Easter Island Sunday, February 10
Easter Island
Easter Island has always been a challenging port to land on. With that being said, today was no exception. This is a tender port and their dock is very small. Add that to ocean swells coming from the south, bashing against the coastline, the tenders and the ship and you have the perfect storm. More often than not, this port is usually scrubbed due to unfavorable conditions.
We anchored off of the only town on the island, Hanga Roa as scheduled at about 7 am. Everything looked fairly good for a landing. The sea looked calm, but that darn swell was coming in at about 10 ft high. A nice long rolling swell that could bash about the tendering platforms and the tenders. The Captain made the decision to give it a shot. Usually the first tender is loaded up with supplies from the ship to take over to the dock. Chairs, tents, water, etc. Then the people who booked ship excursions go on the next tenders. Well, it took about an hr. to load just one tender due to the swells. ( it normally takes about 15 min.)The ship was bobbing and the tender was bobbing in the opposite direction, with 3 foot gaps between them. This did not look good.
We did not book an excursion because we were fortunate to land in 2012 and took an excursion then. We did not get to see the town at that time, so we were just going to walk around and buy a few trinkets. Another deterrent was that the excursion ticket had almost doubled in price...$300 per person for a 3 hr tour....way too expensive for something that we had already seen. Well, the scheduled excursions were supposed to get off by 9 am, but they did not go until 12 pm. It took forever to load the tenders, mostly because of people not gaging their own agility. Due to the difficulty boarding a tender, anyone using a cane, walker, or scooter were not allowed to go. Period.
Anyone not on an excursion were given tender numbers, and when your number was called, you get to go. The ship was scheduled to be here until 5:30pm, but seeing the difficulty, the captain extended it to 6:30pm. Well, we had number 25 and by 3pm they were only up to 13. I knew by that time that it was going to be a no go. The sea was getting worse and by 4pm the captain made the decision that no one else was to go ashore.....they needed the tenders to get everyone onshore back to the ship by dark. Disappointing for sure, but it really was dangerous. We heard later that one crew member on the tender had his arm bashed, and a few passengers had bumps and bruises from falling. Anyway....there were many things that could have worked better, and hopefully will be taken into consideration if they ever go here again. Only about half the passengers got off, and needless to say the other half had a few choice phrases to say about the situation. And they did, the comment box was overflowing from what I heard and they were not shy about voicing their complaints to the proper people. I felt bad for the ones who only booked this segment to check Easter Island off their bucket list. But, as with any port, if the situation is dangerous to the passengers or crew, the captain can scrub a port at any time. I'm just glad we got to see this special place in 2012. After everyone was aboard we lifted anchor at around 8:30 pm....very behind schedule. 5 more days at sea until Papeete, Tahiti, with a special 3 hr stop in 3 days at Pitcairn Island to let the islanders come aboard and sell their crafts.
Easter Island has always been a challenging port to land on. With that being said, today was no exception. This is a tender port and their dock is very small. Add that to ocean swells coming from the south, bashing against the coastline, the tenders and the ship and you have the perfect storm. More often than not, this port is usually scrubbed due to unfavorable conditions.
We anchored off of the only town on the island, Hanga Roa as scheduled at about 7 am. Everything looked fairly good for a landing. The sea looked calm, but that darn swell was coming in at about 10 ft high. A nice long rolling swell that could bash about the tendering platforms and the tenders. The Captain made the decision to give it a shot. Usually the first tender is loaded up with supplies from the ship to take over to the dock. Chairs, tents, water, etc. Then the people who booked ship excursions go on the next tenders. Well, it took about an hr. to load just one tender due to the swells. ( it normally takes about 15 min.)The ship was bobbing and the tender was bobbing in the opposite direction, with 3 foot gaps between them. This did not look good.
We did not book an excursion because we were fortunate to land in 2012 and took an excursion then. We did not get to see the town at that time, so we were just going to walk around and buy a few trinkets. Another deterrent was that the excursion ticket had almost doubled in price...$300 per person for a 3 hr tour....way too expensive for something that we had already seen. Well, the scheduled excursions were supposed to get off by 9 am, but they did not go until 12 pm. It took forever to load the tenders, mostly because of people not gaging their own agility. Due to the difficulty boarding a tender, anyone using a cane, walker, or scooter were not allowed to go. Period.
Anyone not on an excursion were given tender numbers, and when your number was called, you get to go. The ship was scheduled to be here until 5:30pm, but seeing the difficulty, the captain extended it to 6:30pm. Well, we had number 25 and by 3pm they were only up to 13. I knew by that time that it was going to be a no go. The sea was getting worse and by 4pm the captain made the decision that no one else was to go ashore.....they needed the tenders to get everyone onshore back to the ship by dark. Disappointing for sure, but it really was dangerous. We heard later that one crew member on the tender had his arm bashed, and a few passengers had bumps and bruises from falling. Anyway....there were many things that could have worked better, and hopefully will be taken into consideration if they ever go here again. Only about half the passengers got off, and needless to say the other half had a few choice phrases to say about the situation. And they did, the comment box was overflowing from what I heard and they were not shy about voicing their complaints to the proper people. I felt bad for the ones who only booked this segment to check Easter Island off their bucket list. But, as with any port, if the situation is dangerous to the passengers or crew, the captain can scrub a port at any time. I'm just glad we got to see this special place in 2012. After everyone was aboard we lifted anchor at around 8:30 pm....very behind schedule. 5 more days at sea until Papeete, Tahiti, with a special 3 hr stop in 3 days at Pitcairn Island to let the islanders come aboard and sell their crafts.
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| Moai from the ship |
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| Easter Island |
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