Apia, (Western) Samoa - 27 June - 10 July 2011

NOTES FOR CRUISERS
(and anyone else who plans to visit or move to (Western) Samoa or who is simply interested in learning more about the country)

NOTE: The following notes and observations stem directly from our personal experience or those of our close friends or from official informational material acquired during our stay in the capital city of Apia on the island of Upolu in Samoa during June and July of 2011. Others may have different experiences, and needless to say, THINGS CHANGE. The following information is meant merely as a starting point to give you some things to think about or to check into further as need be.

Currency: Samoan tala (WST)
Date: Same side of the International Dateline as the U.S. and Europe (but planning to jump over to the other side with Australia and New Zealand in the near future).
Time: 6 hours EARLIER than EASTERN STANDARD Time (7 hours EARLIER than EASTERN DAYLIGHT Time); 3 hours EARLIER than PACIFIC STANDARD Time (4 hours EARLIER than PACIFIC DAYLIGHT Time).
Languages: Samoan and English
Useful Phrases:
GREETING: malo / malo lava
PLEASE: fa'amolemole
THANK YOU: fa'afetai
BYE: fa

Visas: Visitors to Samoa are not required to have a visa but must have a valid passport for stays up to 60 days (and a return or onward ticket if not leaving on a yacht). (NOTE: The information in this section is taken from Jasons Samoa Visitor Map October 2010 - October 2011.)


Clearing In for Yachts: When you approach the entrance to the harbor, call for the Port Authority on VHF 16. They should direct you to the Apia Marina (unless the marina is full). It is our understanding that yachts are required to dock at the marina unless there is no space for them there. There is not much of an anchorage in the harbor. We were assisted in docking by personnel at the marina, who told us which slip to take and who caught dock lines for us. (NOTE: If you have to come in without assistance, be aware that one of the slips on your starboard side (two or three slips out from the shore, as I recall) once you are in the marina basin has a big coral head in the middle of it, so you don't want to take that one.)

Once you are docked, the government authorities will probably come to your boat unless you have been directed to go to them. We were visited by 5 separate government agencies (Health; Quarantine; Customs; Port Authority/Marina Office; and Immigration), all of which are supposed to see you before your clearance is complete. (We did not have to pay any government fees at this time as they are paid upon clearing out). In our case, this entire process took between two and two-and-a-half hours. No inspections were actually done; they just wanted us to answer a few questions and fill out some forms with basically the same information all five times.

NOTE: These government offices are not open on Saturday or Sunday. While we were there, a yacht that had sailed directly to Apia all the way from Panama hailed the Port Captain as they were about to enter the harbor on a SATURDAY MORNING. He told them to dock at the marina and then stay aboard until the authorities came to make their inspections on MONDAY. Nice, huh?

Courtesy Flag: We bought our (Western) Samoan courtesy flag at a hardware store in Pago Pago. I'm not sure where you can get them in Apia.

Security: Apia Marina is mostly enclosed by fencing with a security guard house at the main entrance. While we were there this guard house seemed to be either occupied or attended by one or more security guards most of the time except on Sundays, when there seemed to be no guards at all, leaving the marina totally open to anyone who wanted to wander inside. Otherwise, when the guards are both present and awake, no one is supposed to be allowed in the marina unless they have an official pass. (Jim and I were given passes by the marina office representative the day we arrived.) Our friend Rudi, who came down to the dock to greet us when we first arrived, was soon escorted out of the marina by a security guard because he did not have a pass. We were told that in order for a friend to be able to visit you on your boat there you would have to present a written letter of request for that specific individual to be able to visit you in the marina, present it to the marina office (I think), and then they would have to approve it. (Rudi said never mind; don't even bother.) So my advice is that if you want to have friends visit you on your yacht, ask them to come on Sunday.

Driving in (Western) Samoa: Samoa now drives on the left-hand side of the road. The division of the Transport Control Board at Savalalo (Apia) will validate your driver's license for WS$12. Many of the rental agencies can also endorse your license. Drive on the left-hand side of the road at 40 km/hr in town and 56 km/hr between villages. (NOTE: The information in this section is taken from Jasons Samoa Visitor Map October 2010 - October 2011.)

Dress Code: Casual for the most part. When attending church, women should wear dresses and men, walk shorts and a shirt. Nude and topless bathing are strictly forbidden, and swimsuits should not be worn in town or in the villages. (NOTE: The information in this section is taken from Jasons Samoa Visitor Map October 2010 - October 2011.)

Restaurant Notes: No taxes are added to menu prices and tipping is optional.

