by Judy Handley | Aug 16, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 303, Year 1: Fiafia Night at Sadie Thompson’s
Date: Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Weather: Partly Sunny and Calm
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
The neatest thing happened today. We were sitting in the cockpit. Mark was on his computer and I was faithfully doing my leg lift exercises when the computer “rang”. Mark had Skype up and running on the computer, so we knew someone was trying to call us. When Mark looked at the screen, he saw it was our friends Ron and Suzie back in Maryland. They have Skype on their computer and saw that we were online and called. I still find this amazing that at no cost you can talk to someone half way around the world and it really sounds just like you are next door. If you don’t have Skype on your computer, you should get it. It costs nothing to download. You do have to have a headset with a microphone. With that you can call computer to computer at absolutely no cost. Normally there is a very nominal cost for calling someone’s normal telephone if they don’t have Skype, but Ron told us that right now there is a special promotion and even that is free. Maybe that explains why we have used less than $3 of the $10 that we paid back in Panama when we first connected. If this keeps working for us, we’ll probably be calling everyone we know in the next couple of weeks. Be forewarned.
I spent my morning vacuuming the floors and walls in the boat. With my leg, this took about an hour and a half. In that time, Mark went to town, rode the bus out to the hospital to inquire about renting a wheel chair (unsuccessful), and returned. I had barely finished vacuuming when he got here. I’ve promised myself to tackle one job each day. It is slow going, but I can get things done.
Tonight we attended a Fiafia (festivity) Night at Sadie Thompson’s Restaurant. The food was fantastic, some American, some traditional Samoan, and the entertainment was very good. This was our first glimpse of singing and dancing here in American Samoa and it was very different from what we have been seeing in French Polynesia and in Rarotonga. Most of the dancing was done by a single young woman dressed in a pulatasi. This literally means “two dresses”. When the missionaries first arrived here, young woman wore only a lava lava (material wrapped as a skirt-no top). The missionaries gave them dresses to wear and they just put these on over the lava lava. Today’s pulatasis continue the tradition but are quite sophisticated-long skirts with a fitted top that comes down to the upper thigh. Anyway, the dancer moves slowly and beautifully in the long dress, telling a story with her hands and with the way she moves her feet. There were also two young women who performed a Tahiti style “hip shaking” dance and a beautiful dance from the Rarotonga.
Then came the fire dancers. Three young brothers, the youngest 13 and the oldest about 17, did some unbelievable maneuvers with batons with fire on each end. It was beautiful and very well done. They just returned from Honolulu where they won first place in the competition there. These are the first fire dancers we have seen and it was very exciting. At the end of the performance, all of the dancers came out and they pulled a young man from the audience to participate with them. The young man was Eddie from the boat New Horizons which is anchored just in front of us. He is from Germany and took a one-year leave of absence to crew on the boat with the captain, Wolfgang. Their boat is out of the US, but Wolfgang is originally from Germany. They met on the internet and now Eddie is nearing the end of his year and will be headed back to Germany to his job as an engineer in January. But tonight he was a star. He did a great job of following the male lead and dancing with the young woman. It was great fun.
Tomorrow is work on the boat day. We have stainless to be polished, oil to be changed, fuel and oil filters to replace, and on and on. Guess I had better get some rest so we can get started bright and early in the morning.
by Judy Handley | Aug 15, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 302, Year 1: A Trip to Leone
Date: Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Weather: Sunny, Hazy, and Windy Day; Pouring Rain in the Evening
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
Mark continued to fully enjoy our new high speed connection to the internet this morning. He called both of our kids via Skype, downloaded every file he had dreamed of for the past couple of months, and answered a number of emails that have accumulated on our land-based email server. I did some laundry and that was about it until it was time to head into town.
We hiked to the bus station and took a bus to Leone. This is where Mark lived when he was here in the 1960’s. At that time he was an employee of the Government of American Samoa as an instructional television producer. The government provided housing for the employees and Mark and his first wife, Lynn, lived in one of five houses out in Leone. Today there are houses everywhere, and lots of stores and shopping centers. He really couldn’t recognize anything.
