Day 5, June 30: Closer and arriving at Pitcairn island
Everyone’s going native. As we near Pitcairn, people are showing up in exotic local tee shirts in combination with the huge variety of eclipse shirts they’ve been wearing all along as sorts of bragging rights and conversation starters.
We awoke to the sighting of Pitcairn in full view. It’s a small rock in a big ocean, which is the way the Islanders refer to it. Our goal was to anchor by 9 am, but as soon as we were close enough to see the shore, I whispered to John, “Breaking waves.” That meant that no one was going ashore. We agreed that I would grab our landing tickets and try to change them for tomorrow morning when conditions might change… otherwise, no chance of going ashore. (No problem exchanging the tickets. I was the only one with that idea.)
We anchored nicely and swung on one hook for the whole day. Almost as soon as the captain announced that it was too dangerous to go ashore, a shore boat from the island, loaded with people and goods, started coming our way. With all the commotion of trying to photograph the event, I ended up at the elevators on Deck 8, in position to be first to greet the Islanders and help them carry their wares to The Grill near the pool where they would set up shop. It was great fun to meet them and hear them talk amongst themselves in their mixed language.
John and I were good customers, dearly hoping to support their commerce and buy a few insignificant things to bring home. John found a treasure in stamps, though, which was probably the biggest prize of all they had to offer!
But despite their promise to stay aboard until 4 pm, they quickly departed at 3 pm, right after an announcement from the captain that we would be weighing anchor, circumnavigating the island, and heading southwest in a great big hurray. Plans were changed by the cloud cover. With Totality on a very strict line and clouds everywhere, this ship had to move. We abandoned all plans for Pitcairn and headed back to sea, this time southwest (instead of the planned northeast) because of weather predictions.
Rick carefully explained that we would be seeing a shorter eclipse, closer to the horizon, but that the alternative was a longer eclipse through cloud cover. In addition to the better chance for Totality, we would also be heading for our island destinations, with the hopes of salvaging the rest of the trip. So far, all our time has been spent at sea. With a Plan B having a better chance for some success and a follow-up with island hoping, this should have two chances for salvation. If we took Plan A and headed further from the islands and into cloud covers, we might end up without a visible eclipse and at a sacrifice of our island hopes.
So off we went, at full power, into the sunset. The island circumnavigation was cut short just as the island was gloriously silhouetted in sunset yellows with a few well-placed clouds accenting the view. Gorgeous!