Wildfire: Across the street from the marina. Moderately priced. Food okay but not great. Serve beer, wine and liquor. Open for lunch and dinner. Closed Sundays. Afa and Maima provide wonderful live music Tuesday - Saturday evenings from about 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. (unless otherwise engaged, e.g. for a wedding).

Gourmet Seafood Grill: Across the street from the marina. Moderately priced. Okay breakfast. Good cheeseburger. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Closed Sundays. Internet hot spot; sells internet minutes.

Ooh-la-la Ice Cream: Across the street from the marina. Good ice cream. Beer also served. Free Fire Knife Show on Tuesday evenings.

Moana Blue: Floating restaurant right next to the marina on the water. We only ate there our first night in Apia with Rudi. We sat outside at the shaded picnic table, and the weather was quite pleasant. The main restaurant, however, was enclosed with a very small bar at the back. We only ate appetizers, which were nearly all seafood and nearly all fried. I found the food quite acceptable, and some of it was quite good. Rudi said the food at Moana Blue was about as good as it gets in Apia for a "reasonable" price. Don't know their days or hours of operation, but they seem to be open for dinner and maybe lunch, too, since Rudi was able to get drinks there fairly early in the afternoon on the Monday. And they do have table service at the outdoor picnic table.

Y-Not Bar: A block or two up the road toward town from the marina. Good Happy Hour 4-7 p.m. Monday - Friday (not sure about Saturday). HH well drinks for 5 Samoan tala (about $2.50 US) and free French fries. Open from 4:00 p.m. during the week. Closed Sunday. Only food served is Fish & Chips (not very good but half the price of elsewhere). Mixed drinks are sometimes generous and sometimes extremely weak; depends on the bartender. Wait staff is friendly.

Paddles: Italian restaurant adjacent to the Y-Not Bar. Pricey. Snooty. Menu not all that appealing to me. Nice place though and reputed to have good food. Serve lunch and dinner; liquor served. May be open Sundays; not sure.

Aggie Grey's: A nice hotel just across the bridge from the marina as you head toward town. They have a tea shop (very British) and a big open air restaurant (very tropical). We never ate there but did have drinks once out by the pool. Pricey, and the pool area was not very relaxing with all the kids splashing in the pool and running about, plus the tables were way too close together out there on the pool patio. But an interesting place to walk through and maybe make a tiny splurge just once.

Apia Yacht Club: Several miles from the marina, on the water, past downtown. Nothing going on there on the Thursday afternoon we stopped in, but they have some time of small class racing boat races on the weekends, I think. Lasers, perhaps. They do serve food, apparently, but we only had drinks. Outdoors, by the seawall, overlooking the water. We've been told that not much happens there ever, but then we've also been told that the Yacht Club is on the way up while Sails is on the way down. (Whatever that means.)
Anecdote: We have a friend who collects yacht club caps from all over the world (even though he is not a sailor). This made us wonder if they sold caps at the Apia Yacht Club, but the bartender told us that they do not. Nor do they sell T-shirts or golf shirts or anything else like that with their insignia on it. "They could be making money selling that stuff," Rudi noted. "So why don't they?" Being the only customers in the place, we took our drinks from the polite young male bartender and wandered outside to a table. A little while later a very pretty young woman comes up to the table and asks us if we need anything. "And where have they been keeping you?" Rudi asks. "In the closet with the T-shirts and ball caps?" As we were leaving we saw this same lovely young woman and another just as pretty standing inside by the door to the kitchen. They smiled beautiful smiles for us and then ducked back through the doorway. "It's enough to make you wonder, isn't it?" Rudi commented, adding that that about sums it up for business sense in Apia.

Sails: Just past Apia Yacht Club . Great ambience (as per the name) and lovely ocean view, but can be quite windy as it is open air and right on the water. They serve both food and drinks, but we only had drinks so know nothing of the food. It was quiet when we were there on a Thursday afternoon, and we have been told that "nothing ever happens there," but I thought it was a really neat place.

American Fast Food Restaurants: The only one we saw was a McDonald's downtown, about a mile from the marina. It is small, noisy, open-air and has no internet. We never ate there.

Other Fare: I am sure there are many more restaurants in Apia; those mentioned are just the ones we visited. However, it is worth a note that there is a pizza parlor on the far side of downtown on the main coast road that reportedly has decent pizza and cheap internet access.

Yachting Facilities: Apia Marina is a nice marina with floating docks. Water is provided dockside at each slip, and so is electricity IF it matches your voltage/cycle requirements. (Electricity is 240v/AC 50 cycles, which does NOT match up with the 120v/AC 60 cycle wiring on our vessel, so we could not use the electricity.) There are no dock boxes, and you are not supposed to leave anything on the dock. (You are also not supposed to hang clothes out to dry on your vessel.) Trash bins are provided up by the guard house, but they weren't there the first couple of days after we arrived, and so we were getting a bit worried about what to do with our trash.

