Easter Island 2025 trip report

EASTER ISLAND - March 8-23, 2025

(Click here to see some pictures from this trip plus links to the SmugMug slideshow.)

Easter Island, Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua. They’re all the same place and no matter what you call it, it’s a magical place to be. It’s officially part of Chile and the only way there is through Santiago.

This was our third (and technically fourth) trip here since we actually had two separate groups, each staying a week. And what was very interesting to me as a trip leader was that the two weeks were each very different from the other. Part of that difference was weather with the first week being not-so-great weather but good water conditions, and the second week having better weather but not-as-good water. The second difference was simply the make-up of the groups with the inter-personal dynamics of the first group being very different from that of the second group. On top of that, each group had some unique issues to deal with along the way.

Let’s start with a who’s who.

Group 1 consisted of Audrey & Marlow Anderson, Don Banas & Mary Raske, Tony Kalinowski, Carol Behrmann, Katy Burns, and me (Ken Kurtis). Group 2 was made up of me, Katy Burns (who did both weeks), Laurie Powers, Susan Oder, Glenn Suhd, and Glenn Heins.

Group 2 was also supposed to include Scott & Kathleen Tryon, who live in Kansas City. Everyone else flew out of LAX non-stop to Santiago, and then non-stop out to Easter Island, all on LATAM Airlines (national airline of Chile and the only way to get to Easter Island.) Scott & Kathleen were able to book a Delta flight to JFK – Delta is a partner with LATAM – and then to Santiago to hook up with us. However . . .

It seems Delta changed the K.C.-JFK flight and didn’t notify Scott & Kathleen. The problem was that the new flight landed at the same time the JFK-Santiago LATAM flight took off. And when they discovered this problem, delaying a day wasn’t an option because all of the LATAM-Easter Island flights for the next three days were full. So they had to cancel all together.

Group 1 had a problem on the way back as well since Tony didn’t notice when checking in at Easter Island for the return flight, that his bags, instead of being checked all the way through to LAX, were only checked through to Santiago. Generally, this wouldn’t be a problem. You’d just pick up your bags in Santiago and re-check them for the SCL-LAX leg. However . . .

Tony didn’t notice the discrepancy until AFTER he had exited the domestic terminal in Santiago. And they wouldn’t let him back in to claim his bags because he had already exited the baggage claim area. Fortunately, he was able to go to the international terminal where a helpful agent was able to have his bags retrieved and re-tagged for LAX, and they arrived on time, safe and sound.

We had different issues on the Group 2 return flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave Easter Island on March 22 at 2:50PM with arrival in Santiago around 9:30PM, still on March 22. There’s a two-hour layover and then we left, still on March 22, on an 11:30PM flight that got into LAX at 7:30AM on March 23. We “lose” a day because we pass midnight while in flight.

When we checked in for the return, it was only then that Glenn Heins noticed that his assistant, who had booked the ticket for him, misunderstood the March 23 part and thought that was the departure date from Santiago. So Glenn was scheduled to leave Santiago 24 hours later than everyone else. On top of that, the ticket was booked through a travel service, not directly through LATAM. That meant the flight couldn’t be changed on-line or at the check-in counter at Easter Island. It could only be changed the by travel service or at the international counter in Santiago.

So Glenn’s choices were to overnight in Santiago – there’s a Holiday Inn right in the middle of the airport – or try to get his ticket changed and hope there was still enough time to make the flight. His bags were checked only to Santiago, but the helpful Easter Island agent tagged them as priority unloading so they came out in the first few bags in baggage claim, then we made a beeline from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. While the rest of us got our boarding passes for SCL-LAX, Glenn went to see if there were seats still available on our flight. There were. But he was going to have to pay the fare difference and that was $500. He figured that with the hotel overnight and some meals while waiting for the next-day plane, he’d spend close to $350 regardless. So it wasn’t much of a jump to bite the bullet, pay the fare difference, and fly home with everyone else.

The lesson in each of these instances is that air travel today is not as carefree as it used to be and that you really need to watch everything like a hawk, even after you’ve purchased your ticket. In most cases you can cancel an airline ticket within 24 hours of the purchase with no penalty and get a full refund. So in Glenn’s case, it might have been something that could have been fixed ahead of time. But you need to really pay attention all along the way for changes to flight times, make sure your bags are correctly checked at the airport (this is where it really pays to know your three-digit airport codes), make sure you’re in the seat you want, and all the other little details that can mean the difference between a stress-free flight or one where you fret.

