Safely in Apia Marina

We arrived after an easy overnight passage from Pago Pago to Apia. The wind forecast was for very light north winds, but they ended up NW, and we actually t-t-t-tacked (once, after a long discussion).

At sunset the wind dropped from 10 knots to almost nothing, so we turned on the engine and motored the rest of the way to Apia (about 50 miles).

But the first few hours were a pretty nice sail. We saw whales several times, going around the southern tip of Tutuila (the main island of American Samoa). We caught one fish--a small tunny, which Dave threw back before I even got a picture of him. Between the tuna we got on our way from Suwarrow, and all the meat we bought in Pago Pago, we really don't have any room in our freezer anyway.

We arrived at Apia as planned just after 8am, and were tied up at the dock in Apia Marina by 0830. Clearing in here is easy--you wait on your boat and all the officials come to you...all 5 of them, one-by-one. By 1130 we were fully cleared. All the money is paid on exit, so I'm not sure the total fees for check-in/check-out here.

Staying in the marina is mandatory for yachts. And if there is no space in the marina, you can anchor out, but you still pay the marina fees. It is a very nice marina, with floating docks, water, electricity, cold-water showers, and a 24x7 guard at the gate. For our boat we will pay about $20 USD per night for the marina.

Our friends on Dream Away have been here for 2 weeks, so we will buy them a drink tonight and get the skinny on sightseeing Samoa. They rented a car and even took the car on the ferry to the neighboring island of Savai'i.
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 23/09/2011 10:02 PM (utc) our position was 13°49.67'S 171°45.56'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Fun in Pago Pago

We had a good time in Pago Pago, and worked hard too.

The first item of business for Sherry was to get on the internet and check and update all the finances--we had been away from the internet for about 6 weeks, so there was quite a backlog. 350 emails, for one thing. Fortunately the Blue Sky wifi signal in the harbor is pretty strong, reasonably fast, and cheap ($20 for 1 week unlimited usage).

I didn't get a chance to back-post any pictures on the blog, but I did spend some time on Facebook. And I got 2 Compendiums updated (Societies, Cooks & Samoas). I also am working on figuring out how to make navigable charts out of Google Earth (Tonga's charts are a little off).

We also had time to do some sightseeing. On one day, we caught a bus up to the 'pass' southwest of town, and then hiked all the way along the ridge on the north side of the harbor, and down into the town of Vaitia, where we could catch a bus back to town. This was a really nice hike, but it was quite windless and hot the day we did it.

We went together with Amy and Roger on Shango, and rented a car for a day. We managed to drive to the extreme east and west ends of the island, do a little shopping, and stop for dinner at Tisa's Barefoot Bar.

On Saturday, we spent half a day at McDonalds watching college football games. Unfortunately, McD's only had ESPN (not ABC), so we didn't get to watch either of our teams play. But it was fun just watching any college team.

I spent half a day doing laundry--we had accumulated several changes of linens, plus about 2 weeks worth of dirty clothes. It was wonderful to go into a big, clean laundramat and get it all done in 2 hours (no wringing!!). It was worth going to Pago Pago just for the laundry...

We also spent nearly a day filling Soggy Paws with diesel. In Pago Pago, you have to prepay for your fuel at the 'business office' for the fuel dock (a little ways out of town). Then make an appointment, and then go fuel up. We opted to take our jerry jugs over to Shango, and fill when they fueled up. The fuel dock is made for bigger boats, so yachts need to wait for high tide to fuel up. Shango got bumped from their first appointment--a tuna boat was refueling until long past high tide. We asked the fuel dock attendant how much fuel the big new tuna boats take on, and he said almost $1 million worth of fuel. On the second attempt, Shango (with Dave and our tanks also aboard) got into the fuel dock without incident.

We spent several days provisioning... starting out with an initial survey of all the stores, in which we *only* spent a couple of hundred dollars. A few days later, with a rental car to help with the logistics, we spent almost $1000 in one day. We followed that up with one more $300 trip. We should be good for about 6 months now, except for fresh veggies, and bread and eggs.

