theme for a party, so the local inhabitants went all out to set the atmosphere.  Fewer than 1000 people live on the island, and most of them seemed to take part in the party for us.

Robinson Crusoe aged well.

The island is rugged, with houses clinging to the side of the steep slopes, and most of the people live in the one small  town.

Because of the high winds and steep slopes, flowers have a difficult time growing.  However, if there is any shelter from the wind, they do quite well.

Another friendly face

Since we now have our Internet for the first time in five days, we are now publishing the two blogs together.  There is no demand for Internet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean so there are no satellites with which to connect.