Friday, August 26, 2011
Vailima Brewery
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Western Samoa vs American Samoa
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Go Figure!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Dinghies and Buses
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Pago Pago Isn't for Everyone
Saturday, August 6, 2011
American Samoa
But Ruthie was judicious when she told me, "It looks like we can sail again and shut down the engine." (Always a good thing.) Then she says, "I found the shallow spot on the chart I wanted to avoid. I want to route us around it - should I change the route on the chart plotter or just divert with the autopilot?" Since I had been awake for a while, I got out of my bunk, got dressed, donned my harness and made my way into the cockpit. A light breeze was filling in from the north and it would be the first beam reaching we had seen in a long time. The main was already fully hoisted so I unfurled the genoa and almost instantly we were doing 6+ knots per hour with the engine idling in neutral. The seas were flat calm and it was sailing at it's finest. The lights of Tutuila Island - the largest island in the American Samoa chain and where Pago Pago Harbor is - could been easily seen. While Ruthie sipped her cup of tea and I gulped down my cup of hot cocoa (I haven't had a cup of coffee since early March), we were treated to a beautiful sunrise. As we sailed parallel to the south side of the island, a pod of dolphins swam along side. I hailed the port captain on the VHF radio and requested permission to enter the harbor which he granted along with a warm welcome.
Being slightly anxious about our anchor holding, I decided to go into town to check us in by myself. Plus, since we still have no outboard for the dinghy, rowing in the windy conditions would be difficult and the additional weight of another person would just make it that much harder. About 600' feet upwind from Rutea was a little grass-covered picnic area and I tied the dink up to a tree there and walked into see the port captain.
The check-in cha-cha had me visit five different offices but it gave me a chance to see a little of the town. Small and busy, some parts new and some in disrepair, I was able to walk the entire length of the town in half an hour. The center of town is the commercial dock where the containers are off-loaded, sorted and shuffled, and where the work is done to the great piles of fishing nets. Teams of men, working and sweating in the sun, are weaving the bobbins of cord through the house-sized mounds of nets. The fork lifts that lift the containers buzz around like so many bees, their diesel engines screaming. People I pass on the street are friendly and it seems that everyone acknowledges one another with a nod or a greeting. I bought some fresh fruit at an outdoor market (our boat being without any fresh produce for several days) and dripping with perspiration, made my way back to the dinghy.
Our friend Lars on Twister had arrived just moments after we did (even though he had left Suwarrow two days ahead of us) and came by to visit in the late afternoon with a cooler full of very well iced Vailima beer. A Samoan-made lager, the Export brew could almost pass as an ale and we enjoyed Lars' generosity and the refreshing drink very well. Since the wind had died to almost calm, we rowed back into the picnic area and found a nice restaurant for dinner, our first meal out in nearly a month. The stark contrast between the primitive Suwarrow with it's two small buildings and no streets to the harbor of Pago Pago with it's bright street lights and a row of large diesel engines near where we're anchored that provide electricity to the island was not lost on us as we rowed back to Rutea. Still, there's much to be discovered here.
-----
At 8/6/2011 2:43 AM (utc) Rutea's position was 14°16.32'S 170°41.77'W
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Farewell to Suwarrow
How beautiful? Pelagic blue water blends into aqua water and laps onto a white coral sand beach. Behind the beach are coconut palm trees with brilliant green fronds, hibiscus flowers and Tamanu trees. In front of the beach is a coral reef with blue, purple, green and white coral and tons of tropical reef fish including the humuhumunukanukapuaa. While snorkeling one day we were lucky enough to see a Manta Ray with a nine foot wing span! The Suwarrow Yacht Club sits in the center of the island where the Park Rangers, James and John hold court. The building is wood with a tin roof and open on all sides. There is a cook station in the back with a propane stove as well as an outdoor cook station for grilling fish. The only furniture is a very large table with benches all around which hosts many pot-lucks, lazy afternoon conversations, musical jam sessions and serves as an office for checking in/out of the Cook Islands. Several steps away is the cement building where Tom Neale lived for nineteen years as a hermit, although he was not the only one to live this way on Suwarrow.
How isolated? Well it takes the Rangers three days to get there by a large power boat from Raro (Rarotonga). Last year when the Ranger's single side band radio conked out, their headquarters forgot to pick them up at the end of the season! Finally a fishing boat picked them up- three weeks late! Once when a former ranger was feeding the sharks and had an overzealous shark take a chunk out of his side, it took a helicopter five days to get there, pick him up and get him to Samoa! James was once visited by a young man who wanted to see the tree his father tied him up in (twenty feet off of the ground) when a cyclone came through and waves started washing over the island. He wanted to make sure it was as big and safe as his father had told him! No cyclone warning system here other than lick you finger and stick it up in the air....
Other than swimming, snorkeling, bird watching and meeting people from all over the world- what made Suwarrow really special was getting to know the two Cook Island Rangers. They are both full of stories, can live survival style off of an atoll, and are full of facts and figures about Polynesia. They are extremely protective of the atoll and have found a way to share it with the yachties without compromising its' fragile environment.
The squally weather with dark skies reflected our feelings about leaving as we sailed out of the pass yesterday morning. As we passed shark cove and waved to James, beautiful, fat rainbows arched over the atoll also reflecting the way we felt about another over the rainbow experience. Strong winds the rest of the day helped us make good time our first day out towards Am Samoa! Today the skies are sunny, the sea is again pelagic blue (and calm) and we have a beautiful ten to fifteen knot breeze. The spinnaker is flying off of the port beam and Rutea is gracing the swell at about 6 knots.
It's hard to imagine what is ahead of us! There is very little written about Samoa for cruisers and I only started reading what little info I have a couple of days ago! What I do know is that there is shopping and we are down to our last two onions and some very sad carrots! Beyond that- we expect it to be different and we will keep you posted!
R of Rutea
13.43 south
166.21 west
-----
At 8/3/2011 9:40 PM (utc) Rutea's position was 13°38.55'S 165°56.17'W
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
En Route
-----
At 8/3/2011 3:00 AM (utc) Rutea's position was 13°20.96'S 163°58.41'W
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com