That all being said, the booking experience with LATAM was a little convoluted, but the actual flights were very good. The planes are 787s, each flight left on-time, usually arrived early, and the flights were very smooth. On-board the food was so-so but at least it was edible. And if you book a seat in LATAM+, you get an extra 6-inches or so of legroom.

The Easter Island trip is an interesting challenge for me as a tour leader to put together. Unlike most of the places we go in the world, there isn’t a one-stop-fits-all option. Easter Island isn’t known for diving. It’s known for the mysterious and fabulous moai, which are giant – anywhere from 10 to 30 feet high – stone statues that have been placed all over the island. It’s thought that the earliest statues may have been carved and erected starting around 1250A.D. By the time the late 1700s rolled around, all statue carving had stopped and the ones that had been standing had been toppled. There are many theories as to why but there’s no definitive answer. Overall, close to 1,000 statues are known to exist, just under 300 of them had been placed on a ceremonial ahu (or broke and were abandoned in transit), and 42 of them have been restored since the 1950s and are standing today.

But we’re divers, not archeologists. So how did we make a connection with diving? It’s all because of a total solar eclipse.

As many of you know, I like to chase eclipses. And in 2010, there was a total solar eclipse that was going to pass right over Easter Island, a place I’d been fascinated with since I was a kid and read some stories from about the place from Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. So I thought it would be interesting to go see the eclipse and see the moai. Sadly, there were no hotel rooms to be had. But now I had Easter Island on the brain and wondered if I could put together a dive trip there. WAS there even diving there? A quick Google search told me that there was and there was even a dive shop, ORCA Dive Center. I was able to contact them by e-mail and they were happy to accommodate us.

But now I needed to find a place to stay. It turns out a sailing friend of mine had been to Easter Island and had stayed at a local hotel called Hotel Manavai. I contacted them by e-mail and they were happy to accommodate us AND they were right up the street from the harbor and the dive shop.

But I didn’t want to wander around Easter Island without a plan so I needed some sort of a guide. I was visiting Dale & Kim Sheckler – founders of California Diving News – one evening and, lo and behold, they told me that their priest, Father Francisco, was not only from Easter Island, but also that his sister Josie was a top guide there. On top of that, their grandfather, William Mulloy, was a revered researcher into the history of Easter Island. Mulloy had started the moai restoration process in the mid-1950s so Josie has a very unique take on how things evolved. I contacted her by e-mail and she said she could accommodate us.

And that’s why (and how) the initial trip and the others that followed came together. We somehow lucked out with a hotel we really like, a great dive operation for the underwater sights, and a land tour guide who could educate us about the history of the island. These are the three vendors I recommend if you plan your own trip to Easter Island, and they’re also the ones I will use for our next trip here.

Now that you know the players, let’s delved into some of the detail.

The main town on Easter Island is Hanga Roa and the Hotel Manavai is located a long block above the main drag. It’s locally owned and operated by Ben Paoa. In fact, Ben built the place himself on family land. They’ve got 30 rooms, nothing fancy but quite charming IMHO. Rooms can be singles (one bed) or doubles (two beds – sometimes two double beds and sometimes a queen bed and a twin). Some rooms have air-conditioning, some don’t. (There’s a price difference between the two.) We opted for non-A/C the first week with mixed opinions about the wisdom of that choice. Ben comp’d us upgrades to A/C rooms for the second week and that seemed more acceptable to everyone. Breakfast is included daily, there’s an on-site restaurant as well (the Bounty Kai & Bar - which we ate at numerous times and really liked), and it’s an easy 5-minute 400-yard walk down to the dive shop and the harbor. Ben will take good care of you and was a charming host for us.

As you arrive at the hotel and begin to walk around, you’ll also come into contact with two of the common animals of Easter Island: Roosters and dogs.

The roosters never shut up. There’s a big patch of undeveloped land just north of Hotel Manavai where it seems some of them live. But you’ll see roosters and chickens all over the island and it seems like they’re always calling out to one another or answering a call they heard like a Greek chorus. And this has nothing to do with sunrise. I had one go off one morning at 3:05AM. But you get used to it . . . eventually.

The other thing you’ll notice is that there are dogs everywhere. These are the most relaxed dogs I’ve ever seen. They all seem well-cared for and well-fed, but they’re all over the place so I don’t know if they “belong” to individuals or if they’ve just taken over the island. They all seem friendly and they’re all fairly good-sized. A lot of times they’re just lying on the sidewalk but sometimes they’ll walk with you a bit as well, especially if you pay any attention to them.

