Adventure Photos

America Samoa

November 17, 1989

We are on a mooring in Pago Pago Harbor, American Samoa. Pago Pago is pronounced "Pongo Pongo" because Samoans pronounce "g" as "ng." (I have even heard them say "Pow Pow." Don’t ask!) Lush green hills rise up all around us. The harbor makes a dogleg to the left that leads into a protected cove, virtually blocking the high seas associated with storms, even though we still get the winds. This is a "hurricane hole," a safe place for yachts to "hole" up during the hurricanes that can, but don’t always, form during this time of year—November through March. Therefore we will spend the season in Samoa.

During this time Bob and I have made lists of things to do. Bob wants to work on the boat, replace the boom that broke and had to be splinted the first night out of Beaufort, North Carolina, last year. It is holding up very well, but looks ungainly. The right sized wood is available at a lumber yard a stone’s throw from the boat, but Bob also needs a place to work. We miss the convenience of working on the boat in Panama or in North Carolina. Some things we have to buy here. We also have to order some parts for the boat and return some equipment through the mail for repairs. This is a great place for that because it s the U.S. Postal System, so it’s cheaper and no customs.

I have lots of things I want to do, too: explore Samoa, make clothes and new slipcovers out of the lovely fabrics on sale here, finish some of my cross-stitch pieces, figure out how or if I want to try to get one or more of my short stories published, and I’m looking for a teaching job in the local school system. Although there is a critical need for teachers, especially reading teachers, in the school system, there is also a hiring freeze. Oh, well!

We just received our "Seattle" mail which is why I am just now getting around to writing letters. Between now and the end of March write directly to us, the fastest way, takes about five days from the states. Use this address:

Always write Air Mail on the letter/package to be sure it arrives quickly. Boat mail takes a month or more.

Pago Pago? The people are friendly—and they speak English! I even tracked down and talked to the grandparents of one of the kids I taught in Panama a few years ago. The father, was a GI from Samoa and the mother was from Hawaii. When I told them I was going to sail the Pacific, they said we should visit Samoa but I didn’t think it was on our list. As soon as I arrived, I tried to find any relatives and ended up talking to the grandmother. She said she’d tell her son that Mrs. Webb was in Samoa and says "Hi!" to Melissa.

The people are very modest, compared to French Polynesia. probably a different religious group evangelized them. Contrary to the weather, the women wear long skirts and high necked blouses with sleeves. They make their own clothes, without patterns, using the colorful island prints. The men wear sports shirts and Bermuda shorts or lavalavas—wraparound "skirts" that go down below the knee. The average guy wears a lavalava that seems to be two yards of an island print wrapped and tucked at the waist. The businessman wears a plain-colored tailored lavalava, complete with slash pockets.

The harbor water is filthy with trash and silt, etc. It is also noisy with a diesel electric power plant across from the anchorage that runs day and night. There are about 20 yachts moored or anchored here and lots of fishing boats and freighters come in and out. There are fish canneries across the harbor and when the wind is right you lose your appetite for fish. Outrigger canoes slice through the water in the afternoon as crews of six practice for weekly competition. It rains a bit every day and sometimes we get a dowsing, but those are only the drawbacks to Pago Pago.

I finally got to do the wash at a real laundromat, the first time I used one since leaving Panama in April. The rest of the time I have been washing on deck in a bucket and hanging the wash on lines strung fore and aft.

Back to the yachts: We met some of them in our travels and are meeting the rest little by little. There is a "harbor net" started by one of the yachts that goes on the air (VHF) at 8 a.m. every day. They discuss the weather (always a concern for small boats), cruisers call in to ask about things, there’s a "buy and sell" time, and sometimes affairs are planned. The "fleet." had a pot-luck on the beach with a nice turn-out. We bar-b-qued our own meats, dipped into each other’s dish-to-share and enjoyed ourselves, until a sudden storm sent us fleeing to the nearby yacht club (small like the one in Panama), where we continued visiting until the storm passed. Another pot-luck is planned for Thanksgiving with everyone splitting the cost of the turkeys.

Suwarrow

Now let me backtrack a bit further. The last time I wrote to anyone was from Bora Bora, in French Polynesia. We had a lovely time there, snorkeling, finding out the problems with collecting "live" shells (some of mine still aren’t cleaned out), met a lot of interesting people and enjoyed crystal clear water with fair climate. But all good things have to come to an end and we had to make Samoa before the start of hurricane season, so we weighed anchor on October 4 and headed west.

