Day 305, Year 1: Sitting in the Convergence Zone
Date: Friday, August 18, 2006
Weather: Mostly Very Windy
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa
Evidently the Sub-tropical Convergence Zone is sitting on top of American Samoa and it is wrecking havoc here in the anchorage. We hardly slept last night and I’m not sure tonight will be much different. It was very windy last night and Mark had to keep checking to make sure our anchor was secure. We were fine, but early this morning others in the anchorage started breaking loose. The boats Miami and Scotty both spent two to three hours re-anchoring. Then sometime in the early afternoon a new boat came in, Thistledown. This is a 32-foot boat with a single-hander captain, Brian. We, along with George on Miami, ended up helping Brian get anchored. In the 20 to 30 knot winds we have had all day, getting anchored was no easy task.
We ended up not going into the Yacht Club for Happy Hour. It seemed too risky to leave the boat. Instead, we invited Brian over and he and Mark are still here exchanging boat stories. Brian is one of the twenty-something sailors out here. He worked as a soft-ware engineer in California just long enough to make enough money to buy and boat and sail his dream. At some point, he will return to work back in the US, but for the next couple of years he will continue to follow his dream.
We didn’t make any Skype calls today as our connection was not as strong as it has been. Yesterday we talked to Mark’s brother Steve and to Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg back in Concord, NH. They have Skype on their computer and have a video camera attachment. We could actually seem them during our conversation. When I was a young child, one of the dreams of the 1950’s was that someday we would have telephones with little TV screens attached. I guess that dream has come true.
Our son Justin and my niece Lynn finally have their flight reservations for coming to visit. They will arrive just in time for Justin’s birthday on September 14. They are flying into Apia in Independent Samoa, so we now have a deadline for leaving here. This still gives us a full 3-4 weeks here which will allow time for exploring, reprovisioning, and doing a lot of boat maintenance. Tomorrow we will tour part of the island with our new friend, Evelyn. We are very much looking forward to that.
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| 060818 Day 305 American Samoa–Thistledown Arrives |
