Bad Weather in Pago Pago
02 August 2014
28 Jul to 2 Aug 14
Pago Pago
Well, we had to clear in on Monday 28 Jul. This started by calling up Port Control to get hold of customs. Port Control duly answered and a radio chat ensured. There was no space alongside the wharf. Our cruising guide, published in 2006, noted that work was about to start on a new check in wharf and small marina. That work is still ongoing, although to be fair the area is taking shape. Still were left with no space at the wharf. After some more radio chat we came alongside one of the yellow tugs used to manoeuvre cargo ships in to the harbour. Coming alongside one of these big black and yellow steel beasts was a bit daunting, but at least it had huge old tyres on the side. The alternative, coming alongside a cargo ship was even more daunting! Still we slowly came alongside where, to our relief, the tug crew were able to take our lines and make us secure. Along came the officials, 4 of them (customs, immigration, quarantine and medical). As we have found with all our pacific officials, these were friendly and helpful. We offered them to come aboard but they were content to remain on the tug. All we had to do was provide 4 crew lists (name, date of birth, passport number etc) and fill in 2 forms (which wanted name, date of birth, passport number etc - bureaucracy!) There is a customs fee of $100 (note American Samoa uses US dollars, as it is part of the US) payable on arrival plus $50 on departure – we could pay it all on departure. Easy. After that was Port Control. The Port Captain is located on top of the port buildings (a very large wharehouse complex) and certainly has an excellent view of the harbour. After admiring the view, we got permission to anchor where we had been, and filled out yet more forms (just boat name etc this time!), before heading downstairs to the port office to hand the forms in. (The port office is where we come to pay our port fees (about $20) on departure.). All done, we cast off and headed back up the harbour to anchor.
A quick word on Pago Pago harbour. It is L shaped, with straight in entrance heading approx Northerly and then a turn West. The entrance has coral reefs, of course, and one has to head fairly close to the aptly named Breakers Point to avoid them. There are buoys marking the channel, in particular a rock in the middle of the entrance. Even better there are leading marks (which are lit) which one lines up and a safe entry is assured. Of course spotting the leading marks first time is a little fraught, especially as one is heading away from deceptively flat water (which has a shallow reef under it) towards a fairly impressive surf break. Still big cargo ships use the channel, so it works. We anchored at the West end of the harbour. There is a shallower area of rising rock adjacent to the small boat harbour. Some yachts anchored here but it looks foul and so not good for anchoring. We pushed further in to find a flat bottom of about 12m, with lovely sticky mud, and anchored here. There is some debris and rubbish on the bottom so we rigged a tripping line just in case the anchor snagged a big obstruction such as a sunken tree.
The harbour is very well protected by hills on all sides to over 1000 feet (the highest is 1600 feet; is this a mountain?). The island itself is quite small and the harbour nearly cuts it in two. Our 1600 foot hill sits on a ridge that goes from sea level to 1600 feet to sea level in about one mile. The land is thus very steep, and covered in a green mantle of tropical rain forest.
The North end of harbour is industrial with a Tuna Cannery. Apparently this can be smelly. We have found it not too bad with only an occasional tuna, or less salubrious smell. That said, we were told the cannery was only in partial operation, due to a leaking pipe. It can be more olifactorily challenging when fully going! There is a shore side generator that runs constantly and is just about audible at night.
The tuna boats are mostly, well different. Perhaps, well used may be a better description. Certainly all are rusty, and most have a definite lean to one side; perhaps they just are jealous of sailing vessels. Still they obviously go out into the Pacific, and return with fish. Of course, we do not know how many simply disappear.
To be fair the town side does have some fishing vessels tied up which are in far better condition. Indeed, compared to most fishing vessels around the world these are in very good condition, and fly the flag of the USA.
