Best Time to Go:
Sept to May with Jan and Feb probably being the warmest water due to our winter being their summer.
Water Temps:
23-26 C or 73-79 F. (I'm leaning towards when it is the WARMEST myself!
Best Part about Diving There:
The best part of diving here is nearly unlimited viz usually 120-150 ft or more. Plus this is a heritage location and there are species of fish that are found ONLY here. The reefs are amazingly healthy with minimal island run off and no land based pollution.
Worst Part about Diving There:
While it has endemic species of critters...it also has the lowest number of different species compared to other places in the world. So hile the reefs are mega healthy...the fish are not mega abundant due to isolation and local food supply needs.
What Do Other Divers Say About Diving Here:
Susan aka resqdew who has requested we do Easter Island raves about the diving and would go back in a heartbeat. All the reviews I can find say the diving is unique, beautiful and the water sparkles it is so clear. The only complaint is not as many fish as other places but also no lionfish yet and everything about the island both TOPSIDE and BELOW makes this a very memorable trip VERY worth doing!!!
Estimated Price for the Week:
I am working on group pricing right now but I estimate the pricing will be $1000-$1300 for hotel, 2 boat dives a day, 3 afternoon dives and 3 afternoon tours, possibly breakfast, transfers for $1000 - $1300. This ESTIMATE currently does not include meals, airfare, nitrox etc.
History & Online Blog Overview:
One of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. It is located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island.
The Easter Island, known in the native language as Rapa Nui (“Big Rapa”) or Isla de Pascua in Spanish, is sixty-three square miles in size and with three extinct volcanoes (the tallest rising to 1674 feet). The oldest known traditional name of the island is Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning The Center (or Navel) of the World. In the 1860’s Tahitian sailors gave the island the name Rapa Nui, due to its resemblance to another island in Polynesia called Rapa Iti, meaning ‘Little Rapa’. The island received its most well known current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.
Explore the Amazing Mystery which Moai Giant Stone Statues of Easter Island creates That culture’s most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons (one statue only partially quarried from the bedrock was 65 feet long and would have weighed an estimated 270 tons). Depending upon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rollers made from the island’s trees.
Most moai were carved out of a distinctive, compressed, easily-worked volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site called Rano Raraku. The quarry there seems to have been abandoned abruptly, with half-carved statues left in the rock. However, on closer examination the pattern of use and abandonment is more complex. The most widely-accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the ancestors of the modern Polynesian inhabitants (Rapanui) at a time when the island was largely planted with trees and resources were plentiful, supporting a population of at least 10,000–15,000 native Rapanui. The majority of the statues were still standing when Jacob Roggeveen arrived in 1722. Captain James Cook also saw many standing statues when he landed on the island in 1774. By the mid-19th century, all the statues had been toppled, presumably in internecine wars.
Explore the Amazing Mystery which Moai Giant Stone Statues of Easter Island creates
Ancient island legends speak of a clan chief called Hotu Matu’a, who left his original home in search of a new one. The place he chose is now known to us as Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided between his six sons and later sub-divided among their descendants. The islanders may have believed that their statues would capture the chiefs’ “mana” (supernatural powers). They may have believed that by concentrating mana on the island good things would result, e.g., rain would fall and crops would grow. The settlement legend is a fragment of what was surely a much more complicated and multi-faceted, mythic sketch, and it has changed over time.
Really amazing are these stone giants just sitting there for such a long time. I will be for sure a journey of a lifetime to get there and see them i think. Full blog HERE.