Dave spent a day or two checking out the hardware stores. Pago Pago has both an Ace Hardware and a True Value Hardware store, plus a bunch of non-franchised hardware stores. The main thing he was looking for was high-pressure hose to repair a leaky watermaker line.

We thoroughly enjoyed Pago Pago--the town is MUCH nicer than it used to be (2 of the 3 tuna canneries have closed down, and the 3rd is obeying EPA regulations). We found the people VERY VERY nice. Everyone was friendly and a few people went way out of their way to help us out with minor issues. In spite of a report one someone's blog in 2008 about theft in the harbor, we know of no incidents at all this year, and everyone was pretty lax. We did, once or twice when the wind was right, get downwind of the tuna cannery. Phewie!! But it never lasted very long.

The harbor is still draggy... after anchoring in a recommended spot, and sitting just fine for about 36 hours, we dragged in only 15 knots of wind. Dave was off the boat, but two guys from neighboring boats came and helped me re-anchor. This time, it set well, and stayed fine after that. It was nice to have a nice light wind period to be in this harbor that is renowned for being terrible for anchoring. We got our anchor up without incident, too. There is a ton of debris on the bottom there, including one whole sailboat, rigging and all. Our friends on Two Amigos took hours getting their anchor up.

The last night in the harbor, we got 10 people together and organized a trip to Tisa's Barefoot Bar for their Wednesday night Pig Roast. We took the last bus out to Tisa's for $1, and they organized a taxi back for us at $2.50 each.

We did all this in 8 days! Our friends on Shango had their tongues hanging out, trying to keep up with us.

We left Pago Pago this morning, in spite of not much wind. It's time to get moving! We only have about 5 weeks before we fly back to the US from Tonga. In that time, we want to see Western Samoa, Niuatoputapu (Tonga), and Neiafu (Tonga), and get Soggy Paws settled on a mooring.
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At 14/09/2011 6:53 PM (utc) our position was 14°16.42'S 170°41.72'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Anchor down in Pago Pago

We arrived yesterday evening after an easy passage. We have good internet!! Maybe some picture updates from the last month when I get a chance.
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At 9/14/2011 6:53 PM (utc) our position was 14°16.42'S 170°41.72'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Samoan Weather Forecast

We have started to request the American Samoa weather forecast out of Pago Pago. We were interested to see that it comes in both English and Samoan.

The Samoan version...

LE ASO...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15 NOTE. SAMI E 7 I LE 9 FT.
E TAAPE NAI TIMU.
PO NANEI E OO I LE PO ASO FARAILE...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15
NOTE. SAMI E 7 I LE 9 FT O LE A FAAITIITIA I LE AOAULI O LE ASO FARAILE
E LATA I LE 5 I LE 7 FT. E TAAPE NAI TIMU.
ASO TOONA'I E OO I LE ASO GAFUA...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15 NOTE.
SAMI E 5 I LE 7 FT. E TAAPE NAI TIMU.

Look at all those vowels!!

Translation:

TODAY...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 7 TO 9 FT. ISOLATED SHOWERS.
TONIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS
7 TO 9 FT SUBSIDING TO NEAR 5 TO 7 FT FRIDAY AFTERNOON. ISOLATED
SHOWERS.
SATURDAY THROUGH MONDAY...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 5 TO 7 FT.
ISOLATED SHOWERS.

We are still having a great sail. Clear skies, a few small puffy clouds, and about 14 knots of wind. We saw a green flash at sunset tonight, and the moon was already up as the sun set. It will be nearly full tonight.

It doesn't get much better than this!!

There is a nasty low passing well south of us (causing the big swell), but the forecast for where we are is for settled weather for the next week.
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 9/9/2011 6:05 AM (utc) our position was 14°07.25'S 166°05.75'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Saying Farewell to Suwarrow

We left Suwarrow finally yesterday morning, after nearly 3 weeks of hanging out.

After the stormy weather, we were blessed with 10 days of beautiful stable sunny conditions.

We had a great time there hanging out with James and John, the Rangers. We snorkeled with Manta Rays, we took a reef walk out to a motu with nesting birds, we learned how to open coconuts the Cook Islands way. We watched the shark feeding several times. We explored some dive spots, and made one very very nice dive.

