Thursday August 8 – At Sea

We would have loved a sleep in today, but we had to get up for breakfast before going to our fourth safety drill.  We have an excellent speaker on board who is giving a series of four talks on Easter Island.  His name is James Grant-Peterkin and he is Scottish.  He went to Cambridge and while there did an excursion to Easter Island. The island so interested him that he went back to England and changed his course to the linguistics of the island.  After finishing his degree he told his parents he was coming back to the island for a year.  Now, 20 years later, he is still here.  He is very knowledgeable about the island and has a good delivery.  His first lecture today was on the first people who came to the island.  Originally from Taiwan, people settled on islands in Polynesia and when they used up the resources on an island they moved to another island.  One group of people found the island we now call Easter Island.  They brought with them animals and crops and would have found an island covered in trees.  Thor Heyerdahl thought the earliest inhabitants were the Incas, but DNA testing has now disproved his theory.

We are way out in the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles from anywhere.  Because there is no land mass around, the seas are quite rough.  Many have taken to their cabins with sea sickness, but Bill and I are fine.  However, we did take to our cabin after dinner so that I would not fall and hit my shoulder.  We were lucky enough to have the movie, Amelie, on TV.  This is a movie we always wanted to see but for some reason we missed it when it was on in Melbourne.  A delightful movie.  It was a formal night tonight so lobster for dinner.