PITCAIRN ISLAND

JANUARY 24, 2014

The Pitcairn Islands, officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a grop of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands ara a British overseas territory (formerly a British colony), the last remaining in the Pacific. Only Pitcairn, the second largest, is inhibited.

 

This little (2 miles across) island has such a history that it was intriguing to visit so close. It has no harbor so our ship stopped close by and most of the 45 inhabitants rowed their biggest boat out to our ship with their wares to sell.  They spent several hours with us.

 

If you know the true story of “Mutiny on the Bounty”, this is the uninhabited island that Fletcher Christian and his eight other Bounty mutineers found after a four month search. On the ship were his stolen six Polynesian men and 12 Polynesian women and a baby of one woman. The island was found 15 January 1790. While Bounty was anchored, livestock and goods were shipped ashore. Then, fearing that if any European vessel sighted the ship, retribution would inevitably follow, the mutineers ran Bounty ashore and, on 23 January 1790, the ship was burned and sunk.  

There have been five movies made about this romantic story: 1916,1932,1935,1962, and 1984.

 

The fertile soil produces a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Fish are plentiful in the seas around Pitcairn.  Almost every day someone will go fishing, whether it is from the rocks, from a longboat or diving with a spear gun. The Pitcairners are involved in creating crafts and curios (made from wood from Henderson Island). They have a school for children through 8^th grade but then they send the children to New Zealand for high school and college. Most do not come back to live. The population at one time was at 233 at its highest but has been on a steady decline. They are getting funds from the UK to get heavy equipment to build a dock so ships could tender cruise people in for tours and hope to increase business opportunities. They are not giving up!

This is the only way onto the island.

EASTER ISLALND

JANUARY 21, 2014

The ship could only get close to the island and could not anchor in the 4,000 feet of water. So the ship’s tenders were used to take us ashore. The island is made up of three inactive volcanos that came together to form the island.  The island was bigger than I thought it would be. It is approximately 15 miles long by 8 miles wide and it has been described as a triangle.  There are three freshwater crater lakes.

 

The first humans to reach the island came from another island in Polynesia, sometime between 600 and 900 AD. It was a distance of over 2,000 miles that a group of Polynesians voyaged, bringing with them everything necessary to start a new society on this uninhabited island: animals, plants, a genetically viable human population, with the knowledge and cultural beliefs to lay the foundations for a thriving community on this Polynesian outpost.

 

Ancestor worship was common throughout Polynesia.  On Easter Island when a chief or important member of a tribe died, a statue was commissioned from the quarry and transported across the island back to his or her village, where it was erected in such a way as to overlook the village and their descendants. The carving of the statues, called “moai”, lasted from approximately 1000-1600 AD. They were all craved in the quarry and then transported.  They weighed tons and it has not been determined for sure what method they used to transport them the six to ten miles. The resources on the island became scarce and the villages started fighting with one another. In this civil war they would turn over each other’s moai. That’s why there are so many destroyed today. Although there are 887 total on the island which includes all, even unfinished ones.

 

There are 5,000 people living on the island and 5,000 horses.  The horses are wild and run free.  The people cannot contain them and feed them so they let them go and find their own food. They seem happy and well fed. In 1888 the island was annexed as a special territory of Chile although it is 2,180 miles away.

Sandy and Tom at Machu Picchu

We made it!!

MACHU PICCHU

January 18, 2014

I have to explain why you have not heard from me. It seems the ship has an Internet service which uses one satellite.  The ship was in dry dock before this trip and the Captain fired the Internet provider before we started.  He hired a new one, Herris.  I don’t know what country they are from but they are not doing a good job.  They cannot keep the connection to the satellite so we cannot connect.  The Captain is so angry that when we came back from Machu Picchu he told us he had flown a technical person from the company from Paris and it will be fixed “come hell or high water”.  We may never have connection but I will keep writing in case the day comes I can post this.

