October 3

More pre-departure chores and duties such as check out at Immigration after which we take a fun bus ride and have a glorious hike up the hill through the rainforest to RL Stephenson's tomb. Rain is falling in fits and starts but only a few raindrops plop their way through the canopy of oversized leaves. Hidden birds trill magical songs. Huge spiders are slung in over-sized webs. There's a lovely look out at top apparently, but by the time we arrive the raincloud has wrapped itself snugly around the hill below us, so dense mist is all we get to admire.

We descend into the cloud and get thoroughly soaked on the way down. Two wet, bedraggled and muddy tourists walk into the nice hotel on the road back down to Apia; lucky for us they pretend not to notice, and we join Ken and Joanie, the lovely couple from Dancing Walrus (an Edmonton, Alberta-registered catamaran) for the buffet-dance show. We've been fortunate enough to see many dance shows across Polynesia but tonight's is one of the very best! It's narrated and educational as well as entertaining, with a particularly entrancing Mermaid Dance from the Cook Islands.