There had been discussion about our Easter Island call ever since we came on board. Several people talked about previous attempts to visit, but failed due to adverse weather conditions. Captain Abhi had included “if” and “hopefully” in all his mentions of the island and we simply held faith that we'd get there. After all, we had two days to keep trying. In his final address on the day before our scheduled visit he referred to a Plan A and a Plan B, admitting that he also had a Plan C up his sleeve if all else failed. The thing is, the Island authorities would not allow him to operate Plan B without trying A first…and he felt sure that the weather condtions would not be favourable to make that work.

Waking up to the sight of the island outside our window the following morning then, we felt optimistic! Hooray, we were here!

We watched as a tender was lowered and clung on to the hope that all was well. But shortly afterwards, whilst we were enjoying breakfast, the Captain came on to say that as he feared, the swell was too great to make a safe landing here. The good news was, having failed here, he was now permitted to try his Plan B. The bad news is that it would take us two hours to get there and for all the guides, transport and everything else that was meeting us here to drive across the island to meet us there.

It's not easy, is it!?

We sat on our balcony, watching the island pass by, occasionally peering through the binoculars looking for Moai. I had a map with the locations marked and we tried to tally that with what we were seeing, but really, we hadn't a clue.

Soon, we were slowing down and came to a stop just off a small beach, marked on my map as Anakena. What my map also showed was a symbol showing Moai here too. So we got the binoculars and looked a little more closely.

Zooming in on my camera soon raised the excitement levels here, I can tell you!

But we're still on the ship and it's nearly lunchtime. We had two tours booked today, one for the morning, one in the afternoon and it's looking like at least one will be a write-off. But there are frequent updates from the Bridge, we're sending out a test tender with a crew on board to identify a safe landing spot. Shortly afterwards, the news comes back that they're not happy with what's there and need to devise a means of securing a jetty of some kind.

Soon we hear the Captain, the General Manager and the Safety Officer had all gone ashore to see what they can do. The news comes back that they have created a kind of jetty from one of the tenders and that the tender service is about to begin. Morning tours will start operating in the same order they were scheduled to leave and we should go to collect our tickets when called.

The experience of going ashore was like no other we have experienced. If we thought our most recent journey in Portimao was tricky, then this was tricky x 5. Not only was it difficult to leap aboard the tender from the ship, ably assisted by seamen on each arm on both sides of the gap, switching from moving tender A to tender B which was moving in a different dimension was the challenge, the gap between them opening up and closing again intermittently. Having reached Tender B, one had to negotiate the move from there to dry land - or rather to a landing stage built from pallets and assorted bits and pieces. All was stable and safely constructed, but nevertheless, those strong arms and secure footings were appreciated when the call came: “go!”

What use was the second tender, we wondered? Well, it had to be secured front and back using so many ropes that it wasn't practical to keep moving it - we counted at least six both front and back, tied to every rock and boulder around, and yet it still was constantly moving!

I don't think any of us completed that tender process without the thought that we'd have to do it all again later to return to the ship!

Mercifully, we all made it. No-one fell in (or out) and what's more, we did it all a second time today, because yes, the ship stayed overnight and we got another chance to see more of the Island this morning.

What did we find there? I'll share our thoughts and photos in my next post. In the meantime, whilst we waited for a safe way to go ashore, someone from the beach came for a closer look

What, no lifejackets?! 🤣