American Samoa

American Samoa (August 14 to September 8)

American Samoa is approximately 450 miles from Suwarrow island atol, with the trade winds coming from your stern or quartering from behind.  Waves during the entire trip were quartering from the port side.  Lardo left in the company of two other boats, and by nightfall they were both hull-down behind us, and by the next morning they were about 20 miles behind us.  Lardo knows how to put the miles on!  Alas, the winds died the second morning to about 6-8 knots, and our speed reduced to about four knots, and we determined that it would be better to motor sail the next few days, in order to avoid spending another night at sea arriving at night and having to heave-to and wait for daybreak to enter the harbor.  So after 3 ½ days at sea, we entered Pago Pago.

American Samoa – Anchoring in Pago Pago Harbor

Pago Pago harbor is a very beautiful harbor set among high hills with some great hiking trails but unfortunately Pago Pago is not the easiest of harbors to anchor in.  The bottom of the harbor was muddy sand, and the abundant debris on the bottom made secure anchoring very difficult.  The boat next to us, “Doin It” was actually anchored on top of a sunken sailboat and required the assistance of a diver to pull their anchor – fortunately, Andy from Savannah was able to help them.

It took us two tries to set our anchor; the first time we dragged and then the second time our anchor held for the duration of our stay.  Others were not so fortunate; one night during a storm of howling 30 to 40 knot winds, at least six boats dragged.  During this storm which lasted a week, we had to do anchor watches each night for fear of dragging or another boat running into us.

Once you get past this, the island was absolutely a delightful place to visit.  American Samoa was a fantastic place to provision and has very affordable health care - $10 for doctor and dentist visits.  And as you read on, you will find that the Samoan’s are truly very wonderful people.

American Samoa - Tour of the Island

My friend Sina Annastas, who I had worked with at Clorox, had contacted her family via facebook that we were sailing to American Samoa.  Her family and friends were on the lookout for us.  Quite by accident, we had first bumped into Sina’s cousin Bill and his wife Sapi in front of Tru-Value hardware store.  Bill had approached me asking if I was from Hayward – at first I said no thinking nothing of it and then it clicked – so I immediately asked if he was related to Sina and he said yes.  Can you imagine being miles away from home and having someone find you – guess we kind of stuck out on this island.

Then Sina’s niece Barbara found us.  She was asking all the cruisers if they were the “Millard’s”.  Finally she had bumped into our fellow cruising friends on “Georgia J” who had wisely gotten Barbara’s contact information and the rest is history - we immediately connected with Sina’s delightful niece Barbara Tui, her husband Junior Tui and Barbara’s brother Ben.  We received the royal treatment while in American Samoa, the “Faa’Samoa” way.  Sina’s family was so wonderful to us during our stay.  We will never forget their warmth and hospitality and will be forever grateful for everything that they did to make our stay so special and filled with lasting memories of our new friendships!

We spent two weekends touring the island the entire island with Barbara, Junior and Ben and got to meet Junior’s parents on the west end of the island. It didn’t take us long to discover that these three were practically related to everyone, including San Diego Charger’s Junior Sayao.  Each time we passed someone that they knew, they tooted their horn to say “Talofa” (or “Hi”). 

One Fa’a Samoan tradition that I found interesting were the Samoan guest houses.  Each village had at least one guest house and often had many for each chief and his family.  Weddings, funerals, meetings and other family events were always conducted at the guest houses. 

As part of our tour, Barbara made sure that we visited Sina’s family villages and elementary school, St. Theresa’s – it was so cool to see where Sina went to school before she left the island. As you got out of Pago Pago, we found that the island had a beautiful coast lined with traditional Samoan villages – well manicured lawns, lush tropical vegetation and villagers wearing ielavalava’s.  

 As we continued our tour along the coast line, we stopped at Vaitogi village known for the “Turtle and the Shark” legend.  According to the legend, a mother and daughter were cast out to sea for some sort of a dispute; the mother was turned into a turtle and the daughter a shark.  When we stopped at Vaitogi village, we asked permission of a young man to go to see the turtle and the shark.  He led us up to a steep cliff overlooking the sea, and sang a very powerful chant with a shrieking shout at the end of the chant.  The purpose of this chant was to request the turtle and the shark to appear.  After several tries, the turtle appeared; and then after one more try, the shark appeared.  When the shark appeared, we sure got goosebumps over the magic of this Samoan legend.

Believe it or not, after a long day of touring, we all had enough energy to play a little tennis!  They were all good players and we managed to get in a couple of sets before dark.  We had so much fun playing, that we got together again on Labor Day for more tennis in the morning and then dinner on board Lardo.  That evening to our surprise, as we were trying to show our gratitude for everything that Barbara, Junior and Ben had done to make our stay so delightful, we were showered with gifts – the Fa’a Samoa way!  According to Fa’a Samoa tradition, Samoan’s give gifts upon their guests departures.   It was not just one gift but an abundance of lovely gifts made by the family – an ielavalava, Samoan print shirt and ulapua necklace for Dennis and a Samoan print blouse and skirt set, turtle bracelet and earrings and ulapua necklace for MaryLee.  Samoan’s truly have such generous spirits!

American Samoa – National Parks

I spent a day hiking along the mountain ridge in the national park on the island.  What we thought would be an easy two hour hike turned into a five hour expedition over hilly rugged terrain in the warm tropical temperatures.  I went with six cruisers and had the most delightful day hiking, chatting and bonding with American, Canadian and Australian female cruisers.  The next day every muscle in my body ached from this rugged hike.

American Samoa – Traditional Dress – High School Uniforms

Despite being an American territory with lots of federal agencies, we found that the Samoan culture was very much preserved in American Samoa in language and dress.  The first language of most of the inhabitants is Samoan with English as a second language.  What I loved most was seeing the men dressed in ielavalava’s (similar to a wrap around parei skirt).  Even the federal postal, immigration, customs and other officials wore ielavalava’s as part of their work uniform - these are so comfortable in the heat.  Each high school has a required uniform – white shirts and ielavalava’s for the boys and white blouses and lavalava’s for the girls.

American Samoa Football

Are you ready for a little football….that is American Samoa High School football.  While in American Samoa (AS), we treated ourselves to an AS high school football game.  It was last year’s champions (Tafuna) versus the underdog (Faga’Itua).  Even though Faga’Itua was concerned that their team might lose to the champs, they claimed that they had more heart and spirit.  But in the end Faga’Itua stumped the champions.  Lots of school spirit and very talented football players, I’m sure that we’ll see some of these players in the NFL/AFL.