RADIO NETHERLANDS WERELDOMROEP
“Bark EUROPA: In the Wake of the Ancients”
Part Three: Easter Island
By: Todd Jarrell
SUGGESTED INTRO: The tall ship EUROPA soon returns to her homeport in The Hague from a forty thousand-mile, two-year grand tour. The three masted bark will have twice crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to participate in tall ship events in Europe, Asia and North America.
Returning from Pacific waters, EUROPA chooses a rare tall ship “doubling” of stormy Cape Horn, and journalist Todd Jarrell sailed from California to Cape Horn as part of the crew. As EUROPA sails deeper into the South Pacific, Jarrell sends this third in a series of reports chronicling their adventure. 35”
EUROPA is just south of the equator, crowding sail for the Falkland Islands via notorious Cape Horn. At the daily post-lunch muster Captain Klaas Gaastra briefs the crew on our progress.
KLAAS 3 – “We made a very Dutch way of looking into distances and how far and how fast… We said, ‘OK, seven thousand miles—we need seventy days.’ So we’re twenty-one days under way and we did two thousand. So that‘s not too bad, yea? And I am sure we can catch up even a little bit more the coming weeks in the South Easterly trade winds. And then we are entering, of course, into the Horse latitudes off Easter Island and that will give us a little less wind but first we are getting, like today, a beautiful breeze.”
EUROPA is a sailing bark, with three masts carrying thirty sails. In light breezes we fly studding sails outside of the normal set of sails, raising a white wall of sail on the foremast stretching thirty-three meters across at the bottom, twenty meters wide at the top and ten stories tall. Klaas views the use of engines at sea as necessary but, like any sailor, he prefers instead the quiet flexing power of a wind-balanced ship. 30”
Klaas 4 – “Good, so let’s keep on going and get every mile and every piece of wind and use it. Thank you…”
But we cannot sail against the wind that turns into our faces. In two more weeks we are far to the west of our desired position and must fire the engines to make good our course east. We sail for Easter Island, two thousand miles off the Chilean coast and our single stop on the ten-week voyage. The island’s nearest neighbor is even lonelier Pitcairn Island of the HMS BOUNTY fame.
Easter Island is known to those who live there by it’s Polynesian name, Rapa Nui, and it is known the world over for the mystery of its ancient people and for the inscrutable stone heads moais that stand as icons of their lost culture. Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen was the first European there; arriving on Easter Sunday he named the place Paaseiland. Now officially a part of Chile, Spanish speakers know it as Isla de Pascua.
Since leaving California’s coastal waters we have seen no sign of civilization—no boats, no lights or even jetliner contrails. The crew begins to focus on our first landfall, and early one morning Yke wakes the four o’clock watch with the news that Easter Island has at last crawled above the limn of the sea.
From deck we see only a shading on the still-dark horizon, making the island’s enigmatic reputation all the keener. Through the night the village lights of Hanga Roa grow before our approach, glowing against the coal-black coast, a slump of smoldering embers licked by the sea.
SFX – ANCHOR — :03 Intercom — :10 “Let go anchor.” (Please copy and paste clip of running anchor chain several times to make a nice long run of chain that gradually stops as it does here on the disc. Then the bell should ring immediately on stopping [:34 ONE BELL, indicating One Shot in the water]) which means trimming some dead space between intercom, command , anchor and bell. Please begin at end of above para for a couple of seconds then run under next para.
As we anchor the dawn suffuses the island with yellow shades and green—colors now oddly unfamiliar and fresh after so much time at sea. A distinct and unmistakable fragrance lifts to us from shore—the fecund scent of land, the literal spice of life. For us it is the smell of possibilities: To stand on solid ground; to walk farther than twenty paces without having to turn or use a ladder; the freshness of new faces.
The desire for shore leave sharpens with the sight of the massive stone heads clustered along the shore, but after such anticipation we will barely stop to stretch our sea legs. The headwinds we suffered earlier have put us behind schedule, so we will purchase what produce we can, bunker fuel, and sail on.
SFX – PROVISIONS – Breaking down provisioning boxes… “:04 I was wondering if there was any mayonnaise…” Cans out of box being stacked. Thud. :40 Boxes opening, tearing. :55 “Noodles?” > 1:20 “This sugar’s heavy.” Stacking, crunching. (Take out and consolidate what you think fits best for time here, begin at end of last para and run under following para to fade-out mix with PUMP 1.)
Boxes of welcome bright fruits and fresh vegetables are motored out to us, arranged by a ship’s agent. To insects, a cardboard container’s corrugation channels are like little row houses, so we empty the scores of boxes to return them to shore and form a human chain to pass a ton of food down hatches through two decks and into the bilge holds, one can, bag, and bottle at a time.
SFX ATMOS – PUMP 1 – High whine of pump, water lapping on boats, Pumping fuel w/ islander conv. Disc 4 Track 11 @ 1:52 to 2:08
Following are the bunkering boats, each loaded with fuel barrels, riding heavy on the swells. Our crew drop into the pitching boats beside the Rapa Nui men, jamming meter-long steel nozzles into the barrels as electric pumps drive fuel up into the ship.
SFX – PUMP 1 continues w/ Rapa Nui islander conversation for a three or four seconds then fade out in next para by “… in the end…”
As one boat finishes the next shoulders in to drain its barrels—the insect whine of the pumps never ceases. Like bees to the hive the fuel boats deliver, in the end, twelve and a half thousand liters of fuel.
SFX – RAPA NUI 1 – Music to start at volume two seconds after end of last para and continue through next para and fade out in second para by, “From here we enter…”
In the meantime the crew makes the best of an allotted three hours on shore, replacing spent toothpaste and batteries and racing cross-island to visit the compelling sights of Rapa Nui: the volcano quarry, Rano Raraku; or the incredible queue of stone head moais on the plain at Tongariki.
MUSIC _ EASTER ISLAND – Starts immed. After either “Tongariki” or “Rapa Nui” of last para. Fade out beginning”Frm here…”
In six weeks we have sailed four thousand miles—averaging four miles per hour. We have traversed the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and crossed the Equator, capsizing the hemispheres to bury the North Star beneath our spooling wake. From here we enter the farthest reaches from land on the planet, plunging ahead toward Cape Horn, mindful of the old sailors’ saying about those southerly latitudes: “Below forty degrees there is no law; Below fifty degrees there is no God.”
SFX – SETTING SAIL—“Let go buntline and clewlines!” ”Bunts and clews all off!” ”Okay, make sure off!” “Sheets all off!” “Put some slack on that.” Brad- “Can you slack up the sheets on the t’gallant?” B) “Okay, guys. Are you ready on the halyard?” “Ready on the halyard.””is that sheet tight?””…and Haul away on the halyard!” Hands sliding on the line block rolling, light gear sound…”
© Todd Jarrell, 2002
NARRATIVE #6 & #7
ACTUALITIES:
KLAAS 3 – #26
KLAAS 4 – #27
ANCHOR – #28
PROVISIONS #29
PUMP 1 #30
EASTER ISLAND #31 (Tuhane O Te Kari Kari- Ballet Cultural Rapa Nui
E: pantu@entelchile .net
SETTING SAIL #32