 

In Lima (which means lemons) Peru we were taken to the airport to fly to Cusco, a town of 500,000.  We went to our hotel, Palacio Del Inka, which was a first class hotel. This hotel was the palace built by the Spanish conqueror in 1534.  Cusco is over 11,000 feet high and we had to fight altitude sickness. It starts with light headed feeling, loss of appetite, and a bad headache.  Some had to be given oxygen. At the airport in Lima we were able to buy coca candy to fight it so we ate it on the trip. The hotel served coca tea and coca leaves to chew on. It’s something they have used for centuries and it really works. It is not cocaine as we first suspected but just a medicinal leaf.

 

The next day we set out for Machu Picchu. We first rode a bus for one and half hours to a train.  We saw snowcapped Andes Mountains. We were going down to 8,800 feet to the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  They can only raise potatoes and butter beans at this level.  Our train ride was one and half hours ride.  We were delayed one hour then as there had been a land slide and we had to wait until it was cleared.  The mountains are so steep that the rocks are always falling and are really a hazard. Once cleared, we then had a bumpy bus ride the last half hour and then the walking began.

Once we were through the gate I have one word for the scene – AMAZING!!!! The Incas who lived here were 1000 learned people who were trying to make a difference we were told. The people were astronomers, farmers experimenting in hybrids, and the like.  It was a sanctuary and holy.  They started building it in 1438 but abandoned it in 1534 when the Spaniards were in the area although they never found it. It was finally discovered by an American college professor with the help of a local farmer in 1911. The Incas building skills were a marvel. The way they terraced their crops were a wonder.  Only about 30% of the city has been uncovered so there are more treasurers to uncover.  We were told to take a rain coat with us but it was a warm beautiful day as we toured. But as we started out to walk the one half mile to the bus a torrential rain came and we were glad we had our rain coats.      

MANTA, ECUADOR

MANTA, ECUADOR

January 11, 2014 

Manta is a big fishing port and the biggest catch is tuna.  There are several big name processing plants here.  They export $300,000 of tuna a year.  Ecuador is where Panama hats are made not in Panama!  We were taken to a museum where we were shown how the hats were made by hand.  It takes two weeks to eight months to make one and they are only made by hand.  When they were making the Panama Canal they found the hats were so good at keeping the sun off them so everyone had one.  That’s how they came to be known as the “Panama Hat” but they are only made in Ecuador.

 

The weather ranges from 70 degrees to 90 degrees year round. It is the rainy season from January to May.  In 1998 the government decided to use the American dollar as their currency.  Besides tuna Ecuador exports bananas and roses.  They also export cocoa beans to Switzerland.

 

We were taken to a factory that makes buttons and jewelry out of a nut from a tree.  It was an amazing process to watch and needless to say I had to buy some of the jewelry.

We are at sea for two days and then when we dock at Lima, Peru we will take the overland trip to Machu Picchu for three days.

PANAMA CANAL

PANAMA CANAL
January 9, 2014

The most impressive thing about the Panama Canal for me was the length of it – 50 miles.  This has been on my bucket list and it was a thrill to go through it. Our big cruise ship looked like it barely fit through there but we were told that some battle ships had only eleven inches to spare so I guess we had plenty of room. I was intrigued by the little electric cars that pulled the ship by ropes through the locks.  We were pulled through the three Gatun locks and into the Gatun Lake.  There were so many ships ahead of us we had to spend four hours in the lake before we could go on.
 

This is the 100^th Anniversary of the official opening of the canal on August 15, 1914. The least cost for a ship to go through the canal is $800 up to $500,000. We don’t know how much our cruise ship had to pay but I’m sure it was top dollar.  The French were the ones who started building the canal in 1880 but financial troubles and diseases made the initiative fail. After its independence in 1903, Panama negotiated an agreement with the United States for the construction of the canal.  It is amazing to think how this project could have been completed with the tools of 100 years ago and with the people dying of yellow fever and other diseases. 

Just after going into Gatun Lake, on the left, we got a look at the new construction of two new lock complexes, longer and wider than the current, in order to allow the passage of ships with greater dimensions.

We did get all through the canal in one day and now we are in the Pacific Ocean.

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Panama Canal

From the rear of ship in Gatun Lock

 

Tom at the banana plantation.

