Last night, Saturday night, was a formal night called the
Officers Ball. They have an extra special dinner and a dance afterwards. The
dinner was excellent, and I had two lobster tails (surf and surf). However, the
dance was not like we had on the World Cruise, though Steve did dance three
times. We had dinner with Deana and Jim and here are a few pictures before
dinner.
In 1704, Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned on
this remote island for around four years. He had an issue with his captain and
told him he wanted to get off. The captain let him off and then sailed away,
even though Alexander tried to swim after them. His story is said to have been the
inspiration for Daniel DeFoe’s classic Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk was not the
only person to have been to this remote, beautiful outpost. Pirates landed here
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and it was a stopover for the Commodore
Anson expedition to the South Pacific in
the 1740s. In 2005, what’s been called the words biggest stash of
Spanish treasure was found just offshore here. Robinson Crusoe served as a
penal colony for many years and fur traders hunted here so frequently that the endemic
seal, the Juan Fernandez fur seal, was nearly hunted to extinction. In the early
twentieth century, Swedish, Antarctic expeditions stopped here and the Germans
and British battled each other offshore during World War I. The island, part of
the three island Juan Fernandez archipelago, is a special territory of Chile.
Its only town is San Juan Bautista, and most of the islands roughly 800
residents live here and are involved in the fishing industry, specifically fishing
for the Juan Fernandez lobster (spiny lobster). In 2010 the island was hit with
a massive tsunami that killed close to a dozen people an destroyed much of its
infrastructure. Rebuilding is now underway. Robinson Crusoe’s incredible scenic
beauty is a main draw, and the whole island is a national park and UNESCO
Biosphere Reserve, with 61 times more native plants species than the Galapagos
and 13 times more birds.
On our trip over here yesterday the seas were high most of
the day, but when we got to this bay where the island is located, it became
very calm. We are anchored off the shore of the island and the view when we got
up this morning was lovely.
Since we are anchored here, we use the life boats to tender into
the shore. You step off the boat onto the life boat and then when you get to
the island, here you had a big step to get to the steps on the dock. Since the
tides can be very radical we had to walk up from the tender to the dock.
We were welcomed with this sign.
The first thing we did was to walk up the hillside to see
the caves. When the Spanish invaded they took the Chileans as prisoners and put
them in these caves. They were very big and very cool, but not a place I would
like to live for years. It is also their Tsunami evacuation site. We were with
the Aussies here.
When we got down, someone thought there might be a beach
down from the dock. So we took a walk that way. It was great, but only lava
rock. We passed by the bust of Commadante Arturo Prat of the La Armada de Chile
(do not know who he was, but took the picture any way). We also passed what
looked like a concert venue. It had a stage and then all around it were little
cabanas where you could have a picnic or cook on a BBQ. As we continued on we
passed a beautiful little cemetery and then out to the farthest point.
When we got back we met up with our Aussie friends again and
of course we had to have a beer. It was a house that overlooked the bay.
Lastly a picture of our ship.
Thanks for the great history lesson!
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