Ironie's Pacific Adventures

Vessel Name: ironie
Vessel Make/Model: cumulant 36 ft. steel sloop
Hailing Port: nantucket
27 April 2010 | Majuro,Marshall Islands
05 September 2009 | Port Villa
24 April 2009 | luganville,vanuatu
07 January 2009
30 November 2008
04 November 2008
02 November 2008 | (western) samoa
01 October 2008 | american samoa
09 August 2008 | american samoa
05 July 2008 | bora bora to pago pago
13 June 2008
06 June 2008 | bora bora
29 May 2008 | raiatea anchorage
26 May 2008 | raiatea,french polynesia
Recent Blog Posts
27 April 2010 | Majuro,Marshall Islands

Vanuatu,-Kiribati/Marshalls

I don't know if anyone out there is still following my adventure as I have blatantly

05 September 2009 | Port Villa

Vanuatu

Hallo to all from beautiful Vanuatu!!Ironie has now been in Vanuatu for 4 months and loving it.After

23 June 2009

Marshall Islands to Vanuatu pt. 2

Marshall Islands to Vanuatu Continued:The next day,after a good nights sleep May,Tony and Eva came out to Ironie.Tony told me that there was a better

24 April 2009 | luganville,vanuatu

marshall islands to vanuatu

Greetings to all Ironie blog followers from the island of Espiro Santo,Vanuatu!Another sailing season

04 March 2009

Marshall Islands/Majuro atoll

Hello to you all from Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands!!May and I arrived here about a month and a half ago from Butaritari

07 January 2009

Kiribati

After spending 2 weeks at Funa Futi lagoon in Tuvalu, it was time to move on.Tarawa atoll in the Kiribati Islands would be our next destination. we had watched as our friends on Creola,Rubicon and the Katey

10th festival of the pacific arts

09 August 2008 | american samoa
captain steve
welcome to the 10th annual festival of the pacific arts!this is a festival showcasing art,
music,dancing and sport from all over the pacific.paticipants gather once every 4 years to
celibrate pacific culture in all its diffrent forms,but really it's a big pacific party!!
each time the festival is held,it is hosted by a diffrent pacific country.in 2000 i saw it
in new calidonia and in 2004 it was held in palau.this year the honor of hosting the festival
has gone to american samoa.i must say,i considered it a strange choice to have the festival
here for a variety of reasons,one being logistical,being as american samoa is a very hard
place to get to from other pacific countries.another reason being that pago pago,the capital
village in american samoa,has a bad reputation as kind of a "pit"....lol....very far from the
truth actually.sure,theres a smelly tuna cannery here(it cans 1/2 of all the tuna purchased
in the u.s.)and theres lots of "plastic bag fish" in the harbor,and sure the "holding"(how
good the anchor holds to the bottom of the bay)is qustionable at best....but from my stand
point i've come the love the scruffy little place.true,when theres no breeze or the breeze
is from the"wrong"direction the cannery has a gagging stench.imagine the smell of goldfish
food flakes X /100 and nice and heated up....lol...but really unless you're right next to the
cannery in the bay its not all that bad....the bay is rife with trash and my prop on the dingy
was getting fouled by random floating stuff 2-3 times a week,i learned to look over the bow of
the dingy to try to avoid said flotsom,it's been alot better lately.also about a week before
the festival started,there was a frenzy of cleaning up trash all over town,(including the back of the bay)
painting rock and murals and a general sprucing up of everything that could be spruced.as for the holding,
my friend george from "thalia",showed me a good spot in the back of the bay after ironie nearly
"dragged"into "cetaciea",since then i've picked up a very safe mooring passed to me from frances
on "infini"...ironie is comfortable and happy and not growing a beard of red bloom funk from
her chain....so now i've dispelled a few nasty cruiser rumors about"pago",some more positive things
about the place,firstly,the yacht club here is awesome!!friendly folks working there,great fish
burgers,killer book exchange and a lovely location right on the water.they also support the
idea of getting young people out on the water and under sail with thier collection of optimists,
lasers and hobie cats,as well as lots of outrigger canoes....great place!!another great thing
here are THE PEOPLE!nearly everyone here is friendly,welcoming and helpful and theres always
a party of some sort going on....the local brews flow freely....a "big vailima" is $2.75 in the store,
and my fav beer "tasala" is a meager $1.75 a 20 0z. bottle and at 7% alc a killer value.ice cream
cones are $1.00 and a big slice of thick crust pizza is $2.00...you can also get a big plate
of fried wahoo and rice for $2.75(!!) at the gas station/mini mart,"the seaside".needless to say
lil stevie has put on a few extra pounds of love here in the month plus since arriving...
another great thing here is the island.tutuilla is the main island in "am sam" and is a beautiful,
volcanic, natural wonderland.it can be a bit rainy here but that just makes things more lush.
there are many out lying villages where you can hike ,swim ,meet fun locals...theres even a
national park here with well maintained hiking trails and marine sancuaries,including the outter
islands in the manua group(ofu/olosanga and tau which i have yet to visit)....so here we are in
tutuilla/pago pago,yet another pacific paradise!!!now on to the festival of the pacific arts!!!

