Hanga Roa, Chile, South America

I had an awesome day today! It started out with a small breakfast at the hostel, and then my first dive at 9am. I went down to Mike Rapa Diving and met the other people I would be diving with. There was a really nice American guy named Rey, and a Brazilian girl named Andrea in my group. We are all traveling on our own, and all speak english, so it was perfect.

Our first dive was to a site called Sunken Moai. It’s pretty obvious where it got its name from the time when you first get in the water. There is a giant moai under the water that was apparently put there for diving purposes. It was at a depth of 23 meters, and this was the deepest we would go for the day. The dive masters were really good about giving us time to get pictures with the moai before moving on. That was the real highlight of the dive, but the rest of it was pretty impressive too. The visibility is fantastic down here (about 30m) and it really helped with checking out all the coral.

There are no big fish around here really, due to the lack of plankton in the water. The rule is that you either have good visibility, or big animals in the area, it’s rare that you can find both. It was still a great dive with some nice underwater sights that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

After the dive, I came back to the hostel and chilled for a bit before going out for lunch. I found a place that has great fajitas for just 3,000 pesos ($5). I had a chicken fajita before having a walk through town and then meeting Rey and Andrea back at the dive center for another dive at 2:30pm. This time it was to a site called Manavai, and here we were looking for turtles. Unfortunately, we never saw any turtles, but it was still a really nice dive. The coral around this place is just amazing. It’s abundant, and very colorful. The visibility really impressed me again. I don’t think I’ve been in water this clear since I was at the Red Sea earlier this year.

We finished our second dive and Rey invited Andrea and I to come with him to a beach at the north side of the island. He’s rented a car for a couple of days, so we all hopped in his Suzuki Jimny and headed up to Anakena. This beach was stunning! It is pretty small, but it formed a perfect little cove, and there was a line of beautiful moai standing guard in front of the beach. These are the nicest moai I’ve seen on the island so far. We relaxed on the beach for an hour, didn’t go in the water because it was too cold, but just enjoyed the beautiful scenery that so few people on earth will ever get to see.

We took some pictures and then headed back into town on the scenic coastal road along the south shore of the island. We got back into town and went to a little restaurant that Rey knew about and we all shared a big plate of quesadillas. They were awesome! I don’t even know what was in them besides cheese and some sort of meat, but they were served with a really nice sweet and sour sauce, and they were delicious.

I had a plan in my head for what I was going to do tomorrow, but after having such a good day with Rey and Andrea, I decided to change my plans and join tomorrow as well. We are all going to go diving again in the morning, and then check out some caves in the afternoon. I’m just hoping we can get another perfect weather day like we had today, because it was absolutely perfect!