There’s one other interesting animal Josie told us about and that’s a green turtle who, every day at high tide, comes into the shallows of the commercial harbor, tucks in “his” corner up against the shoreline (which is maybe a foot deep), and stays there for a few hours until the tide starts receding. At that point he leaves until the next day. We visited him twice. No one knows why he comes in or where he goes. But you’ll see his picture in the SmugMug slideshow.

One more thing: food. There are an amazing number of very good restaurants on Easter Island and we generally ate at a new one most evenings. But what I really came to enjoy was a little place we found for lunch called Mana Café. It’s a five-minute walk from the hotel and every day they have a different fixed-price lunch special (around $14 – salad or soup, entrée, dessert).

But what really made this a fun adventure every day was that the little old woman who owned the place – I have no idea what her name is but always thought of her as “Mama Mana” – didn’t speak a word of English. I don’t speak much Spanish. So every day that we’d show up, she’d try to explain to me in Spanish, and with a little body language, what the daily lunch specials were. And every day I’d give her a puzzled look and she'd repeat herself. We’d go back and forth a few times and eventually I’d choose something but many times, I had NO idea of what I was going to get. But the food was always good. And the best one was the day she kept saying what I thought was “lisette” and I finally gave up and got that. Turns out “lisette” was lasagna. And it was one of the best lasagnas I’ve ever eaten.

On to the diving.

Orca Dive center was founded in 1980 by brothers Henri & Michel Garcia. I dove with them in 2011 but they have since both passed on. The dive shop is now run by their children and still offers great diving opportunities. There are a couple of dozen dive sites around the island, all within a 2-20 minute run in fast skiffs which double as dive boats. They load your gear on the boat, you find a seat, gear up when you get to the site, and do a backroll into the water. At the end of the dive, you remove all gear in the water and pass it up, come up a small ladder, flop over the gunnel, and sit back down for the quick ride home.

We did a number of 2-dive days, some morning, some afternoon, and a couple of 3-dive days. (We also had a couple of 1-dive days due to scheduling issues.) Morning dives were at 9:30AM and 11:30AM, break for lunch by 1PM, and then back for the afternoon dive generally around 3:30PM. On days when we did two afternoon dives, we’d start at 2:30PM and go out again around 4:30PM. This time of the year, sundown at Easter Island is around 8:30PM so a late afternoon start wasn’t a problem. (Sunrise was 8:15AM which is why we never started before 9AM.) After each dive, we’d come back to the harbor for a surface interval, they’d fill the tanks (steel 72s filled to 3000psi), we could get a snack, fiddle with cameras, or adjust other gear. Then it was out again for the next dive.

Our main divemaster was Christian Saavedra, who led us in 2011 and 2019. He was assisted by Kevin Grunenwald. Christian knows the reefs like the back of his hand so could expertly guide us around. Easter Island has what looks like a very healthy and very extensive low-profile hard-coral reef. There are no sea fans or soft corals. Water temps ranged from 77-81 (a bit warm for the area actually), and visibility was generally 80-100 feet. A couple of things about that.

First of all, the viz at Easter Island during my previous visits and – with the exception of one dive with Group 2 – has always been exceptional. This is due to a number of things. For one thing, the waters surrounding Easter Island have a fairly low plankton count, much lower than you’d expect. So that means less small fish, which means less medium fish, which means less larger fish. There are roughly 140 species of fish at Easter Island. 25% of them are endemic meaning this is the only place you’ll find them. There are certainly common fish, like Forceps Butterflys, various species of Soldierfish, and an amazing number of Trumpetfish. But then there is the Triangle Fish which is unlike anything I’ve seen before. (It’s a type of Morwong.) And there are common-looking butterflys and damsels – called the Easter Island Butterfly and the Easter Island Damselfish – which look familiar but which are only found here. So there aren’t a LOT of fish in the water but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ANY fish to see. Sometimes you just have to work a little harder at it.

The other thing that adds to good viz is a relative lack of a sandy bottom. Most of the reefs are built around lava rock from previous volcanic outflows so there’s no real sediment to be stirred up. We had one dive with current the first week and a couple of dives the second week with surge, and both of those things are features you’d expect to knock down the visibility significantly. Not so here because there’s no sediment for the current or surge to transport or disturb.