Suwarrow is a special place. It is so remote that only sailors can visit it--made famous by Tom Neale who came there to live, to experience fending for himself alone on an island. He wrote a book about his experiences called 'An Island to Oneself'. The Rangers are deposited on the island in April with a 6 month supply of basic provisions. They augment their provisions by fishing, by collecting coconuts, growing their own vegetables, and by socializing with the cruisers.

Just sitting in the anchorage on a sunny day is a fantastic experience--the vivid green of the coconuts on the island, the beautiful beach, the turquoise water, the frothy white surf on the reef, the curious black-tip sharks that hang about the boat. It is hard for a picture to convey how nice it was, but Dave got a couple of really good pics, which we will share when we have time and internet.

In Suwarrow we had 'anchorage sharks' the way there are 'anchorage barracudas' in Florida and the Bahamas. It was a little startling to go up on deck and see 2-3 sharks hanging about. It is really intimidating to newcomers to the anchorage, but I snorkeled all over the anchorage area with no problems. These little (3-4') guys are just looking for handouts--which the Rangers have forbidden. They request that all garbage come ashore and go onto the compost pile, and any fish cleaning be done at their station. They then take the fish carcasses and throw them to the sharks on the reef on the other side of the island. Though Charlie's Charts talks about 'aggressive sharks in the anchorage', we have found them to be curious, not aggressive, and have heard of no incident between sharks and cruisers.

With Graham and Avril on Dream Away, we took the dinghies one day up to the Seven Islands area for a snorkel. We found two great snorkel spots (following John on Sete Mares' guidance). It was a bit of a bash in the dinghies, even in moderate winds. Would have been nicer to take a big boat up there, towing the dinghies, the way we did in Mopelia. But the Rangers forbid anchoring anywhere but behind 'Anchorage Island'.

We spent a couple of days there where there were only 2 boats in the anchorage... this was after the 'population' peaked in early August at 28 boats. But a few days later, after the next weather window opened up in Bora Bora, about 8 boats dribbled in over 2-3 days. A whole new group of friends!!

In the lull between groups, we had a chance to sit and talk with James quite a bit. He's a unique individual. In spite of his pot-belly, topknot, tattoes, and toothless smile, he is a very intelligent guy, and very committed to environmental protection of Suwarrow and the Cook Islands. Dave spent quite some time trying to help him with the antenna to his donated VHF--so he could hear incoming boats more than a mile out (without success, unfortunately).

We had one last Sundowners on the Beach to welcome the new boats, and then on the final night, a very nice potluck.

We are now 24 hours into our trip west toward American Samoa and having another beautiful downwind sail.
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 9/8/2011 6:21 PM (utc) our position was 13°38.17'S 165°08.55'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Breakfast with Mantas

There is a reef area within a short dinghy distance of the anchorage that is supposed to get regular visits from Manta Rays. But in the two times we had visited in the afternoon, we had not seen one. But friends of ours went a different time fairly early in the morning (for us), and had seen several.

So we broke our normal routine and got going off the boat at 09:15am. There is a buoy on the reef, placed there by the Rangers for our use, for hooking your dinghy to. As soon as we were hooked in, we could see Mantas below us. Everyone (3 dinghies worth) eased into the water to watch. We eventually had about 5 Mantas swimming around below us. They didn't seem to be bothered by our presence, though everyone was pretty good about not trying to get too close.

Unlike the Mantas we saw in Toau last year, these did not seem to be feeding. Instead, we think there is a 'cleaning station' there on the reef. They seemed to be slowly circling the same coral head, each with a couple of little cleaner fish swimming around their body--into their mouth and gills even. We swam with them for about a half an hour until all of us had had enough.

We had our camera with us, and Dave did a great job of capturing the Mantas on 'film', which we hope to share with you some day!!

For those coming behind us, the Manta reef is at 13-15.21S / 163-06.73W. It may or may not be marked with a buoy next year.
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At 8/24/2011 8:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.86'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm