| Monday, September 29, 2003 LATITUDE: 15-56.43S LONGITUDE: 173-46.18W At anchor, Niautoputapu, Tonga Greetings to all our friends and family -- We just crossed the international date line -- the clock looks the same, but in Western Samoa it was UTC minus 11 hours, and here it's UTC plus 13 hours! So somehow, we've lost a day, and every day counts! The end of the season is coming -- Cori and Jens have plane reservations out of Tongatapu on October 11, and Reggie and Barbara (who will crew for us on the last leg to New Zealand) arrive there on October 13. We still want to see several of the Tongan island groups. |
 Downtown Apia at sunset. Photos in this segment which are not date stamped are by J. Kosyna & C. Neunteufel |
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We spent 5 days in Western Samoa, and it was a truly delightful place, particularly after the rather unpleasant harbor in Pago Pago (American Samoa). There is a broad boulevard that fronts the bay, with large tropical shade trees on the seaward side, and shops, consulates, restaurants, and old colonial buildings on the other. When school lets out, the streets are filled with school children in a variety of colorful uniforms. Boys and girls are dressed almost the same, with white shirts and colored skirts. (Except the boys's skirts are called lavalavas). |
 Most Samoan
men wear a lavalava -- the immigration officials, the policemen on
the street, the taxi drivers -- in short everyone. The schoolboys mostly
have hip-hop shorts on under their lavalavas. Professional men have
side pockets, a watch pocket, and a cell phone loop sewn into their tailored
lavalavas. Every morning the police band comes out at 8:00 a.m.
and marches along the waterfront, playing Sousa and Strauss marches. They
also wear lavalavas (that's part of their police uniform). |
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| We were told that the per capita income in Western Samoa is one quarter of what it is in American Samoa. That certainly is reflected in the prices of things. In Apia (the capital of Western Samoa) you can ride a taxi anywhere within the city for $1, internet time is available for $4 per hour (as compared with $20/hr. in French Polynesia and near unvailability in American Samoa), and four people can have an elegant dinner with wine and dessert for $80. |
| One afternoon Cori and Jens went to the Papaseea Sliding Rocks ("better than Disneyland," the tourist flyer proclaims) while Craig and I visited the Robert Louis Stevenson house/museum. Robert Louis Stevenson lived here the last four years of his life (he died at age 44). The house reminds me of Jefferson's Monticello -- big front lawn, beautiful gardens, all rooms opening to front and to back so the breezes can flow through. After Stevenson's death, the house was used by successive government agencies, but they finally sold it back to the RLS Foundation -- run by a "billionaire Mormon" from Arizona. Whatever, they seem to have done a very nice job, assembling original furnishings or equivalents, and giving a real sense of what it was like to live there. |  |
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The next day, we did an island tour with a local taxi driver. We did all the tourist things -- swam in a clear freshwater pool that goes back into a cave, through a small underwater tunnel, and out another cave. |
 We stopped at a low budget restaurant/beach fale resort. For $15 tala ($5 U.S.) you get a thatched fale (beach house) which can be your headquarters while you swim or snorkel on the beautiful white sand beach. |
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We also stopped at the Bahai temple (one of only 7 or 8 in the world), a beautiful modernistic building, with extensive, well-cared for gardens. One of the staff was caring for an orphaned bat (also known as flying fox). Cori and Jens have been very interested in this endangered mammal, but we've only seen them in the distance, flying at the top of cliffs. |
| It was certainly interesting driving around the island, and catching a glimpse of how people live. Most houses have a separate fale. The fale is always oval, with a number of poles around the edges. Some are brightly colored, some have thatch roofs, but most are made out of concrete with an aluminum roof (all the better to survive hurricanes, I guess). Some fales are filled with furniture and others are vacant. The taxi driver ("Matisi" or Mac) told us that every house should have a fale, otherwise they will have nowhere to greet their guests. Every house also has ancestral tombs in front -- some elaborate with many steps, some with roofs, and some a simple concrete slab. Most are decorated with artificial flowers. One of the most startling things we saw was a woman asleep atop a tomb, under a low roof. I suppose the concrete slab in the shade was one of the coolest places to be, but it seemed pretty surprising to me. |
| The last evening in Western Samoa, we ate at "Sails" restaurant. They bill themselves as the restaurant that stays open "later than any other restaurant in the world". We sat out on the balcony in an old colonial-style building, and had a delicious (if somewhat slow) dinner. We were looking out on the boulevard, watching hundreds of taxis going by, watching the people heading for the night clubs next door, and people just sitting on the sea wall across the street. All in all, Apia is a vibrant city, and we were sorry to leave. If we had managed to find another two days in the schedule, we could have had dinner with the taxi driver's family on Sunday -- and I'm sure that would have been a wonderful experience. Thanks to many of you that have written -- we do enjoy your messages. Craig & Barbara Johnston S/V Sequoia |
 Barbara, with the director of the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum |