Throughout the night the National Geographic Endeavour made steady progress on an westerly course towards our journey’s first call at Ducie Atoll in the Pitcairn group. Our night’s passage was far from uneventful. In the day’s early hours the pitching and rolling of the ship began to increase, a potential harbinger of the climatologic conditions to come. By morning, the Endeavour found herself in the middle of a localized low pressure cell. The sky was a uniform dark gray. All around us were curtains of thick rain, curved and stretched by mounting strong winds. On final approach to Ducie Atoll she was smack amid a maelstrom. Steady fifty knot winds whipped the surrounding seas into an angry boil of 2-3 meter, confused swells and horizontally-blown spray. Capt. Lampe approached Ducie from the northeast, skirting the atoll’s largest island, Acadia. It is along Acadia’s north shore that the two known passages through the outer reef to the sandy beach could be approached and hopefully navigated by Zodiac. Within close visual range it was clear that both passages were presently guarded by dangerous breakers, which precluded any attempt at making a landing. Even the notion of leaving the ship for water-born activities was readily laid to rest by the inclement conditions.
Expedition Leader Tom Ritchie came over the ship’s PA system to inform us of alternate morning plans. Capt. Lampe would take the Endeavour and circumnavigate Ducie Atoll as close to the reef’s outer edge as safety would permit. This gave all of us an opportunity to view the atoll’s makeup, its patchwork of islands, mighty seaward breakers, and the inner lagoon with some degree of intimacy. The real upshot however was the opportunity to examine the seabird multitudes that swirled around the atoll. Kermadec and Murphy’s petrels, White terns, and Masked boobies among others soared overhead, perched on branches of the islands’ low vegetation, and dipped in and out of the troughs of the mounting swells with a grace and acumen born from generations of life amid an aquatic medium. Brent Houston and Larry Hobbs were on the bridge helping many of us sort through some of the minutia of seabird identification. Others wiled away the time gazing out the windows of the Endeavor’s public spaces, content to serenely observe the spectacle that was not only before us, but all around us.
Shortly before lunch Larry Hobbs gave a lecture on cetaceans, disseminating some of the more salient aspects of their physiology and taxonomy. He gave extra attention to the species we were likely to encounter as our voyage continued. By lunchtime the threatening skies had begun to lighten and the rain had become sporadic, but the seas remained a torrent of confused and angry swells. Tom Ritchie made the wise move of calling off a second landing attempt on Ducie Atoll, and informed us all that we would proceed directly to Henderson Island. The afternoon would be at sea and our leisure.
For entertainment the onus would fall upon the staff and their collective resourcefulness. In the lounge the first episode of Blue Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, was presented for all interested. More than a few years after its first showing as a natural history production, it has lost none of its luster or storytelling power. It stands as a cinema graphic triumph. Claudio Costino rounded out the day’s educational program with a recounting of the peopling of Polynesia. His extensive research throughout the waters we were presently traveling coupled with his educational background lent academic weight to a controversial and debatable subject. Our evening was graced (or plagued) by some of the same conditions that swept the previous night into the light of morning.
Expedition Leader Tom Ritchie came over the ship’s PA system to inform us of alternate morning plans. Capt. Lampe would take the Endeavour and circumnavigate Ducie Atoll as close to the reef’s outer edge as safety would permit. This gave all of us an opportunity to view the atoll’s makeup, its patchwork of islands, mighty seaward breakers, and the inner lagoon with some degree of intimacy. The real upshot however was the opportunity to examine the seabird multitudes that swirled around the atoll. Kermadec and Murphy’s petrels, White terns, and Masked boobies among others soared overhead, perched on branches of the islands’ low vegetation, and dipped in and out of the troughs of the mounting swells with a grace and acumen born from generations of life amid an aquatic medium. Brent Houston and Larry Hobbs were on the bridge helping many of us sort through some of the minutia of seabird identification. Others wiled away the time gazing out the windows of the Endeavor’s public spaces, content to serenely observe the spectacle that was not only before us, but all around us.
Shortly before lunch Larry Hobbs gave a lecture on cetaceans, disseminating some of the more salient aspects of their physiology and taxonomy. He gave extra attention to the species we were likely to encounter as our voyage continued. By lunchtime the threatening skies had begun to lighten and the rain had become sporadic, but the seas remained a torrent of confused and angry swells. Tom Ritchie made the wise move of calling off a second landing attempt on Ducie Atoll, and informed us all that we would proceed directly to Henderson Island. The afternoon would be at sea and our leisure.
For entertainment the onus would fall upon the staff and their collective resourcefulness. In the lounge the first episode of Blue Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, was presented for all interested. More than a few years after its first showing as a natural history production, it has lost none of its luster or storytelling power. It stands as a cinema graphic triumph. Claudio Costino rounded out the day’s educational program with a recounting of the peopling of Polynesia. His extensive research throughout the waters we were presently traveling coupled with his educational background lent academic weight to a controversial and debatable subject. Our evening was graced (or plagued) by some of the same conditions that swept the previous night into the light of morning.