There’s an atoll in the Cook Islands that was almost across our path and a nice place to stop, so we made for Suwarrow, about the distance of 500 miles that took us a week to sail. Good winds then no winds then strong winds. Crazy!

When we arrived there were four other boats in the lagoon and they had planned a pot-luck/fish fry, so we joined them. (Cruisers never go hungry!) The atoll is inhabited by one family placed there by the Cook Island government to stamp passports, keep people from cutting down the trees for heart of palm, and to maintain the "national park" made famous by a New Zealander named Tom Neale, who lived there alone from the fifties through the seventies. If you want to read a book that will let you know what it was like—and it has changed very little—read Neale’s "An Island to Oneself." I read it when I worked in the book swap in Gatun when we first moved to Panama, even before Bob began building the boat, and I had no idea we’d ever go there.

Anyway, the pot-luck (and the one we had just before leaving a week and a half later) was quite an affair. Fresh fish, lobster, and crab caught by the family and cooked over grills, native dishes and dishes-to-share from the yachties, fresh drinking coconuts. Polynesian music. Paradise! After we ate, the grandfather of the resident family, who had been fishing on the other side of the island, came to tell us about a turtle that had come ashore to lay her eggs. We all stumbled over the path in the dark ( less than ¼ mile) and watched as this huge turtle scrambled out of her hole and slid her monstrous body down the coral beach into the sea.

We swam just about every day and snorkeled for spider conchs around the virtually untouched reefs. We saw Tom Neale’s house rebuilt because most of the original is gone, and picked our way around the main island where he made his home. We explored an island further around the atoll where birds nested, finding eggs by the hundreds (and leaving them untouched of course), huge frigate and tropic bird chicks in the trees and under bushes. Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, we still sent thousands of birds into flight squawking and screaming and beating their wings just above our heads. At first we felt as if we were on the set of Hitchcock’s "The Birds," but when we realized there was no danger it really became exciting to watch. As soon as we left one area, whole groups would come back to roost on their eggs (so many eggs lying unprotected on the ground that we had to be careful where we stepped) and then the others would take flight. They almost seemed to spring from the ground. We waded in ankle deep water beside the island and were circled by two one-foot-long black tipped sharks! The only ones I have seen since we began sailing. They didn’t bother us, didn’t even try to take a toe (about the only thing they could have had), but we got out of the water fast! Turtles swam near our dinghy. Fascinating place! The most primitive we’ve visited. And nowhere to spend money so we saved a lot, too.

We left Suwarrow on October 22 and five days and 450 miles later arrived in Samoa. We had two good days of sailing (doing 130 miles each day) and three days of such calm we thought we’d never get anywhere. And then the last night we had so violent a storm we thought we’d gotten into the first hurricane of the season, but it was just a bad squall and later a good wind took us the last few miles into the harbor.

Loads of additional information on Tom Neale of Suwarrow  and the South Pacific.

Suwarrow - Island of Mystery

My Tribute to Tom Neale

Back in America Samoa

The prices are reasonable here in American Samoa. Anything is reasonable after French Polynesia, where we frequently spent over $100 (US) on food, mostly in cans, and Bob could carry it out of the store in one trip, unaided! Here our first shock was an ice cream cone—with two huge scoops—that cost 60 cents! In French Polynesia we bought ice cream sandwiches that cost almost $6 apiece! We went to the best hotel the other day and had lunch in their coffee shop. I had a reuben, fries and coke; Bob had a hamburger, fries and coffee and our bill was $6.89. In French Polynesia, just the hamburger alone was $5, sodas were at least $2. We’d go out for a simple lunch and spend over $20. We didn’t eat out much there. We’re making up for it here. Our first big splurge after the ice cream was at Paisano’s Pizza, the best we’ve had since leaving the states. The last splurge was a buffet dinner and Polynesian show at the same hotel that cost each of us $15.95. In Moorea the same thing goes for $45 (US) each!