as the festival start date was fast approaching it was questionable as to if things would be
ready in time....the few weeks before the start it was raining buckets which really slowed progress
in the preperations.but lo-and-behold the samoans pulled out the magic and made it to the festival start date with
flying american samoan colors!not only that,but somehow the rain stopped on the opening day and held
off for the entire festival!!nothing but blue skies and sunshine with clear breezy nights...pacific paradise!
the opening festivities for the pac arts fest can be a bit boring...lots of speech making and
welcoming this country and that but around day 2-3 things really get rocking!!there were approximately
2000 deligates here from 23 countries including:australia,torres islands,guam,samoa,fiji,new calidonia,marshall islands,kiribati,
palau,easter island(rapa nui),nauru,new zeland,hawaii,tokalau,french polynesia,cook islands,solomon island,p.n.g.,norfolk island,niue,tonga,
tuvalu,and even taiwan!a very rich and interesting mix of cultures and people and everyone was
ready to party...there was something going on from 9:00 am until the bars closed at 2:00 am.
some of the high lights for me were,the pan pipers from the solomon islands with thier
unbelivable orchistra of only bamboo instruments that made this incredible danceable,happy noise that
made everyone cheer with delight everytime the would work the crowd with thier stop/start antics....super fun
i also really enjoyed the paupa new guinea groups in all thier dramatic regional variations.
very dada/primitive/surreal to a white-boy like me.also,the group from tarawa in kiribati was a
standout with thier geometerical movements telling stories through movements.new calidonia,as always was
very cool.they even sent a modern dance group which people seemed to really dig....a big stand
out as far as the ladies in the audience were concerned were the men of rapa nui.they were nothing
short of rock stars complete with hot young groupies competing for the manly mr. rapa nui himself
with his hair and loin cloth(see the pics...lol)the tongans were the best singers i think...strong voices filled with passion and nothing less than perfect pitch.
all the groups were great at what they did.is hard to choose who was best at this or that,these were just my impressions.fun was had by all,to be sure!!!!

along with the music were the varied crafts on view and for sale....there were the carved wooden
"storyboards"from palau,tapa from tonga,beautiful carvings from paupa new guinea,feather art from rapa nui,beautiful weaving from niue,soloman islands impressive carvings...there were also
traditional tatu from samoa.these tatu are done old school with a row of boar or shark teth tapped
into the skin.there were also less traditional gun tattoos offered from the marqueseas and new zeland
we also enjoyed the samoan "umu",which is the traditional samoan earth oven(a big hole is dug in the ground and filled with super heated rocks...all the food is placed in the umu then covered with banana leaves for 3-4 hours)....there was

puaa(pig),fish with coconut milk,taro,cassava,(root veggies)pulusami(taro leaves and coconut milk with a bit of onion...my personal fav)
everything cooked in the umu has a slightly smokey flavor thats YUM!
along with all the fun of the festival ironie was reunited with some cruising friends from last
seasons passages....there is hans and dory from"happy monster"simon and allison fom"roxi"
and ruth and angus from"do it..."all these boats spent last cyclone season in new zeland working on thier
boats.it was a great suprise to meet them all again...we've been enjoying lots of boat meals
and i've even learned to play "mexican train"dominoes,a cruisers favorite game.
at the moment ironies cruising plans are still up in the air s i'm trying to find a job here in
american samoa...but if the winds of work don't blow in my direction,it's see which way
ironie wants to go and then all i have to do is hoist the rag and slip my mooring and off we go
on another adventure!!!will keep you all posted on developments.....love to all from AMERIKA SAMOA!! captain stevie

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