We headed back into town on the bus and got off at the Yacht Club. This is where we were to meet Evelyn Bowles Weilenman. She was the daughter of one of the American teachers who was here back in the 60’s. Except for going back to the US for college and graduate school, she has lived here since then. Her brother and his family also still live here. She is currently the principal at a local private school here after spending 30 years as a teacher and administrator with the local Department of Education. She was able to help Mark reconstruct his time here. She is a wealth of information. She seems to know everyone on the island and is anxious to help us become acquainted with modern day American Samoa. We will tour the island with her this weekend. But the best part of our time together was meeting a woman named Kika who was in high school when Mark was here. She was at the Yacht Club waiting for her husband who was meeting with all of the football coaches from the island. They play American style football and take it very seriously. Anyway, Kika is an avid golfer and enticed Mark and Evelyn into spending a day with her on the golf course learning the tricks of the trade. She promised that I would get to ride in the golf cart and enjoy the show. I’ll have to let you know how this turns out. It should be good!
Evelyn brought us back to the dock just as the pouring rain was ending. We had every intention of returning to Windbird, but just at the same time as we arrived, George and Ute from Miami were coming ashore. It didn’t take much arm twisting to get us to go with them to Sadie’s. They are leaving tomorrow morning and we had never gotten a chance to sit and talk with them. It was a great evening listening to their tales of sailing from Malaysia around South Africa to the Caribbean.
We have definitely moved into a lower gear than usual, but we are enjoying the slower pace. The winds have completely died down tonight and the water in the anchorage is glassy. It is nice to have the calm waters, but I wonder what is coming after the calm.
by Judy Handley | Aug 14, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 301, Year 1: The Wonders of Modern Technology
Date: Monday, August 14, 2006
Weather: Sunny, Hazy, and Windy
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
This has been another lazy day aboard Windbird. I might get used to this! Late yesterday, Mark contracted some sort of gastrointestinal bug, but he seems to be recovering quickly. That slowed him down a bit this morning, but by early afternoon he was off to town to see if we could get connected to a wireless internet service. We had been told my another boat last night that it would not be possible, but when Mark arrived at Samoa Telecom with computer in hand, they told him it was possible but that they had not done this before without a telephone line connection for billing. One person was very reluctant, but someone there said that the “bosses” had told them to give this a try. So we are serving as guinea pigs and are on wireless here in the cockpit. It is by far the best connection we have had since leaving the US of A. It is great. Our first download was our land-based e-mail and there we received a “picture” of our grandchild in utero. Heather reported, “The heart rate is strong at a healthy 150/min. At first glance, the skull, spine, ribs, arms, legs, hands, and feet all appear to be fine.” I can already tell that this is going to be a beautiful baby. And I find it almost unbelievable that I am sitting here in an anchorage in the South Pacific looking at a scanned picture of grandchild-to-be from an ultrasound on wireless internet. And Mark just saw that Justin was online (even though it is 12:30 AM in Ashfield, Massachusetts) and called him via Skype on the computer and had a great connection. What would Captain Cook think of this?!!
Tomorrow we plan on heading to town and riding the one of the aiga (ah-ing-ah) busses out to Leone. This is where Mark lived when he was here in the late 1960’s. After exploring out there, we will then come back to the Yacht Club and meet with a woman who lives here that Mark has been in contact with via the Coconut Telegraph. This is an e-mail exchange of those from the US that have lived and worked here over the years, as well as the children of those folks who worked here. Evelyn, the woman we will be meeting with tomorrow, is a school principal and she told Mark on the phone that school started here today. Being a teacher, I have started school almost every year of my life (46 out of the 59 years). Hearing that school started today pulled just a little at my “school” heartstrings. Maybe I’ll have to go visit the schools here and at least act like I’m starting a new school year.
That’s it for today. We did get a request through a comment on the website to have a special folder for the Captain’s Ramblings. We will talk to our son Justin to get this set up. Great idea. I’m glad that Mark’s ramblings, infrequent as they are, are valuable to some out there. Maybe this will give him the incentive to write more often. The more captains I meet, the more I realize just how knowledgeable Mark is about so many different systems on this boat. I’m sure glad he is my captain.
by Judy Handley | Aug 13, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 300, Year 1: Sunday in Pago Pago
Date: Sunday, August 13, 2006
Weather: Sunny and Windy with Sprinkles Here and There
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
Today was a lazy Sunday aboard Windbird. We have had so few days like this, with absolutely nothing we had to do. We read, edited some photos, and started the task of cleaning up our computers. It was terrific to just go slow for a change.
