Longitude: 171 45.579 W
Update: Moored in Apia, Samoa
Friday, September 17, 2010
We have been in Samoa now since Friday. We arrived in our slip at the new marina in Apia around 1:30 p.m. We were told to raise our yellow quarantine flag and stay on the boat until we were cleared by all of the officials who would be visiting our boat within the next half hour. We purposely arrived on a Friday because we knew that a weekend check in would involve overtime for all of the officials.
While we waited for the officials to arrive, we straightened up the boat, opened the ports and promptly fell asleep. When we awoke at 3:00 the officials had still not come. Russ called the port control to confirm the instructions we were given. The port captain's response seemed a bit vague and embarrassed. We think someone in his office forgot to notify the other officials to come and check us in. By 4:00 p.m. the first of the four officials boarded the boat. We were boarded by customs, immigration, quarantine, and health. The last of the officials left at 5:00 p.m. when we were instructed to lower our quarantine flag. We were cleared to leave the boat, but it was too late to visit the port control office with our documentation which would not be open again until Monday.
We took a taxi into town to get some local currency from the ATM. The Samoan currency is the tala which is about 2.4 to 1, so 24 talla is about 10 dollars. We looked around a bit, but were anxious to return to the boat, get a bite to eat, and go to bed. We ate a local restaurant across from marina, the Wildfire. We enjoyed sticky beef salad and an excellent chicken bar-b-qued in quava marinade.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
After a refreshing night sleep, we were ready to do some exploring. Our slip neighbors, Austrians on Blue Sky, suggested that we might want to contact Andy, a young Samoan Taxi driver who had served them well as a tour guide around the island for a reasonable price. Ordinarily we like to rent a car and do our own thing, but Samoa is right hand drive on the left side of the street, just like England and New Zealand. Russ and I would be so busy trying to stay on the correct side of the street, we wouldn't be able to look around and enjoy ourselves.
Andy took us to Robert Lewis Stevenson's home and now a museum in Samoa. In addition to Treasure Island which we listened to on the Pacific crossing, Stevenson is best know for Kidnapped and Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. He also wrote the Child's Garden of Verses. I remember having that book and loving it as a child. Stevenson was well regarded in Samoa.
Next we stopped at a hardwarde store (Russ wanted to see if he could get an electrical adapter for our boat to fit into the marina plugs...we couldn't find one..oh well). After the hardware store, we went to a grocery store to pick up some snacks and two large loaves of bread to feed the giant turtles. From there, Andy took us to a place called sliding rock, a mossy set of waterfalls into fresh water pools. There was a changing room, and we got into our swim suits. We spent an hour cooling off in the pools before returning to the boat for a quiet afternoon of reading and relaxing. We tried calling boat friends at the appointed time (7:00 p.m. Tahiti, 6:00 p.m. Samoan) on 6510, but no one responded)
A block down from the marina, we ate dinner in a wonderful Itlaian restaurant called Paddles. We had a bottle of red wine, eggplant parmagiana, baked fish in olive marinara, chocolate mousse and apple pie with ice cream. It took us right back to Italy. We reminisced about our trip one year ago to Tuscany for Garyn and Jessica's wedding. They will be celebrating their first anniversary in just a few days. Hard to believe a year has gone by.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
We downloaded some new weather information this morning. It is looking doubtful that we will be leaving Samoa Tuesday as we hoped. The weather and wind look fine, but the seas coming up from a storm near New Zealand would be sending 12-14 foot waves from the south right on our nose as we headed down to Tonga. It is disappointing, but we will have to skip the regatta in Tonga that is starting on Wednesday through the weekend. It just isn't worth the bumpy ride. We probably will not leave Samoa now until those waves subside, hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday.
Our tour guide Andy, picked us up at 9:00 a.m. for another day of touring. Today, we have visited several beautiful waterfalls, driven into the mountains and rain forests, visited the south side of the Island where many of the resorts are rebuilding after the tsunami last year, and the Baha'i temple. We had brought our snorkel gear and were planning on snorkeling on the south side of the island, but the tide was quite low, and we were advised that the snorkeling would not be the best, so we stayed dry.
At one of the waterfalls, the family who owns the property offered us some taro and taro leaves with coconut cream. They were waiting for their five children to return from church. We enjoyed our visit with them. The proprietor's name is Archie and he got a kick out of knowing that my dad and brother's name was also Archie.
Andy took us to a Sunday Samoan buffet for lunch on the island before returning to the boat. He said this buffet was typical of the foods that the Samoans eat on Sunday after church. The food is prepared early in the morning and baked in hot rock ovens (umu) while the family was in church (raw fish in coconut milk, cracked crab, taro root, taro leaves with coconut cream, sea weed, roast pork, salt beef (corned beef), curried chicken and chicken chow mien. When the family returns from church, lunch is ready followed by an afternoon of napping and bible reading. Children are not allowed to play and families do not go on picnics, swim, or involve themselves in any activity on Sunday.
During our customized taxi tour with Andy, he taught us some Samoan words, chanted the Kava ceremony of the chiefs, sang the Samoan Anthem, played the drums, husked a coconut, made coconut cream, idenitifed some of the local flora and fauna for us, shared Samoan legends and customs. We had a great day.
We are having difficulty connecting to the Internet here so this update is via our radio. Sorry no photos. We'll upload some photos when we get a chance.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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