See Previous 2004 Voyage Logs

2004 Easter Island to Tahiti via Pitcairn

Ship's crew, cook and scribe Noreen Hill sends her account of
the 49 night voyage from Easter Island...
(be warned: it'll make you very sorry you missed this trip.. Ed.)
See Easter Island to Pitcairn and Tahiti  picture gallerys here

Part one

Easter Island was by far the most mystical place I have visited. There was a certain feeling about the island and its people were so proud of their island, their Rapa Nui. The days I spent ashore were better than I could have dreamed. The island and its history had such story to tell that the two days were not nearly enough. It is one of the places you must add to your “places to visit” list.

I met a local guy, who also ended up being our veggie supplier, who took me horse riding for the day around the interior of the island. We went cave exploring, visited the Moai or the ancestral stone heads, and crossed over fields where we saw the remains of villages. I had fantastic day, I was sure that I would be the envy of everyone for seeing the island on horseback and with a local telling me legends along the way!

Now back on the ship there was a good week of maintenance and restocking for the next 49 days trip to Tahiti. On Friday morning Stacey, Elaine and I headed ashore to do last minute errands. I for one had to run to the hospital to tend to a lovely self inflicted cut to my middle finger. Stacey picked up the last of our veggies and Elaine greeted our new 13-voyage crew.

This is the first full trip we have had this year, 34 of us to feed-it will be a challenge. Our “left-over”V.C.s, Loa, Mike, Mary, Di, Stinge, Rik, Ruth and Martin were all too helpful with showing our new friends the ropes, and the do’s and don’ts of the ship.

We are on the way to one of the most remote places, Pitcairn Island. The refuge of the mutiny on the Bounty! The winds have been lighter than the past month, which isn’t such a bad thing because yesterday we had a swim call!

It was awesome, even if I had to swim one handed. The water was a beautiful 27 degrees and as Peter and James pointed out, with eyes open under water it was the clearest blue imaginable. The boys took turns diving from the bowsprit and deckhouse roof showing off their talents. A couple belly flops got a few rounds of applause as well as a few laughs!

The sunsets and sunrises have been amazing, we are sailing west so each night is a wonderful display of reds, blues, purples and oranges. This morning Paul spotted the spray of a whale and the deck was scattered with camera-frenzied people, too bad they were out of range! At least we know there is still marine life out there; the fishing has been dead poor.

Today, April 16, we have Pitcairn 30 miles in front of us and we are all very anxious for the call from aft to “let go” the anchor. We have had variable winds and weather systems sitting around the island and have had to dodge these systems just to be sure of a safe anchorage for a few days ashore. By the time our anchor was down, we were lying in the place where the Bounty lay some 213 years ago, amazing! Within no time the Pitcairners were down on their quad bikes and launching O’Leary, the island’s longboat. The crew fended off the massive boat while Voyage Crew jumped across with their bags to be billeted out with local families.

Saturday morning at 0700hrs, Alan, Tony, James, Nic, Stacey, Elaine and Paul took the dinghy ashore for a day of exploring the very ground that Fletcher Christian, John Adams and the other mutineers, and their Tahitian women called home in 1790.
By 1730hrs when the troops returned to the ship, they were ranting and raving of how friendly and helpful the Pitcairners were, how amazing St.Paul’s pools are and how much they want to return in the future! I could hardly wait for my turn on Sunday!

Sarah, Peter, Bobby, Chris, Barry and I were unlucky in the fact that it poured down with rain all night and by 0700hrs when we were ashore, there was still no change in the weather. Brenda and Steve were both down at the Landing upon our arrival and were all too keen in inviting us to their houses for tea and breakfast. Bobby and I went with Brenda up to her and her husband, Mike’s house.

What an amazing view they had of Adamstown, and the whole island for that fact! Jenny, David, Mary and Ray happened to be staying with the couple and so while they finished up their breakfast I wrote postcards and bought stamps from Brenda. Each islander has his or her own stash of stamps along with a mass of handmade wooden carvings and some even with a multitude of t-shirts for sale. At 1000hrs there was to be a market in the town square; a cement pad with a church, post office, library, hall and museum; the local grown produce was to be brought out and sold amongst the families.

By the time I met up with Stacey, we had agreed to get kumara from Tom Christian as well as spring onions, but other than that there were no veggies to be seen. We were a tad worried; we had nothing on the ship and were hoping for a bit more than kumara, so we set out on a mission. Jay gave us a ride up to his and Carol’s home where we found Carol in the kitchen making buns and doing laundry! She was more than happy to organize some fresh veggies for us. She was also happy to give us some of her frozen broccoli, as when the supply ship came in she got double her order, we didn’t mind! Carol was on the VHF radio to Olive and Brenda and as Stacey and I sipped our tea we listened to the lingo the women used to communicate, a mixture of old English and Tahitian.

We visited Miranda and Irma; both women published their own cookbooks of which we wanted copies! By this time Stacey had to get back to the ship, and I had some exploring of my own to do. I visited the school, the cemetery, and ended up at the Library where Shirley Young and I chatted for some time! I made my way to Steve and Olive’s house were I was given lunch and a nice cup of tea before kindly being shown around the island by Steve on his quad.

I was taken to St. Paul’s to see the sparkling pool and amazing drop at Down Rope. We went to the Radio Station and managed to pull the last of Steve’s carrots from the ground for the ship’s provisions and made our way round to the southern side of the island. I was shown the grounds of were there is talk of an airstrip going in, and some of the local garden plots before going to the Highest Point.

We managed to make our way down Ted side and found Miss T the island’s tortoise, I tried feeding her a carrot, and although she grunted when I put it near her mouth she had happily eaten the vegetable by the time we had turned the bike around and come back up the slippery slope!

There are two tennis courts on the island, it would have been great to see the locals gathering to play a match or two, but unfortunately my time on Pitcairn was drawing to a close. Back at the Christian residence we began collecting our things to bring down to the Landing for the Longboat journey back out to Soren. It was actually quite emotional seeing pretty much the entire population bidding us farewell and loading their fruits and veggies onto the boat. There must have been 15 quads or more in the “parking lot” and at least 40 of us in the boat heading out to Soren.

As I jumped back on board and the unloading of supplies began I became more and more ecstatic, Stacey and I hugged each other because we could not believe our eyes. There were so many vegetables and fruit we almost didn’t know where to put it all. We did not even expect half of what we got because we were worried about taking too much from the locals, but in the end they pulled through and did an unbelievable job doing so! We could not thank them enough for their superb effort! What a fantastic group of people, so hospitable, I truly felt welcomed by all and hope to return one day!

Thanks again Pitcairn, I know you will be reading this!

Noreen

Continued - part two here

Read the ship's account here