August 2008: South Pacific
Asau, Savai’i, Samoa Part 2 (S 13.30 W 172.39)
The guide showed up with his 4-door Toyota pick-up and we negotiated the terms. It turns out our driver who is supposed to be our tour guide is soft-spoken and doesn’t say much. We generally got a whirlwind drive around the entire island in about 4 hours including a stop for lunch.
We quickly headed slightly in to the interior of the island in a clockwise direction for our first stop at a cave. It seems every one of these little tourist stops has a sign and someone collecting fees. This cave is a pretty short lava tube that goes under the road. Some dampness, dark, minimally lighted with a couple bird nests on the walls and some very sharp, jagged surfaces. Quick; in and out.
In the early 1900s a volcano erupted on this island and devastated several villages causing many deaths. In the time since that eruption plants and trees returned and buildings popped up. It is amazing to stand in the lava field and grasp the greatness of what occurred in this spot. These islands are much more remote and vulnerable than most of us can imagine. I mentioned the wreck at the entrance to the harbor and opposite that is an even bigger wreck, relatively speaking. In 1999 a typhoon destroyed the airport runway that was built on top of the breakwater that enclosed most of the bay we anchored in. There are no plans to rebuild.
It is really quite startling to see the conditions of some of these structures that are homes. Many of them are open air with no walls with everything very out in the open. Sometimes furniture such as chests and beds are quite obvious and if you look close you can usually see a TV. There are just as many homes that most of us are accustomed to. I guess it is all relative. Who’s to say our way or the way we currently live is the only way.
Overall the three of us have had many an opportunity to laugh at each other and ourselves. But, one incident was really quite funny. We were sitting in the cockpit one late afternoon and 2 boys in a dugout outrigger paddled up offering papaya for sale. We declined the papaya as we already had some but someone got the bright idea to ask for eggs. The other Dave jumped up to talk to the boys and here is where it got out of hand. He asked for the eggs but we’re thinking their English might not have been what we expected. Dave proceeded to charade a chicken; yes, he flapped his arms and made the chicken noise. Well, we almost placed an order for chickens. He then had to charade an egg dropping, well you get the picture. He finally went below and got a plastic egg holder and that got the message across. They said they would be back in the morning and I said they just got a free egg holder. We were leaving the next morning and really had no recourse. But, sure enough here they come. With eggs! It wasn’t until we were long gone and after Dave put a flashlight to the eggs that it was determined that most of them had embryos in them. As well as, they were half the size of eggs we were used to. We figured those boys foraged for eggs and they were as wild as can be. We admired their courage and ambition to approach a sailboat in their bay and they were the only ones that did.
We got a lot of jokes out of this egg fiasco such as; easier to put a face on the French toast when the eggs already have faces; chicken flavored French toast, etc.
On one of our transits from the land back to the boat we stopped over at the boat in the background and talked with the family for a few minutes. We seem to be anchoring in the same areas as well as with a few other boats that are making a similar route that we are. They are a family of 4 with 2 teenage boys and the boat is called Liberty. We said we’d catch up with them in the next anchorage as we were leaving soon.
PS: our native hunting and foraging for food.
(2010 update: Survivor was filmed on this Samoan island and the blowholes were prominently featured)
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(This is a clip of Present Moment leaving the anchorage thru the same pass we went thru to get in. The pass is narrow and there is breaking water on both sides. It is deep enough in the middle to make it safely thru but it is never easy transiting rough water in known dangerous territory)
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