We probably saw more fish with Group 1 than with Group 2 simply because the first group got in more dives – 10 – than the second group – 7. For the first group, weather complicated things a bit as there was some rain and but a fair amount of wind when we arrived. That closed down the harbor. So there was no diving our first full day there. For the second group, the arrival of a cargo freighter meant the dive shop folks had to fulfill contractual obligations to install and monitor underwater hoses and that meant we lost a single morning dive and then a pair of 2-dive afternoons. But it also meant that we added in a self-guided moai tour to fill some of the newly-acquired free time.

I think the dive that both groups enjoyed the most was the dive at Motu Kao Kao. Motu means island and Kao Kao is an enormous pinnacle the juts out of the ocean like a whale breaching. (You’ll see pictures of it in the SmugMug slideshow.) Think of Ship Rock, only narrower and twice as tall (and no guano). Viz here both times was 150 feet or better. We know this because the bottom is roughly 200 feet deep and we could easily see it from a depth of 50 feet.

And there were plenty of fish to be seen as well. There were thousands of various Soldierfish and Bigeyes in the cracks and crevices of the rock. There were also plenty of the Easter Island Damselfish as well as the Dwarf Angelfish or Orange-Headed Angelfish. Very small, very skittish, very hard to shoot (if you want them shot in focus). This was also a place to reliably find lobsters, Triangle Fish, Forceps Butterflys, various eels, colorful Sunset Wrasses, Trumpetfish, and more. Group 1 also had a school of Barracuda and a school of Goatfish.

One thing I did notice at Kao Kao, and on other reefs as well, was coral bleaching. I don’t recall seeing that on previous trips. By the same token, on previous trips, the water temp was around 75, so this is significantly warmer and could be a cause of the bleaching. It’s not as extensive as the bleaching that’s occurred on the Great Barrier Reef or in the Maldives, and it’s not as damaging as the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease that plagues parts of the Caribbean. But it exists now at Easter Island and might have a long-term effect. And I certainly noticed it, at least sporadically, on all of the reefs we dove.

Another dive that everyone enjoyed was called The Anchors – home to two large long-ago abandoned ship anchors - but the real attraction is the moai that’s down at a depth of around 60 feet. But it’s a fake. It’s left over from a 1996 movie shoot and now serves as an underwater photo op. So I had each diver pose for the requisite underwater moai shot.

What I’m really going to be curious about is that I visited this moai in 2011 and again in 2019 and I want to compare the photos from each year to see what the coral growth looks like. It was certainly more coral-covered now that I recall in 2011. At that time, it had “only” been down for 15 years. Now it’s been down for 29 years. Look for some comp photos in the SmugMug slideshow.

One elusive animal for me this trip was the endemic Easter Island Pufferfish, aka the Bluebelly Toby. It’s a little (and I do mean little – 1-2” long) dark blue puffer with an iridescent blue belly who lives in caverns and undercuts (seems to like avoiding the light – maybe it’s really a Vampire Puffer). We spotted him with Group 1 at a site called Tautora’s Reef but I was having camera issues (strobes weren’t firing) and couldn’t get a good result. We spotted three different ones with Group 2, also at Tautora’s, and once again strobe/camera issues foiled my attempts at a decent shot. I’ve got some fuzzy badly-exposed images but nothing good. Of course, this alone gives me a reason to organize another trip back here.

Another interesting and impressive site we dove was called “The Egg.” It’s also a site they don’t get to dive too often due to prevailing swell, which was down during the Group 1 week, and which made the site accessible. You go along a wall inside Hanga Roa Bay and eventually come to a slit that easily big enough to swim through. Once inside, you realize that you are you are inside what seems to be a hollowed-out area with a hole in the top that lets in plenty of light. And it’s rather egg-shaped, ergo the name. In fact, think of the shape of an egg, remove the yolk, make a small hole in the top, and make the whole thing in the middle of a coral reef. That’s what “The Egg” is like.

Overall, the diving was very pleasant and enjoyable. One of the things you should really look and marvel at is the reef structure. It’s simply massive at Easter Island. The hard corals - I’m good at fish ID but not all that adept at coral ID – are extensive and prolific, and form really interesting-looking underwater topography. You’ll see this is some of the wide shots on the SmugMug slide show. You’d get vertical walls, big flat areas, and areas that resembled amphitheaters. Very visually impressive.

But the coral bleaching is a bit troubling. At first thought you go, “How can there be bleaching when the water temp is 80? That’s perfect for coral growth.” Except this type of coral usually lives in waters that are 70-75. So the water temp is a good 5 higher than the usual max. We’ve been seeing this in many parts of the Pacific over the past few years. It’s great for humans because when we’re warmer, we can wear thinner wetsuits which also means carrying less weight. But it’s not so good for the coral.

