One of the best traditions that developed on the Pitcairn Islands expedition was to gather on the top of the aft deck at sunset and toast the sun as it sank into the sea.
After hours of scuba diving to count fish or film sharks and coral reefs, or hours of staving of sea-sickness as we traveled from island to island, it was a colorful and invigorating way to close out the day. Amid the oos and ahhs you’d hear numerous cameras clicking away as various team members tried to capture brief moments in the ever-changing show.
Now that the research is complete and everyone has returned home safely, looking at these photos brings up a few final thoughts:
- A lot of the beauty of the sunsets was in the way they constantly changed. As we think about the people on Pitcairn working to create a positive and sustainable future, it’s good to remember that change is similar. It’s not some fixed state you can jumped to, it’s a process, and the process is itself exciting and rewarding.
- As the light would change, areas of cloud that once looked flat and white would take on colors and reveal themselves to be made of many different cloud types at vastly different distances and elevations. This is true for the ocean as well; many people see it at first as just one vast homogeneous pool. If we can shed the right light on it though, people will more easily be able to see how intricate its structures are and how different it is in all its corners.
- Even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, after sunset it was often hard to see a lot of stars because the lights of the ship drowned them out. This was a stark reminder that even when our human trappings don’t have a major effect on the rest of the world, they can still alter our view of the world, determining what we’re able to see.
Finally, just like the sun rises again every time it sets, this entire expedition can be relived any time you like. Explore the backlog of blogs below, and spread the word about the beautiful world hiding below the waves of the remote Pitcairn Islands.
Read the full story here and scroll past photos for more.
Pitcairn Islands Expedition Sunsets
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