"Treasures of Cruising the World" with Bill & Mary Ann: Report #25 Pago Pago, Samoa October 18, 2016 Tuesday Partly Sunny ? & 84 degrees 86 Pictures Part #1 Of 3

Samoa consists of five volcanic islands totaling 76 square miles. But if you add the surrounding marine waters, that number increases to 117,500 square miles. That makes Samoa's area about the same size as New Zealand. Ninety percent of the islands are covered with untouched tropical rainforest, making it an ecotourism haven for visitors.

One of the main islands of Samoa is Tutuila, and it belongs to the good old USA. It is known here as American Samoa. The port we docked in today is Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango). You can find a national park here that spans three islands. Besides rainforests, native animals, hiking trails, and Samoan culture, the park preserves and protects all of the coral reefs. And because of its location, this park is the most southern national park of the United States, and the only one below the Equator.

The tours today were all done in local basic island buses. Open air and wooden seats is about as good as it gets here. Kainoa suggested in his talks for folks to bring a ship's beach towel to use as a cushion on these buses. The duration of the tours was 3 to 4 hours at prices from $50 to $55 US dollars. By the way, everything here is in US dollars.

Things to see here are the Flower Pot Rock, the Leone Missionary Monument, The Leala Sliding Rocks, Camel Rocks, and the Turtle and Shark legend. Been there, done that, more than once. The locals do try hard to make the tours work for everyone, but their approach is different from most places we have been. It's been our experience that one experienced guide is placed at each of these sites. The plan is to have all the buses to meet at each spot at the same time. Then the guide gives the talk just once. Well, that did not work out good for us, since we were the last bus to arrive, and we missed the talks at each place. So today, it was no tours for us.

We have to address the weather, which was definitely not partly sunny as our newsletter had stated. The dry season here is from April to October, while the wet season is from November to March. Guess we are late enough in the dry season for rain to happen. And happen, it did. Partly sunny, became mostly cloudy. The wind picked up, which was wonderful, because it was hot and humid. We had a slight sprinkle, but knew there was more than that coming.

The Amsterdam sailed slowly into the harbor of Pago Pago around 7am, where we docked at Fagatogo. We noticed that the locals were in the process of building a new pier. Much has changed on this pier since the first time we came here. Many souvenir stalls lined the dock just steps from the gangway. Now half of the dock is under re-construction, while the rest is off limits to any stalls. We suspect security has something to do with the changes.

Like we said earlier, it was hot and humid when we left the ship around 10:00 am. Taking a right turn out of the pier, we walked through several districts. One stop was at a local hardware store to look for a spritzer bottle for ice water. That will work good at the back pool on sea days to keep us cooler. Lucky to find it, since this store had limited supplies of everything. Not exactly like shopping at home.

We continued around the bottom of the harbor, past McDonalds, a most popular fast food place here. Especially today, with our ship in port. Many passengers and even more crew members come here for lunch and free internet. The only downfall with that is the more people using it, the slower it becomes. Now that we're thinking of it, the internet on the ship has been most co-operative on this trip so far. We suspect some work has been done on it while we were gone this summer.

Passing a few inns, a nightclub, a museum, and some small shops, we came to their produce market and souvenir building. They sell fruit and veggies here outside on the covered patio, while t-shirts, beachwear, pareos, wood carvings, and costume jewelry are sold inside. Everything was reasonably priced we thought.

Deeper into town, we found roadside homes, some with graves in the front yards. This is a common practice among the older families, and something we have seen in many other island nations. We made it as far as the ball fields, a Catholic Church, and almost to the tuna factories. These canning facilities employ many folks here, as does the government.

There was a pizza restaurant on the hillside, but we were too early for lunch. So we turned around and headed back towards the ship. We did make a stop at the re-located craft and souvenir tents, located in a huge grassy area along the main road. They offered everything here, and one of us had no trouble finding a new silky pareo to add to the collection.

We cooled our heels back on the ship until 1:30pm, then took off on a left turn to the Utulei area, where we knew we would see the fruit bats in the tall roadside trees. Because of the darker clouds, the bats were active and flying overhead. A bit further up the road, we watched the fishermen tending the huge nets that are used for the tuna. They were a happy bunch of fellows that waved when we took their pictures hard at work.

Right at the turn in the road, we came across Goat Island Point, and Sadie's by the Sea, a beachside hotel and café. We took seats on the outside patio, facing the bay. The breeze was great while we enjoyed beers, nachos, and split a burger. We were mostly done when the rain began. In seconds, it went from sprinkle to downpour. We simply grabbed our glasses and plates, and moved inside to an empty table. Gosh, when it rains here, it is heavy. In no big hurry to leave, we decided to have dessert. We split a slice of black forest multi-layered chocolate cake with cherry compote. Here it is called Koko Samoa cake. You had to have a scoop of vanilla ice cream with that. By the time we finished, the rain let up, and it was time to go.

Once again, we got lucky, because right after we boarded the ship, the sky opened up, and the rain continued coming down heavily. It would stay that way until sail away, which had to be moved to the Crows Nest. We watched from deck seven aft, where we stayed dry. Don't know when we'll be back here, since the 2017 world cruise will be heading north towards Japan after leaving Hawaii. Instead of melting from the heat, we'll be freezing instead.

There was a knock on our door shortly before dinner. Christel, the guest relations manager, had sent us a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a gift for our small problem with the leak last weekend. We are lucky to have a friend in high places, who is also very thoughtful.

Dinner tonight was in the Pinnacle Grill. We both ordered lamb chops, and they were really tasty. The only downside of the day was that the clocks had to be turned ahead 25 hours. In other words, sometime during this evening, we will be crossing the International Dateline once again. The last time, we did not recognize it, because Fanning Island had no clocks or businesses. It did not matter that it was Friday for us, but Saturday for the locals. It will be different here, so technically, we will lose a day plus an hour.

It's already 1am, and time to sign off. We are only 80 or so miles from our next port of call, Apia, Samoa. That means we will be doing a mere 7 knots, and it may be a bit rough.

Bill & Mary Ann

Sailing towards Pago Pago, Samoa