July 2008: South Pacific
Pago Pago, American Samoa (S 14.17 W 170.41)
Part 1
One and a half hours short of five days at sea on the passage from Rarotonga to American Samoa ended with a sunrise approach. In the wee hours of the morning, very much after the sun had gone down the previous night, we were able to see the glow of Pago Pago over the horizon off the bow. It is a strange sight to see the glow of lights on land after being mesmerized for days on end by the Milky Way and the stars. It is at this time in a passage that I steal more looks at the clock.
Passages and life in port or on the hook are lived in relative comfort. Some comforts of home are here and some specific to cruising, too. Present Moment has a watermaker, propane galley, comfy chairs and salon, stereo, lots of electronic navigation gear, forward and aft heads, rigid ocean kayak, dinghy with outboard engines, fishing gear, etc.
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| The other Dave’s forward “levitation chamber that results in age reversal". |
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| Bob’s aft cabin. |
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| My shelf |
Upon arrival in a port with an authority there is a fairly standard protocol to follow. And without going into much detail the rules vary from the smallest of details to degrees of enforcement. Generally, the yellow quarantine flag goes up, the boat with crew on board remains in a designated area and the captain/skipper takes the paperwork in for clearance. It is at this time that I become slightly unnerved. Rule number one of lots of rule number one’s; never part with your passport.
We should have seen this coming. We were told to side tie to this blue boat. Here we are in the tropics hog-tied 3-deep to working fishing vessels in a major fishing/processing port. That feeling of landing in paradise is slowly slipping away as in this bay are many large and small fishing boats, a power plant and a 24-hour fish processing factory on the shoreline. All is not lost, though.
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