Then this evening we went to Evie’s Cantina, featuring Mexican food. Every Sunday evening Evie’s shows a DVD along with dinner, so we joined George and Ute from “Miami,” Judy and Matt from “Elsewhere,” Ed and Dorthy from “Prism,” and Mitch from “Komfey” for dinner and a mindless movie. The food was great and we had a good time.
Mitch sailed in here with his wife about five years ago. They found themselves short of cash so found jobs and have been here ever since. Mitch spends every weekend working on his boat. He has removed the teak deck and is re-coring and fiber-glassing the entire thing. A big job but he does good work. During the week he is an engineer at the Hospital. His wife, who is in the states on vacation, works for the University of Hawaii which has a small office here.
We are settling in and expect to be here for almost a month. Tomorrow Mark will begin searching for anyone who might have been here when he was here in the ’60’s. I guess they will be old (just like us) by now! But it will be good to make contact and reminisce.
We have hopes of getting wi-fi internet connection here on the boat tomorrow. That will make life easier. However, we heard tonight that that may not be a real possibility. We shall see.
by Judy Handley | Aug 12, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 299, Year 1: New People and Age-Old Traditions in Pago Pago
Date: Saturday, August 12, 2006 (-11 GMT)
Weather: Sunny and Windy with Sprinkles Here and There
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
When I wrote the log last night, I was so tired that I must have fallen asleep at least ten times while writing . . . and it was only 7:30 in the evening. I had not slept very much on the last night of passage due to the weather throwing us around a bit, so I’ll try to fill in a little more of what happened yesterday with the happenings of today.
First of all, when I mentioned George and Ute of sailing vessel Miami, I forgot to mention that we came into port together. We were directed by the harbor master to raft up with a fishing vessel, Manu’a Tele, then Miami had to raft up to us. We had met George and Ute only once before, at Bloody Mary’s in Bora Bora. Lee and Mary Ellen were with us and Mary Ellen and I noted that Ute had on a necklace with more black pearls than I had ever seen in my life. I mentioned that to Ute yesterday and she explained that she bought a huge number of inferior pearls at the Pearl Market in Papeete. She had them drilled and she can string them in different ways. She says the imperfections don’t bother her and they sure weren’t apparent the night we met her. Anyway, they are here in the harbor with us and we hope to get to know them better over the next few days.
I didn’t mention in last night’s log our conversation with the immigration official. His name was Kid (short for Billy the Kid). He was dressed in “uniform” which was a brilliant blue silk shirt and matching lavalava (material wrapped like a skirt). I’d give anything to have an outfit like that. Maybe I’ll have to go to work for the Department of Immigration here. Anyway, we talked with him about the fact that Mark had lived here between 1967 and 1969 out in the village of Leone. At that time, Leone had only 5 houses and a small school. Kid told us that today Leone is a booming community with the largest Ace Hardware in the world. (Lee-check that out.) The other reason I mention this is that traditionally children here are named for what is happening at the time of their birth. When Mark was here, television had become a huge part of the culture and people would name their children after whatever program was on TV at the time of birth. With Billy the Kid, it was an obsession on his father’s part with cowboys. Another brother is named Clint Eastwood!
On our way back from the hospital yesterday, we had the bus drop us off at a restaurant and bar named Sadie Thompson’s. Sadie is the main character in Somerset Maugham’s “Rain”. Sadie lived upstairs in what is now the Sadie Thompson Restaurant. She was a laundress by day and practiced her trade by night. No one knows the name of the woman Maugham wrote about, but he called her Sadie Thompson, and that has stuck. She had been evicted from the Honolulu red light district and headed south to continue her trade. Maugham was on a ship that was detained in Pago Pago and it was from his time here that he wrote of Sadie. Her character will live on through productions of Maugham’s rain, but she was supposedly whisked away from here on a steamship bound for Australia one rainy night. Supposedly a police officer found her unconscious on the street and put her aboard the steamer. Poor Sadie.
Sadie’s is close enough to the dinghy dock for me to walk, and as we were walking, I heard familiar singing. I looked up the hill and saw an Assembly of God sign and realized they congregation was singing familiar hymns that have been transformed into Polynesian himenes. The song I recognized was “How Great Thou Art”-different words but same tune.