The other thing we like is ice! No kidding! For a boat without refrigeration, where we have to watch that there are no left overs and can’t keep fresh foods for long without ice, that’s a real problem. Ice was either unavailable or too far way to transport or too expensive in French Polynesia. Since everything was expensive anyway, we ate on the boat all the time, Once in a while Bob would go ashore and rush back with an ice cold liter of Pepsi and we’d guzzle it down so quickly our heads would spin from the unaccustomed chill and tingle of carbonation! You’d think we were winos or something the way we acted! Here we can dinghy ashore, a trip of a few yards, cross the street and go to the grocery with as much ice as we can handle. We have our cooler packed with ice, sodas, meats, cheeses. milk and vegetables. Heaven! Doesn’t take much to make yachties happy!

Speaking of yachties, we are poor cousins to a lot of them. Most of the boats are equipped with refrigerators, some with freezers as well many have microwaves, some have TVs and VCRs, others have lots of electronic gear like radar, ham radios and weather fax, a few have water makers. Whenever possible we like to go on those yachts to see how the other half live. One we met in Tahaa had stained glass ports, a palm tree in the cabin and free standing fireplace—all on a 38 toot boat! But whenever someone decides to get the "grand tour" of the Hunky-Dory, we always get the oohs and aahs when they come below and see how roomy we are. One lady said it was like a summer cabin in Maine

Typical Sailing Day

Bob says I should include what cruising is really like. So here goes:

Up at dawn to check sails, weather conditions, sea conditions, course and position. Then the usual brush the teeth, wash up, make the bed and get breakfast, which can be anything from toast to eggs to pancakes to cereals with juices, hot chocolate, tea or coffee. Sounds pretty down to earth, doesn’t it?

Then Bob checks the reading on the Taff Rail Log, a mechanical device that measures distance, he then turns on the SatNav, plugs in the log’s numbers and waits for a position from the satellite. We usually average 100 miles in a 24-hour period. If everything is running smoothly—we are on course, the boat is sailing well, no squalls on the horizon and the boat isn’t rocking too violently—we each have our own pastimes. Bob is learning how to program in Pascal in preparation for computer jobs that now require that skill. He reads, plots courses, trims sails, adjusts steering, naps or just sits on deck and enjoys life.

I read and sew and write and cook and clean and wash. Nothing fantastic. I’m making a counted cross-stitch square for every place we go. Someday, when we are in our own house, one wall of our "den" will have a kind of patch-work quilt made up of the squares, surrounding a cross-stitched map of the world. A record of our travels.

We spend time listening to our collection of compact disks and tapes, too.

Lunch time is our big meal time. It is easier to prepare, eat and clean up at that time of day. We usually eat on deck. weather permitting, balancing the dishes on our laps and watching the birds, flying fish, turtles, porpoises and whales that we frequently see around our boat.

Dinner is a light affair, usually soup or just a can of fruit. By now, 6 p.m., the sun is going down and we like to spend this time on deck, too, watching blazing sunsets.

We check the skies, the seas, the course, the sails, and if nothing is amiss or we are not close to shipping lanes or land, we go to bed. Depending upon which way the boat is heeling (angled) I either sleep in bed with Bob or on the couch across from him. We usually check things from time to time during the night to be sure we’re on course and there are no ships in the area. We just bought a radar detector that sounds an alarm if someone (usually a big ship) is using radar. That should add to our peace of mind next time. Sometimes we sit out on deck for a while. If the need arises, we stand watches of about 2-4 hours each, depending upon the situation.

Usually things are rather boring after a while when nothing goes wrong and the weather is behaving itself. But then when no one is looking, things suddenly get too exciting! We get into a strong squall and have to reduce sail, sometimes even running bare-pole because the wind overpowers the boat. We are out there in the rain and wind and waves and Bob is forward with his foul weather gear and safety harness trying to reduce sail and I’m at the tiller in my foul weather gear trying to see through the torrential rain and spray and keep the boat on course and keep an eye on Bob and hope he has the harness secured to something on deck so he doesn’t decide to go for a swim and go floating by. Then we go below and dry ourselves and try to ignore the whole thing. But the waves and the current take over and we rock and things below, like my spices and books, break loose and rattle and sometimes fall to the floor. And we find it difficult to walk from the bunk to the head (bathroom) without banging into things. And the wind howls through the rigging and the waves crash on deck, and buckets and things that we thought were tied down on deck begin to slide this way and that, crashing first into the rail and then into the cabin. And then the sun comes out and the wind dies down and the sea calms itself and everything is right with the world. And we pick up the things that fell, and set sail again and continue on our way. Ho, hum, nothing ever happens here!

