Western Samoa and American Samoa

At breakfast, we met up with Babs and Dave from Chula Vista, California and agreed to meet on the pier and share a taxi to see Apia. We negotiated with "Willy" to take us on a 4 hour tour for $80 US and set off. We were surprised to find NO sign of the damage from the Tsumami in September as it was confined to another area of the island. Willy has a wife and 4 kids who live on Savaii, an adjacent Samoan Island and he commutes every two weeks to work in Apia. WE visited 'Vailima' the estate of Robert Lewis Stevenson, who lived his last 5 years on the island. The home is now a museum of him and his work and is on beautifully maintained grounds.
WEstern Samoa recently (two weeks ago) converted from driving on the Right hand side of the road to the LEFT Side, with predictable challenges along teh way. The main impetus was the availability of Right hand drive vehicles from New Zealand.

Samoans have a strong sense of family or aiga. Each village elects a chief (matai) and the villagers all cooperate in the welfare and well being of their inhabitants. As family members pass on, they are buried in plots on the family land. The recent Tsunami deaths necessitated mass burials which ran contrary to the local culture. Each Village has its own church ( or two) and the Christian faith prevails as a mainstay of their lifestyles.

We travelled for 1 hour to 'Aggie Grey's' a beautiful beach resort where I sampled some locally brewed "Vailima' beer. We walked around the grounds, and then Willie returned us to Apia via the site of the South Pacific games, held in 2006.

Willie was battling a bad cold all day and hacking and coughing incessantly. We all had just gotten over colds and were not looking forward to bringing his strain back onto the ship.

An overnight cruise took us to Pago Pago ( pronounced Pongo Pongo) in American Samoa. The harbor is beautiful with steep walls and a deep, protected bay. It was created when a volcanic cone collapsed on one side and sea water flooded in. We had no plans for tours, so we disembarked and walked the main street for about a mile into 'town' in search of post cards. Unfortunately, many of the buildings had been damaged by the tsunami and the businesses were closed, for the most part. Two large (650KW) generator enclosures from FEMA were humming away in a fenced enclosure, presumably powering the town and the buildings that remained open. The end of the bay bore the brunt of the waves, but we did see boats thrown up on the adjacent shoreline.

Frankly, we should have paid the $20US for a 3 hour island tour, as what we did see was pretty mundane. The weather was hot (30C) and very humid, so we retreated back to the ship to cool off.
Today is a sea day, as is tomorrow, before we reach Moorea. We enjoyed the lecturer John Maxtone Graham as he shifted from talks on liners and cruise ships to one on the various Princes' of Wales.