Anakena

Anakena is on the northern coast of Rapa Nui — Easter Island — a Chilean territory in the south-eastern Pacific, three and a half thousand kilometres from the mainland and among the most isolated inhabited places on earth. It is the island's only substantial sand beach.

Tradition places the first landing here. Hotu Matuʻa, the founding ariki of the island, is said in oral history to have come ashore at Anakena, and the site holds two ceremonial platforms: Ahu Ature Huki, whose single moai was the first ever re-erected, in 1955 by islanders working with Thor Heyerdahl, and Ahu Nau Nau, seven moai restored in 1978 by the Rapa Nui archaeologist Sergio Rapu, several still wearing their red scoria topknots.

The sand is white coral, which is unusual here — Rapa Nui is volcanic and has almost no beach anywhere else. The bay is sheltered, the water warm by Chilean standards and calm enough for easy swimming, and coconut palms grow behind, planted in the twentieth century rather than native. The rest of Rapa Nui's coast is basalt and cliff, which is why this one sheltered bay with sand was where the island was first settled and where the moai were raised looking inland, away from the sea.

The island is a national park and a World Heritage site, and visitor rules have tightened considerably: park tickets are required, sites are open only in daylight, and approaching or touching moai and ahu is prohibited. The island also limits how long non-residents may stay.

The only sheltered sand on an island made of basalt and cliff, which is why the first settlers landed here and why the moai above the beach look inland rather than out. Swim, then walk up to Ahu Nau Nau and look at what the same sand has been used for.