We did have 2 nice days at the Hanga Roa anchorage, where the weather was settled enough that we enjoyed ourselves. We took an afternoon amble around the "moai" (big stone heads) near Hanga Roa, the main town, and we went to the Museum.

We also took a walk around town and scoped out things like dive shops, laundry, groceries, internet, and souvenier stands.

The next day we took a half day tour of the north end of the island, where the 'birdman cult' hung out. This is the Easter Island 'religion' that succeeded the moai-builders, and is centered around an extinct volcano crater and a couple of small islands offshore. To decide who next year's ruler was, a representative from each party would swim out to the island and wait for the seabird nesting to begin. The group who's representative was the first to bring back (swimming across a half mile of open ocean, and scaling a very tall cliff) the first bird egg, got to rule the island for the next year. The actual 'birdman' also got the pretty girl, we understand.

The next day, Saturday, was scheduled to be a 'work day'. Sue from s/v Infini and I went grocery shopping. We walked all over town and shlepped large bags full of meat, veggies, and other necessaries back to the dinghy. When we got back to the dinghy, wow, was the surf big. Getting in and out of the small boat harbor is an adventure on a normal day. Well, this turned out to be more of an adventure than we'd planned.

What we'd been told is to idle at the dinghy dock and wait for a big "set" of waves to finish, then race out thru the surf zone in the calm that follows. Well, what we didn't know was that at this time, there was not going to be any calm. And we were in a hurry--the guys were waiting for the dinghy to go get diesel. So we idled out into the surf zone and somehow got 'committed' to going, and there was no calm. To make a long story short... we got flipped by a REALLY BIG wave... all our groceries in the surf... the dinghy and motor, and Sue and I. It was an exciting time to say the least.

Fortunately, there were lots of surfers nearby, and I think the locals are used to this drill. A couple of surfers helped Sue and I out. We (between crashing big waves) got the dinghy flipped back. Some of the guys were gathering up our floating groceries on their surfboards. And someone called the Chilean Coast Guard, and they were soon out in jetskis helping to collect stuff too. In the end, we lost about a third of our groceries. Sue lost a handheld VHF, and her camera, which was in a nylon 'drybag', is now toast. She was able to retrieve her bag that had her money and passport in it (though it was all soaked). My camera was in a better drybag, which one of the surfers retrieved. It got a few drops of water on it, but Dave cleaned it up and it's working for now. I did lose my small change purse with 3 credit cards in it, which was just in my pocket.

The bad part was that the dinghy motor needed to be worked on ASAP, to flush the salt water out. But the guys were stuck out on the boats--the conditions were too bad for them to come in. Fortunately, the Chilean Coast Guard mechanic volunteered to take the outboard back to their shop and work on it immediately--gratis. What a very nice gesture.

Sue and I sat on shore trying to dry our stuff out, and watching the surf, wondering how we were going to get back aboard. Finally, another cruiser with a small dinghy hired a fisherman to load their dinghy on his big outboard-powered launcha, and take them out. So when he came back, we negotiated a ride too. It was an exciting trip thru the surf--still huge waves--with our dinghy in the middle of the boat.

Mike and Dave, out on the boats, noticed a bunch of bananas float by, so they got in the 2nd dinghy and ran around gathering up whatever they could. They retrieved quite a few useful things too.

The next day we were supposed to have rented a car to go do a self-tour at the other end of the island. But while we were waiting for the surf to subside, I walked up and canceled the rental--the surfers and the dive shops said the surf would stay bad tomorrow too. And we saw from the GRIB files that a weather change was coming.

The next 36 hours were pretty bad as the swell built from NE, and the wind swung to the NE--a direction that isn't a good one anywhere on Easter Island. 3 boats opted to go ahead and leave for Pitcairn/Gambiers that evening, and the Chilean Armada guys were so helpful in coming out to the boats to clear them out of Chile.

After the 2nd really rolly awful squally night at Hanga Roa, with the wind backing more toward the north, we left at dawn for an anchorage on the south side of the island. It was Soggy Paws and Visions and Infini in a parade out of the anchorage, and then beating our way east against 20-25 kt winds. When standing off the Hotu Iti anchorage, which we had waypoints for, I could not believe there would be any protected anchorage there. But Visions, much faster than us, had arrived ahead and assured us that it was better than Hanga Roa, at least.

We spent the next 2 nights rolling our guts out at Hotu Iti. It is a pretty place, but we had gusty winds from NE and 6 foot swell rolling in around the headland. We were often sideways to the swell. Difficult conditions.

Visions decided to clear out for Gambiers, and called the Armada on VHF and asked if they'd come out with their paperwork to this remote anchorage, 10 miles out of town. Though we hadn't really had as much fun as we planned at Easter Island, faced with a forecast that showed more of the same difficult conditions for about another week, we decided to go to. Dave and Mike hitched back to town with the Armada guys, rented a car, and we spent all day running errands (filling diesel jugs, shopping, last minute internet, etc).

After another rolly night, the wind was finally starting to switch around to the N and NW, the sun came out, and the swell was calming down. But the Armada called us on the VHF and said more bad weather was coming, and we should leave.

So yesterday, Visions left Easter Island in the morning, and Infini and Soggy Paws left just after noon. The forecast shows west winds all across the direct route from Easter to Pitcairn and the Gambiers. So we are doing a tricky 'dive south' maneuver to try to pick up winds off a high pressure area south of here. We'll see how that works out.

We are sad that we didn't get to see all major sites on the island, and didn't get to go diving. Another 2 or 3 days of settled weather would have done it, but that was not to be.

We have a total of 1400 miles to go to our end destination--the town of Rikitea on Mangareva in the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia (approx 23S 135W). We hope to make an intermediate stop at Pitcairn Island, if the weather permits.
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At 3/24/2010 11:14 PM (utc) our position was 29°01.40'S 110°45.23'W

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Labels: Easter Island