11 October 2007, Thursday
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Talofa (Samoan for Aloha, Hola, Hello, Hallo)
We have arrived in Pago Pago. Gaby's last YotReps position report was as follows on Thursday, the 12th, we pulled into Pago Pago at noon: CLOUDS: 98%, BARO: 1000, AIR_TEMP: 27.8C. Sailed pass the natural feature known as the Fatumafuti- The Flower Pot, a stand alone volcanic 30’ rock, with palm trees and lush vegetation sprouting from its top, residing in shallow waters near shore. An appropriate names as it really looks like an oddity. We pass the Flower Pot, searching for the channel markers and the entrance into the deeply cut bay and anchorage at Pago Pago harbor. The waters are olive green. Litter floats by us. And the sky overhead is gray. We are told that this harbor gets about 500” per year, the most of any harbor in the world!!! The warm easterlies are forced up and over Tutuila Island’s, Rainmaker Mountain, clouds form that drop their moisture on the harbor just to the west so it will be a wet stay.
Several attempts at hailing the Port Authority went mute. We would learn the next day when we walked into the Harbor Master’s office that the arrival of a Sun Princess cruise ship and several container ships kept the Harbor Master very busy so a small yacht meandering into Pago Pago, was of no concern to him. Sight of the cruise ship and the container boats guided our approach to the designated Yacht anchorage zone.
We motored down Pago Pago Harbor, which bisects the island of Tutuila and is a submerged crater, the south wall of which collapsed millions of years ago. This harbor really is quite a natural beauty, if you can overlook the shoreline industrial character, the essence of fish from the cannery, the 24/7 hum of the island’s power plant, and the sights of the recovering waters. Due to pollutants dumped by the two tuna canneries, local villagers’ dumping diapers and garbage, and the culminating effect of oil and ammunition spills by the U.S. Navy decades ago, these waters were dying. We are told that the EPA dropped in a few years ago and established clean up regulations and procedures. The canneries have reduced their dumping. Now, it is a challenge to stop the fertilizers from the hillside agricultural land uses from draining into the bay and causing abundant algae blooms. Ah, remember when the SF Bay faced the same situation in the 60’s and the SAVE THE BAY movement? Needless to say, there is no jumping off Encanto for a daily swim.
In addition, we are warned that the bottom of the harbor is filled with garbage, layers of plastic bags and harbor debris, so we cautiously set our anchor down. Hopefully, we’ll have no problems raising it. Already, we have helped one cruiser untangle from their anchor, the chain from another’s.
The verdant volcanic mountains are majestic. The topography reminds us of the Marquesas Islands, Nuka Hiva. The bay anchorage reminds us of Bahia de Sol or Bahia de Caraquez...deep green (algae bloom). We are so deep down in the bay that it is comfortable and we don’t get any ocean swell. Only a few bugs, mostly mosquitoes and termites, descend in the evening and have found their way aboard at this time of year. We were warned to be aware of mosquitoes bearing Dengue Fever or Elephantitis. Ah, hazards of life in the tropics.
About a dozen derelict boats lay around, some with people living aboard. Don’t know their story, but there must be one.
On the south side of the channel are the two cannery factories: StarKist owned by Del Monte and Empress who makes the cans. A turbine gas-generating power plant, one of two on the island, supplies the power for this side of the island. All this industrial activity is running 24/7. We do get whiffs of the cannery, not really too bad, if you like fish. Will we like fish after we leave here? John remarks that instead of feeling the wind shift, one can smell the shift. The hum of the turbines is a constant lull of white background noise. We are anchored across from the power plant, so it might be less of an issue if we moved 100’ further down the channel. But sound travels…so who knows? Anyway, it isn’t so annoying that we can’t still hear songbirds at sunset. But, time will tell as we have two more weeks.
Every evening we hear the clang on the empty gas cans from a nearby church signaling everyone to halt his or her business and sit down for ‘sa’. ‘Sa’ is a cultural tradition occurring around 6:15 PM when the islanders stop what they are doing to pause for a brief prayer or moment of reflection. One warning clang, then five minutes later, two clangs for ‘sa’ and finally, a third set of clangs, to resume your work and travels. It is a mere fifteen minutes of quiet reflection in ones daily life. Even the traffic on the one two-lane, loop road nearly comes to a total halt during this time. We haven’t experienced it, but cruiser friends were even asked by a burly Samoan, to sit down at a nearby bench and not walk on the side of the road during ‘sa’. Can you imagine what the USA mainland society would be like if all the country STOPPED for fifteen minutes a day of reflection?
When in town, we carry our umbrella/rain jackets with us. The daily rain helps to fill the water tanks and there is no need to use our water maker. Solar panels are keeping up, although John will probably run the Honda generator once a week, depending on movie consumption.
Best of all, the people are very, very, very warm and friendly. John thinks they might be the friendliest that we have ever met. It is wonderful to speak English again, although Samoan is heard all around us.