‘Town’ is a series of villages rather than one place. The main one, Fagatogo has smaller shops, a couple of very small malls, McDonalds and other eateries, and a couple of garages. It also has a bank, post office, police, and parliament buildings (American Samoa is self governing with a democratically elected Governor and two chamber legislature)
There are sealed roads, but being small only really a main road East and one West. This leads to a good transport system using local busses. These are locally modified from pick up truck chassis with local build coach work. They are well decorated, often exhortations to God and Jesus, and often come with loud audio. They trundle along obeying the speed limit (20 mph in town, 35 elsewhere – very sensible!). The cost is typically $1 per person per trip, rising to $1.25 to go to the end of the island, so very reasonable. Of course, there are no timetables, they run frequently when they run.
Later on Monday we went to ‘Blue Sky’ telecom offices at Tafuna about 5 miles from Pago Pago. The bus is a good way to see the country as the road follows the coast at sea level; sea on one side, cliff on other, or narrow strip of land then steep hill. Tafuna has a shopping centre with a Western style Mall and air conditioned shops (it is hot and humid here, so air conditioning is a real luxury to be enjoyed by yachties whenever they can!). So we got onto the Internet that evening, and then off again pretty quickly as the $10 data was a casual rates and one can only top up at the shop; no online top usp!
The next day it rained, heavily. We collected water, with full tanks and extra washing buckets in a few hours. All good, apart from the fact it then rained heavily on and on and on. Basically a full day of very heavy rain, followed by several hours of normal rain, and then a day of drizzle and rain! The normally green/blue harbour waters turned thick brown as the mud ran off the hills. The brown was not a boring monotone as the rain also washed all the discarded rubbish from the countryside. This was natural (grass, leaves, twigs, branches, trees – and, we were told, often drowned pigs and other unfortunate animals) and man made (plastic of every shape and size, bottles, cans, and well anything rubbish that could float). This was a veritable tide of stuff flowing out of the harbour. It took a day or so for the mud and rubbish to clear and the water return to its normal state. Indeed, later we saw a small army of red shirted Department of Marine workers scooping up the debris from sheltered areas of the water such as the small boat harbour where the rubbish had collected. They did a very good job, and within a day or so the harbour was mostly clear again.
The next day we got into town for an Internet top up. And the next day (Thursday) as the various updates gobbled up the first 500Mb!
Then the weather continued to act up … we had had 3 days of torrential rain. Now we had days of gale force winds. Even in the harbour we are getting gusts of over 35 knots. And, of course, this comes with rain. This was not as heavy as before, but still wet and enough for us to have showers and do washing, and keep the water tanks full. Still the weather trough causing this is due to move on in a few days. And, even better, we are in harbour. And better still long, hot, daily showewrs!!! The anchor is well dug into a thick clay/mud. We have 50 metres of chain out in about 12m of water. We are going nowhere!
We have met some fellow sailors; characters.
Eric is an American. He has been in Pago some time (years) and lives on his boat Sidetrack. He is notable as he energetically rows his dinghy around – when everyone else uses the outboard!
And Laszlo Groh who was originally Hungarian. He left in the 70s - in his words ‘I lied and said I had family in Yugoslavia so went there. Of course, I immediately left the border zone I was meant to stay in. I then ran across the border to Italy’. He had a 4 inch thick dictionary (Hungarian to English) in a sleeping bag on his back. That stopped a bullet; again, in his words, ‘it ruined the dictionary’! Mind you he also claims he was so thin the bullet would have missed him side on! He then went to South Africa; a chemist working on electronics; before sailing the Indian Ocean. There he traded, mainly chocolate and soap bars, around the islands. His main contact in the Comoros was an old revolutionary woman who kept an AK47 assault rifle under her bed! He also bought yachts in the USA and sailed them to the Seychelles where sold them for a profit. He ended up in Pago Pago but along the way has written a book of short stories. And he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hungarian history, especially of Vlad the Impaler, aka Count Dracula. Quite an eventful life!
Ah well. It is still very windy; too windy for the dinghy, so it’s a case of hunkering down for the next few days.