And then there are other times that we just sit. No wind, nothing. We can’t use our engine because we don’t carry enough fuel. But still the swells continue, usually small ones during a calm period and the boat rocks this way and that. And we just sit and then yet tired of it and try to change our direction or hope that little cloud on the horizon will bring some wind and the sun beats down and it’s hotter than blazes and we try to keep cool and we look out over the empty ocean and can see for miles and not a ripple. We get a lot of computing and reading done during those times—anything to vent our frustration.

Now, just suppose we have just found land and have made our way into port and have dropped our anchor and now we can relax. Right? Wrong. We have to worry what is down there.

Is it sand or mud or coral or rocks or grass? That makes a difference in what kind of anchor we put out. How deep is it? How much anchor chain and line do we have to put down? What is the wind condition? How many boats are in the harbor? How close are they to us? Do we have enough swinging room? Are we close to the channel or in a acceptable place to anchor? Which way is the wind blowing? So we sit on the deck and spot things on shore to see if the anchor is dragging and has to be reset.

Once all of these things have been taken into consideration, we can launch our dinghy, tie up our boarding ladder, and go ashore. Hopefully there will be a good place to land the dinghy. Maybe a dock or sandy beach. Then where to tie it up? Can we get out of the dinghy without capsizing it? Then is it safe to leave it? Then we have to bring our bundle of boat papers and passports to immigration and customs to check in, scout out the local shops, etc., and hope our dinghy with oars and engine and gas can are still at the dock or on the beach when we finish. Many times it rains in the meantime and we come back to a wet dinghy or have to rush back to the boat to close hatches and ports which are merrily letting in all the rain onto our bed. And it’s always fun and games trying to get to shore or the boat during a rain squall or a sudden blow, especially when we have decided not to put the outboard on the dinghy and have to row. And imagine the added fun if this happens when you are dressed up to go to a fancy restaurant! Or the boredom when you’d like to go ashore just for a change and it is raining cats and dogs and you know you’ll be soaked before landing the dinghy, so you give up and you look longingly at the shore, watching from the ports of course, because you can’t even sit in the cockpit and keep dry.

Now comes the experience of sitting at anchor. You look out the port and see one view. and a few minutes later you see another from the same port as the boat swings and glides and bucks on the anchor line. We see one yacht far away from us and the next instant our boats are close together. We check from time to time to see if we have dragged or are just swinging on the anchor line in a different direction. If a storm comes up during the night or the wind changes direction, we are up and checking again. We not only have to worry that we might drag into another boat, but we have to hope HIS anchor is holding as well. And then power boats zoom by and leave a wake that sends us rocking and bouncing just as I’ve managed to get three perfect fried eggs on the grill. Ah, the joys of cruising!

Another is bathing on deck. No problem when cruising. Just get down to the birthday suit and bathe using rainwater and soap. etc. In port the boats are too close for that. I made a weather cloth around the railing but it doesn’t completely enclose the bather. We some times wait until dark and then wash up on deck when no one can see. The water in our "solar shower" bag cools after dark and you should hear the reactions when that water hits us!

But, then we are close enough to everyone, like people in real neighborhoods. And, like good neighbors, we visit and trade and share things. We go to each other’s boats and play card games or just enjoy each other’s company. When we see a "neighbor" with a problem, we rush over to help. The other day, Bob helped a friend tie his boat on a mooring. Someone came by this morning. We were going to buy a windlass and lots of chain and he gave us some alternative ideas on anchoring. I had heard the sailing fraternity was one big happy family and now I’m convinced.

Just thought you ‘d like to hear a bit more about the "enchanted lives of cruisers." Adventure and boredom, new lands and doing the laundry on deck, fantastic sunsets and horrendous storms. That’s the way it is, folks!

So, now that I’ve rambled on and on and bored you to tears, I’ll close and promise to answer any letters we receive. For a while there I thought I would not be able to say that. Our laptop computer was "down" and after racking our brains for over a week, discovered all it needed was a head cleaner. So I’m in business again. With our cards this year, I’ll enclose a "newsletter" with a recap of our year’s sailing. Until then. please write and use the Pago Pago address.

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Copyright 2000 by Robert L. Webb
Goose Creek, South Carolina 29445 USA