Restrooms and showers are provided in a separate building inside the fenced marina area. They are, of course, neither air-conditioned nor heated, and there is no hot water in the showers.
Anecdote: Jim and I were walking up to the restrooms one morning, and Jim was carrying his computer in a canvas bag in his right hand. After descending the concrete steps onto the concrete boat ramp, which you had to cross in order to get to the restrooms, and then crossing the wet boat ramp (the tide had recently been up) to the steps at the other side that lead up to the restrooms, Jim, who was walking ahead of me, slipped and fell face forward, breaking his fall as best he could with his hands, one of which was holding the bag with the computer. Only after he got up again did we realize that that section of the boat ramp was covered in moss: smooth, wet, slippery moss. Fortunately, the computer was a Toughbook and was not damaged. Unfortunately, Jim's right shoulder was damaged, and now will probably take several months to recover. Some days later we discovered that at high tide, the water completely covers that portion of the boat ramp that you have to cross to get to the restrooms/showers. So do by careful - walk around up toward the land and then come over to the steps if you can. That is a dangerous spot.

Laundry: You can take your laundry to Nettie's Laundry, which is a good walk - maybe a mile or so - from the marina. You walk up the road from the marina and, just a bit past Nettie's store, you come to what they call "three corners" (it is the first road you come to after Nettie's store), and there you take a left and walk several blocks until you come to what looks like a house with a sign in front that says "Nettie's Laundry," just before the ANZ Bank at Four Corners. You leave your laundry with them and they will do it for you for a little over $7 US for one load. (We were advised to ask for a 30-min. wash, one dry, and no softener, which we did, and it turned out fine.)

Shopping: All we really needed in the way of groceries and beer and ice we could buy at Nettie's store about half a mile or less up the road toward town. They sell some liquor as well. There is a larger supermarket, Chang Won Supermarket, downtown next to the ANZ Bank, but I didn't find it very helpful.

There are two hardware stores that we know of downtown, one of which claims to be an Ace Hardware. They are right across the street from each other, on down the side street where McDonald's is located if I remember correctly. (Anyway, just ask someone. And note that they are not open on Saturday or Sunday.)

Beer, Wine, Liquor and Mixers: All I know is Nettie's. They have beer, liquor, sodas and tonic water. I think they have some wine, too, but I can't really remember. We only bought the beer, tonic water and Cokes there under this category.

Ice: Nettie's store. (Closed on Sundays.)

Banks: ANZ Bank; Westpac Bank; National Bank of Samoa; and Samoa Commercial Bank.

Communications: We used Digicel to buy a simcard and minutes for Jim's cell phone. They have a small but very nice office/shop downtown on the Beach Road, and IT IS AIR-CONDITIONED.

For Internet use, you probably will have to go to a hot spot. The nearest one to the marina is the Gourmet Seafood Grill across the street. You can buy internet cards there and sit in the restaurant and use your computer.

Transportation To/From Apia: There are ferry services to Savaii and to Pago Pago, American Samoa. Polynesian Blue, Air New Zealand, and Air Pacific provide international air services to Samoa. Faleolo International Airport is located 35km from Apia. A taxi fare to Apia will cost about WS$50 (around $25 US). (NOTE: Most of the information in this section is taken from Jasons Samoa Visitor Map October 2010 - October 2011.)

Clearing Out: Jim did the clearing out for us (and therefore he did all the walking) on Friday, as the government offices are closed on the weekend, but as he told it to me it goes something like this:

IF you want to stop in Savaii before leaving Samoa, you need a letter of permission from the government in Apia. In this case, you should stop first in the big government building on the right-hand side of the Beach Road as you get into town. On the fifth floor of this building is an office where you can get this letter. (The one we got allowed us to stay one week in Savaii; I assume this is standard.) There is no cost for the letter.

Then you go to Immigration, which is downtown past the movie theaters, and go upstairs in the building that says Department of Immigration, which will stamp your passport and stipulate that you are leaving Apia by a certain date. (Again, no charge.)

After that you go all the way back PAST the marina a short distance in the OTHER direction, and there you will find Customs, which charged us 33 Samoan tala, or about $15 US, to clear out. And THEN you go to the Port Authority building, which is near Customs, and pay your dockage fee. (They charged us about $282 US for 12 days' dockage for a 43-foot vessel - even though we are only 42 feet, plus about $5 US for two marina passes and about $4 US for use of the "facilities." All in all, a bit under $300 US for less than a two-week stay in the marina.

And then you're done, and it's off to Savaii!