Now for today . . . Mark went into the market mid-morning and explored a little. He found his way to the DDW (Don’t Drink the Water) Internet Café ¡nd went on to the grocery store. The market had only bananas and breadfruit by the time he got there, but he did find broccoli at the grocery store. He came back to the boat, got his computer, and went back to DDW to get online before they closed at 12:30. On Monday we should be able to get connected to the local wireless service, but he was anxious to download a few things today. I spent my day writing e-mails, doing laundry, and looking at the beautiful mountains that surround us here in the anchorage. Tomorrow I will write a little about the geography here. This harbor was once the crater of a volcano and the mountains that surround it are spectacular.
We’re sitting here in the cockpit enjoying the evening and listening to music from last year’s cultural festival in the Cook Islands. The music from this year is not yet available, but many of the songs on this CD are very familiar to us now. I love the music, the drumming, the singing, and in person, the dancing. Listening is making me want to go back and see and hear more. Once we left the Cook Islands, we left the “hip shaking and knee slapping” music and dancing of French Polynesia and the Cooks behind. The singing here is supposed to be phenomenal, but the dancing, and more obviously the dress, is very different. Evidently on Wednesday night we will get our first glimpse of traditional Samoan dancing at Sadie Thompson’s. I sure hope the drumming here is similar to French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. I think that is what I love most about the music from the South Pacific.
While in town, Mark met some of the cruisers on other boats in the harbor: Matt and Judy on “Elsewhere,” Tim, Cynthia and Cameron from “Artic Fox,” and of course, Ute and George on “Miami” who arrives with us yesterday. On the way back he stopped at “Odyssey” to chat with Cliff Cummings from Houston, Texas who has lived on his boat here for nine or ten years. He publishes a little information sheet for cruisers on such things as where there are showers, where one can get drinkable water, and where to shop, dine, etc. When Mark got back to the boat Dorthy of the yacht Prism came by to get acquainted. She and Ed are on an Island Packet 35 anchored right behind us. In addition to learning about the people and cultures of the South Pacific, making new friends and renewing friendships among cruisers that we have met before is part of what we enjoy
by Judy Handley | Aug 11, 2006 | American Samoa, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 298, Year 1: Flying into American Samoa
Date: Friday, August 11, 2006
Weather: Rainy, Rainy, Rainy
Latitude: Not Recorded
Longitude: Not Recorded
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
We tried something new this morning. Instead of sailing into port, we decided to fly . . . in the sailboat. Around midnight, the winds started building. Sometime during Mark’s 0200 to 0500 watch, he reefed the headsail. But by 0500, we were still flying in 30 knots of wind still with a full mainsail. We jibed unintentionally and totally bent the cam cleat on the traveler that controls the mainsail lines. Mark was able to bend it back with a screwdriver so that it would still hold the mainsail line, but we will have to have some permanent repairs done. We then knew that we had to lower the mainsail. We did so with some problems, but finally Mark was able to get it down. The lazy jack lines on our port side that hold the mainsail in place while it is being lowered came undone, so when we lowered the sail it did not go into the stack pack. We just had to come into port with the mainsail draping over the cabin top, and it will require a trip up the mast to fix that problem.
George and Ute on the sailboat “Miami” (out of Switzerland) had arrived here just after dark last night, but had to wait outside until this morning to come into the harbor They had a bit of a rough night trying to heave to in order to stay just a little offshore. When we flew in this morning, there was fog obscuring our view of the harbor, so we took our time coming into port. We had been told by the harbor master to tie up next to a fishing vessel to formally complete our check-in before anchoring. We did that and spent the next hour talking to some great folks from here. The immigration and customs officials were young and very, very friendly. In fact we found this to be the most welcoming harbor we have come into. We completed our check-in and then headed to the anchorage. There are about ten other boats here and we will have to spend time tomorrow getting to know some of them.
The rest of our day was spent going to the hospital here to get x-rays of my broken leg and conferring with an orthopedic specialist. Again we found everyone at the hospital so very friendly and helpful. A young surgeon from Fiji and an orthopedic physician, also from Fiji, both told me that things look good-just not healed. I am to continue to keep all weight off my leg for at least another 2-4 weeks. At least I did not have to have it recast.
There are so many other things that I would like to share, but it is time for bed. After a good night’s rest, I will fill in the details tomorrow.
