After two days sailing from Moorea, we arrived at Pago Pago, American Samoa yesterday morning (Thursday 26 Aug). Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango) is one of seven islands that make up this small US territory in the eastern part of the Pacific. The port is right in the small town, and the local traders set up their stalls at the pier to make life so much easier for those of us who like to shop!! Weather was very humid even though it is their winter season. We decided not to take a tour, but to walk around the area. Pago Pago was hit by a tsunami last year, and full credit to them for recovering so well. Very little signs of the damage caused by the waves.
The main industry in town appears to be fishing and fish processing, and while the other side of the port was lined with fish factories, we were lucky that there were no odours to be detected where we were berthed, or indeed, anywhere in the town. The local population is a mix of Samoans and some Americans, and all are very friendly and welcoming. We managed to locate the Sadie Thompson Inn ( from my recollection, the movie Sadie Thompson was a story based in American Samoa, and from the names of the two watering holes here, is probably correct) and the four of us retreated into the airconditioning for rehydration. Fenna and Fred then headed off in the other direction to which we had been walking to see what was at the other end of the town - turns out one bank and another bar. That's all. Bryce and I wandered back through the town, with Bryce getting some great photos of the ship with his new, super techo camera. Bryce has had a lot of fun playing with the new toy, and so far has taken over 600 photos for you all to have a look at when we get back! Ha ha ha ha ha.....
We headed back to this ship around 2.30pm and tried to cool off in the breeze that was at least blowing around the ship. We discovered that our malfunctioning toilet in the cabin had still not been fixed so Bryce raised hell down at the Pursers Office. They fixed it PDQ after that. Still had plumbers and the stewards buzzing around the cabin when we head to dinner at 8pm but all was good when we got back afterwards. Decided to make it an early night (10pm is early onboard a ship) but of course this morning I'm wide awake at 4.30am. We've worked out the best time to get onto the internet and emails, although the telecomms is still very patchy.
So, we now have three days at sea before reaching Auckland on Tuesday 31 Aug. We lose 28 Aug as we cross the international dateline at 2am Saturday morning, and then we're back in the same time zone as Australia. We're catching up with Jill Wolfgram in Auckland, who we all met on the Sun Princess in December 2007. Jill is the fabulous, if somwhat infamous, Kiwi who reintroduced the application of the term "slapper" during a hilarious altercation in the casino on the Sun Princess. Hoping the weather warms up in NZ before we get there but not holding our breaths - the average daytime temp is 15 degrees Celsius! Glad we packed our winter woollies for the last section of the trip.
Erika & Bryce
No comments:
Post a Comment