We are lost in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, having left Ducie Island two days ago. Ducie was itself the last scrap of land at the eastern rim of the Pitcairn group, already 500 miles behind us.  Polynesians once occupied this group of islands, themselves depending on a tenuous link with Mangareva, far, far back in our wake. The Mangarevans came to Pitcairn for the volcanic rock which made the finest stone axes, essential for woodland clearance at home and weapons at war. The Pitcairn natives came east to Henderson for the tough Miro trees, whose dense bark was perfect for carving, and to load up with seabird eggs and fish as a welcome change from taro and sweet potato. But life was never easy in these outposts, and both Pitcairn and Henderson were long abandoned when Europeans arrived in recent times.  And yet, at some time over one thousand years ago, their own ancestors had launched one of their mighty double-hulled canoes and set off across 900 miles of ocean to reach our next destination, Easter Island, far away under the eastern horizon.  Theirs was the Starship Enterprise of its day, a valiant band of determined adventurers who found, settled and created an extraordinary society whose demise has intrigued the outside world for generations. We are following in their wake now, to reach the same infinitesimal islet somewhere in the wide watery world of the Pacific, the greatest ocean on Earth.  How they got there is a miracle, how they survived is a marvel, how their society disintegrated is a mystery. It is the stuff of Lindblad adventures….