Right before our departure, a National Geographic cruise ship pulled into the anchorage, dropping off passengers for commercial tours around the island. Until that moment, I had no idea they operated these kinds of expeditions here, let alone on a proper ship—especially considering how long the voyage takes from Chile compared to the daily flights from Santiago during high season.
Ahead of us lay a leg of just over 1,000 nautical miles, though depending on how the wind held, our actual mileage would likely be higher due to tacking back and forth. We set sail in the late afternoon, slowly watching Rapa Nui sink into the twilight horizon behind us, with its mystical energy still buzzing in our heads. Driven by the lingering adrenaline, I dove straight into the books I’d picked up on Easter Island, eager to absorb every bit of history while the journey was fresh.
The sailing conditions couldn’t have been better. The ocean was surprisingly calm, and a steady 12-to-14-knot breeze pushed us along effortlessly. When you pause to think about where you are—Easter Island sits roughly 1,900 nautical miles from mainland South America, and our next target, Pitcairn, is another 1,000 miles into the void—it redefines what isolation actually means. Throw in the fact that Pitcairn was settled in 1790 by the famous HMS Bounty mutineers and the Tahitian men and women who joined them, and it makes Rapa Nui feel like the literal edge of the Earth. Before Pitcairn was settled, the nearest major inhabited island was Tahiti or one of its neighbors, a staggering 2,300 nautical miles away. In short: there is absolutely no one out here.
Even though the ancient Polynesians were legendary navigators, wrapping your head around these vast ocean expanses is mind-boggling. Between Tahiti and Easter Island, there is essentially nothing but open water and a solitary dot of land. To put that in perspective, it’s like sailing all the way from the southern tip of Spain to Nordkapp at the northern edge of Norway without passing a single soul—and that’s without even getting into the psychological difference between solid ground and miles of deep ocean beneath your hull. It is simply a massive, endless wilderness.
After ten days of steady passage, Pitcairn finally appeared on the horizon—a rugged, greenish-red rock jutting abruptly out of the sea. We closed in on the island and dropped anchor just a short distance from where the remains of the historic HMS Bounty lie submerged. A Swiss sailboat was already anchored nearby, the only other vessel in sight.
As dusk began to settle, the water remained miraculously calm for an anchorage in the middle of the Pacific, with the massive cliff face of the island towering behind us. Pitcairn offers only minimal protection from the elements on one side; everywhere else is wide-open ocean. Even though a day at sea often involves doing “nothing,” the sheer weight of passage-making exhaustion caught up with us. We decided to call it a night, get some well-deserved rest, and make our first landing on the island come morning.
