April 4, 2018 – Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile

We sailed through relatively calm seas and pleasant weather the past three days, as we contin­ued eastbound in a very remote part of the Pacific Ocean, but we will soon be approaching South America.

Sunday (April 1st) was Easter, and there was a big Holiday Buffet set up at lunch time in Crystal Cove. Crew members went to a lot of work to make this special, and we definitely enjoyed it.

Further excitement on Sunday was hearing about the 9-ton, out-of-control, unmanned Chinese space laboratory that was falling to Earth. It was predicted to hit in the Southern Pacific Ocean, perhaps not far from our current location. The U.S. astronaut on board Symphony, John Creighton, told us to go up on the deck 12 at about 8:00pm, and maybe we’d see a glimpse of it. We were in the midst of a nice party at the time and decided to not go outside to look for it. As far as we know, nobody on our ship saw the fireball.

Also on Sunday night, our friends Butch and Diane organized a special dinner in Waterside Dining Room for what we thought would be 12 people. About 40 people actually showed up, but it was still fun. We even met some nice people that we hadn’t talked to before on the ship.

We’ve been to many small islands on this trip across the South Pacific, and it continued today, as we anchored at about noontime off of Robinson Crusoe Island, which is situated 400 miles west of the central coast of Chile. It is one of three islands (Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island) in the Juan Fernández Islands archi­pelago, which was named after the Spanish sea captain and explorer who was the first to land here in 1574. With 600 inhabitants, Robinson Crusoe Island is the most populous of the two inhabited islands, with most of them living in the town of San Juan Bautista, opposite from where we are anchored today. We understand that the principal economic activity for this community is spiny lobster fishing.

Dr. Ed Sobey, one of the enrichment lecturers on Symphony, gave us the history of an actual event that Daniel Defoe is thought to have used as inspiration for the fictional Robinson Crusoe in his 1719 novel of the same name. However, Sobey did point out that Defoe's fictional account is set in the Caribbean, not in the Juan Fernández Islands.

History tells us that in the year 1704 a sailor named Alexander Selkirk was marooned as a castaway on the uninhabited island now known as Robinson Crusoe Island, where he lived in solitude for four years and four months. All Selkirk had with him, when he was abandoned on the island, was a musket, gunpowder, carpenter's tools, a knife, a Bible, and some clothing. Sobey told us that the story of Selkirk's rescue is documented in the 1712 book by Edward Cooke, A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World. The Chilean government renamed this island and Selkirk Island in 1966 to reflect this combination historical and fictional legacy.

Luckily, we snapped a few photos of Robinson Crusoe Island when we first arrived today, as the weather soon deteriorated. The terrain is rugged, and quite mountainous, at least on the part of the island we could see. The coastal cliffs look daunting. Highest point is 3,000 ft above the sea.

Despite the ominous weather, Jim caught a tender boat ride to the island at about 1:00pm. Half­way there, the rain started, then became heavy when he stepped ashore. Jim waited under the Crystal “sun shade” at the dock until the rain let up a little bit. He had worn a jacket with hood that protected somewhat, but he still got pretty wet. He walked a fairly short distance and made one stop at a rustic shop near the dock (set up just for us, we suspect) to buy a refrigerator magnet. Then he snapped a few pictures before returning to the ship on a tender boat.

In February 2010, Robinson Crusoe Island was hit by a tsunami following a magnitude 8.8 earthquake. We read that the tsunami was about 10 feet high when it reached the island. Sixteen people lost their lives, and most of the coastal village of San Juan Batista was washed away. The buildings we saw today, along the waterfront, appeared to be newly constructed, some of which looked like prefabricated camping cabins.

We believe that the dramatic change in weather we experienced today may be due to the strong ocean current in this part of the world (called the “Humboldt Current”) that brings cold water from the Antarctic up along the west coast of South America. In one of his recent lectures, Oceanographer Dr. Ed Sobey said that this current also causes a lot of upwelling, bringing even colder water to the surface. The result is cooler air temperatures, but also an abundance of fish. He stated that 20% of the world’s harvest of fish comes from this region.

During our recent series of sea days, we continued to attend enrichment lectures. Highlights included another cooking demonstration by John Ashton; world affairs lecture by Tom Faranda; a case study in murder investigation and prosecution by Hilary McCormack (a Crown Prosecutor in Canada); a 3-person roundtable on historical lessons learned from Easter Island (Bob Alberts, Ed Sobey, and Jay Christofferson); and another presentation on specific Broadway musicals by Glenn Rosenblum. For various reasons, we had to miss a presentation by Captain John Creighton (former NASA astronaut).

Jonathan Hawkins had another standout solo show one night, even after just recovering from a bought with tonsillitis and a 102°+ fever. As he said, it’s amazing what a strong dose of antibiot­ics will do. Thinking of entertainment, all full-world-cruisers were invited to a private tour back­stage at the Galaxy Lounge. There was a 30-minute Question & Answer session with the Crystal Singers & Dancers, an excellent presentation by the sound and lights technicians, followed by a tour of the mens’ and ladies’ dressing rooms. It’s amazing how many costumes, wigs, and shoes they all have in their wardrobes and how fast they must change clothes between sets of a show. They even gave a demonstration of how they change costumes in less than 30 seconds.

We had dinner with the ship’s Chief Engineer, Mirko Laptalo, in Prego (Italian Restaurant) last night. He’s an interesting guy -- very proud of his Croatian heritage and still living there (fairly close to Dubrovnik) when not on the ship. He comes from a seagoing family. Global warming is a big concern to him, as they use sea water to cool the ship’s engines. Within the past year, they’ve observed ocean water at 33°-34°C (91°-93°F) on two different occasions, once near Bahrain, and once in New Guinea. That isn’t good.

It’s too bad that weather was so bad for our visit to Robinson Crusoe Island, but we think we got the feel for it. We wouldn’t want to be marooned here for 4+ years all by ourselves.

Jim & Ginny