Valparaiso to Tahiti

As I write this we are in our fourth sea day and rolling and pitching our way westward in a long southerly swell. The temperature is up to 25C so the decks are covered in prostrate bodies taking the sun. Our routine continues and we have now walked over 90 miles round the promenade deck and not used a single lift!

  On these sea days the passengers need entertaining and there is an amazing array of organized activities from lectures, dancing, quizzes, gym classes, interactive games, port talks, deck games, craft and art classes, sport on the TV and many types of  organized card games. In the evenings we are treated to a different high quality show every night for the whole 95day world cruise. On our 3 sectors the highlights have been the classical pianists who I have mentioned before plus Eva Maria Doroszkowska on sector 1 and Jonathan Ainsworth on board now plus the following. Pam Ayres, The Merseybeats, Don Reid (comedian)plus You-Chiung Lin (a fantastic classical pianist), Bonnie Langford, Joe Longthorne (a fantastic show from a sick man), Peter Piper (the best comedian so far), Richard Digence and Roy Walker (to come). Plus many more!

  This afternoon we actually saw land and spent 1.5 hours passing 2 sides of Easter Island, the most remote inhabited island in the world. It is only 63 square miles, is technically speaking a massive volcano rising 10,000ft from the ocean floor and has about 3,000 inhabitants. The first European to visit the island was Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday April 5, 1722 hence the name. The island was populated by Polynesians from the Marquesas or Society Islands and this culture´s most famous features are the enormous stone statues called moai some of which we could see from the ship. The average statue is 14.5 feet high and weighs 14 tons. It took about 90mins to travel the length of the island and to view the small settlement, then we carried on westward towards the setting sun.

  On Monday 14^th (Valentines Day of course), about 1530 Aurora became the first P&O cruise ship to call at Pitcairn Island. We anchored close to Bounty Bay in the north east of this small volcanic island in very deep water and 45 of the settlers (which is almost the whole population) came on board from a small boat and set up stalls to sell souvenirs on Deck 8 aft. It was always going to be a difficult time i.e.1800 passengers all trying to shop from 20 or so stalls but after the initial difficulties it settled down and they did good business. Stamps were in great demand as were wood carvings, T- shirts and caps. The latter were unfortunately not made by the islanders. There was also a wedding on board in the afternoon so their wedding photos will be pretty unique!

  The Pitcairn Islands are 4 islands but only Pitcairn in inhabited and it is only 2 miles across. It was first sighted on 3 July 1767 by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on  HMS Swallow. In 1790 nine of the mutineers from the Bounty plus Tahitian companions settled on the island and it is their direct descendants that still live there. Their surnames are Christian, Warren, Young and Brown and most souvenirs have one of those names on them.

  Soon after 1830 the islanders were gone and Aurora continued on her westward course towards Tahiti where we arrive after another 2 days at sea, on Thursday. Now that we have hot days and balmy moonlight nights, most people seem to be enjoying the many sea days and the longer nights as we put the clocks back an hour almost every night!