And the thing to remember about bleaching or global warming is that it’s a relative thing. In other words, it’s not that water temps have to hit a specific number and anything below that isn’t global warming. It’s that they have to be warmer than what they usually are. Because the “normal” temp is what the algae and host corals have become used to. And when that rises too much, the algae leaves the coral, and the coral eventually turns white and dies. So “global warming” can happen in waters of any temperature.

So if you choose to dive Easter Island, you’ll get lot of coral to look at and some fish to go find (some of whom can only be seen at this spot in the world). Not too shabby.

But much as I love the diving, that’s not the main reason people go to Easter Island. So let’s talk about the land portion of this trip a bit.

The history of the moai on Easter Island is both fascinating and somewhat speculative. Part of this is because a lot of the oral history of the place was lost in the late 1800s when smallpox wiped out all but 111 of the residents. (The current population is around 8,000, about half of them considered native Rapa Nui and descended from those 111 survivors.) As I mentioned previously, moai research started in the mid 1950s and continues to this day.

Our fabulous tour guide, Josie Nahoe Mulloy, knows her stuff. She also has a very conversational and casual approach to describing the history of the island and the moai so it’s all very easy to digest. For each group, we spent three half-days touring with Josie and that seems to be about the right amount of time to go visit all of the main sites. (You’ll see pix of all of these in the SmugMug slideshow.)

One of the things that has changed since I last visited in 2019 is that now you must be accompanied by a certified tour guide for most of the moai sites. And you’ve got to have a national park permit ($80USD) to go in to the various restored areas.

The restored moai stand upright on the ahu, which is the ceremonial platform that forms a base for all of them. All of the moai are individuals and different. Some stand alone – there are a few of those around the Hanga Roa harbor – and some are grouped together.

The most famous of the groupings are the fifteen moai standing with their backs to the ocean at Tongariki. This is a very impressive site and tallest of these moai stands at close to 30 feet. The general thought is not that the moai faced the ocean to scare off intruders, but that they faced inland and cast their gaze on villages that they were designed to protect. When erected – and the assumption is that their likeness was that of various village elders – the final piece put in place for each moai was a set of eyes carved from coral. The moai would attract mana (a supernatural force) down from above and the eyes would help focus that mana on the village.

The other major moai site is Rano Raraku, which is where the carving of the moai took place. In the local language “Rano” refers to a volcano where there’s also water in the crater so all of the moai were carved around the slopes of this volcano and then (somehow) moved to their respective ahus. There are close to 400 moai documented at Rano Raraku, not all of them visible to tourists, and you’ll pass by a hundred or more as you walk around the area. They are massive and offer many good photo ops. And because they’ve been there so long, a combination of erosion and soil movement has some of them partially buried, some more exposed, some sitting upright some at angle, some flat on their backs. We spent about 90 minutes there with each group.

The other major sites are Ahu Akivi (inland), Anakena (only sandy beach on the island), and Tahai (which is also where William Mulloy is buried). We visited them all, as well as a couple of minor sites.

When Easter Island was “discovered” in 1722, it was reported that the statues were standing all over the island. But by 1774 it was reported that no statues were left upright. No one knows exactly why the statues were toppled but there’s evidence that some of them were toppled, as Josie puts it, “maliciously” since they were toppled in such a way that as they fell, they would hit a carefully-placed rock that decapitated the head of the moai. So many of the restored moai have a ring around their neck where the head was re-attached. No one knows exactly why the statues were toppled in this 50-year period. There are many theories which include inter-tribal warfare on the island as well as people rejecting the religious undertones of the moai and pushing them over.

On top of all of that, there exists on Easter Island yet another significant sub-culture known as the Birdmen. It’s thought this took place from the mid-1750s up until the late 1860s and may have replaced the moai as a way of establishing tribal pecking order on the island. But this is a whole ‘nother chapter of the history of the island that – since I’m 4,800 words in already – we’ll save for another time.

Suffice it to say that Easter Island holds a unique place in the world due to its remoteness, the history of the island, and what you can expect to see underwater. It’s absolutely worth the effort to get there and it’s a journey that I hope we will be able to make again and hopefully with our favorite vendors – Hotel Manavai, ORCA Dive Center, Mana Café, and Josie Nahoe Mulloy – still at our beck and call.