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lage beside a crystal lagoon of countless coral heads on which the little pipi oyster flourishes, brown sharks that are "our pets", the solemnity of the entire congregation filing into church from the Sunday school where they had already spent an hour, the crafty old man, Pugu, trying to pry the last carton of cigarettes from me, and Lita, shyly holding out her lovely round pearls.
We sailed in an out of the convergence zone on the next 500 mile passage to American Samoa with out any particular incident.
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Even before Pago Pago's great harbor came into view floating bottles, wooden planks and other debris gave it away. The harbor, dominated by Rainmaker Mountain, winds back between steep hills. The wharves are packed with huge purse-seiners, long-line fishermen and an assortment of antiquated looking Asian ships that supply the canneries here.
The customs officers were a bunch of smiling, happy, welcoming characters. We were astounded at their friendliness, but astounded to learn later of the costs of entering, leaving, anchoring, moving the boat and so on. There is a charge for everything!
We moored at the far reaches of the bay where the noise from the generator house fans make a whooshing sound not unlike Niagara Falls by day and by night. Mizzen was in cat heaven as the prevailing odor is that of day-old cat food.
The town is higgelty-piggelty. No center. Shops sort of leak out on two streets, and over several miles. Its easy to catch one of the brightly painted local truck buses scooting around town like so many colorful beetles. The American Samoan men and women are huge. They stoop and squeeze to fit their enormous bulk into the seats.
We never did find a convivial place to stop for a beer. The local men seemed just to stop at the side of the road or in an old canoe shed.
We had come to American Samoa for mainly one reason --- to pick up replacement anchor chain. This had been shipped to Pago Pago free of charge after we discovered that our new chain purchased just before our departure from New Zealand, was not certified hot dipped Australian galvanized chain, but a Chinese substitution. It had begun to rust badly by the time we reached Gambier, but the vendors did the honest thing. They replaced it!
The bill of lading came over email. The huge bitmap file printed out on 8 pages. You should have seen the look on the face of the clerk at the office when Michael ceremoniously unfurled it! They had a good laugh and tacked it to the office wall.
There are a lot of Western Samoans in Pago Pago because the wage here is about $3.50 an hour. In WS it is half that. So they say the AS have all gone to the States where they can make much more, while the WS come here. The WS are a different breed; quieter, more respectful and a little more humble. Quite a lot of them have been to NZ. Some have been educated there.
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