COSTA RICA

January 8, 2013

PUERTO LIMON, COSTA RICA

We have had  a delightful three days at sea.  We have been so busy with all the activities and with meeting so many people it has really been fun.  Today we stopped in our first port – Costa Rica. 

We had a five hour tour and the first stop was a banana plantation and packing plant.
It takes nine months to grow the bananas. At six months they cut the banana flower and then put the blue plastic over the bunch. That keeps the insects and birds off of them as well as keeping them from getting ripe. The bananas come into the processing plant but only stay for one and a half hours.  They get covered in chemicals, thoroughly washed, and covered in a wax before they are sent to market. Costa Rico’s primary export is pineapple and second is bananas. This was a Del Monte plant we were in.

 

There are 4.5 million people living in Costa Rico.   Of that number 100,000 are from the States.  They have 112 volcanos with seven being active.  The average monthly salary is $800. Teachers are paid $1,400. Costa Rico has no Army.  It is mandatory for the children to go to school through six grades then they can go on to high school but it is not mandatory.  That is all free to them.  After high school they take a test and if they pass they can go to college for free.  The others can go to college but they must pay for it.

 

We went by boat on the Tortuguero Canal to look for spider monkeys, birds and other water fowl.  Then we took a train to look for more animals.  It was an interesting day. Now we are heading for the Panama Canal. 

 

  

It takes nine months to grow the bananas. At six months they cut the banana flower and then put the blue plastic over the bunch. That keeps the insects and birds off of them as well as keeping them from getting ripe. The bananas come into the processing plant but only stay for one and a half hours.  They get covered in chemicals, thoroughly washed, and covered in a wax before they are sent to market. Costa Rico’s primary export is pineapple and second is bananas. This was a Del Monte plant we were in.

 

There 4.5 million people living in Costa Rico.   Of that number 100,000 are from the States.  They have 112 volcanos with seven being active.  The average monthly salary is $800. Teachers are paid $1,400. Costa Rico has no Army.  It is mandatory for the children to go to school through six grades then they can go on to high school but it is not mandatory.  That is all free to them.  After high school they take a test and if they pass they can go to college for free.  The others can go to college but they must pay for it.

 

We went by boat on the Tortuguero Canals to look for spider monkeys, birds and other water fowl.  Then we took a train to look for more animals.  It was an interesting day. Now we are heading for the Panama Canal.  

LEAVING ASHLEY

     Yesterday was not a good day for us.  We had to leave a member of our family behind.  In order to get to Ft Lauderdale on Saturday we decided to drive to Atlanta and fly from there.  If we were to fly from Panama City we would have to change planes in Atlanta and that was one chance to lose our luggage which we didn’t need besides it's extra air fare.  So we decided to drive to Atlanta on Wednesday as Tom had several things he needed to do there. 

     So, it was time to say goodbye to Ashley, our red standard poodle, who we are leaving with our good friends, Jim and Martha Rumbough. The Rumboughs have two older dogs and Ashley stayed with them two years ago when we took a 27 day cruise to Russia, Korea, and China. After she settled in she was fine and did well during our absence. 

  When we arrived with her, Rumbough’s daughter, Jennifer, was visiting for the holidays and she had an eight month old Schnauzer puppy also visiting.  Ashlely was scared to death of the puppy.  The puppy didn’t know to be scared of this tall big dog that backed up as it ran toward her and it was fierce.  Poor Ashley just wanted a corner to hide in.  We tried to make our parting short so Rumboughs could calm the group down and get Ashley settled in.  Four months is a long time to leave a member of the family but we could not be doing this trip if it wasn’t for the loving home we know Ashley will be in.  

     When we started on our trip to Atlanta about ½ mile down the road there was a thump thump from the tire.  Tom had run over a huge bolt and it had punctured the tire.  No one was open since it was New Year’s Day to buy a new tire so we drove slowly back to the house since the tire was still inflated.  We parked the Volvo in the driveway and took the Toyota and took off.  So much for Plan B. 

 

     We got to Atlanta safely.  Tom is spending the day with his Godchild, Amanda, and tomorrow he has a dentist appointment to check his implanted teeth.  Then Saturday it is off to the plane and ship