Sailing and cruising to American Samoa.

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AMERICAN SAMOA

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March, 1993

You want to hear about Peter’s experience with two cyclones in one day? Well, better start with Pago Pago Harbor. It’s protected from the seas, so there aren’t appreciable waves during bad weather, unless the wind comes from the East, when there is about a mile or so of fetch to the yacht. The high mountains surrounding the harbor make for odd wind effects. There’s a valley at the western end of the island that funnels wind blowing from the south into the harbor, where the accelerated wind hits the mountains and ricochets and swirls around. Wind coming in over the mountains will occasionally flow down vertically, laying over a boat in its path, so these high mountains offer more hazards than protection. There are many Korean long-liners,- some of which are impounded by the inefficient Samoan government and therefore unattended, and there are other floating hazards,- one of which, a floating crane, broke loose during the cyclone a year ago and sank three sailboats and seriously damaged three others. Watermelon’s mooring was in the wind path of the western valley. Peter was below when another yacht called on the radio that he was dragging. Peter came up on deck, threw a line to Lance on Yacht Arcturus as he dragged by, which stopped the ‘Melon. Lance then rowed over in his dinghy, Peter started the engine and they motored over to a large abandoned ship’s mooring that Peter tied up onto for the balance of the cyclones. Lance then rowed back to his boat. Although these were two “cyclones” in one day, they were fast-moving, each passing by in about 4 hours (they did not pass directly over the island - the eye was perhaps 50 to 100 miles away), and had not yet achieved true hurricane force winds. Peter’s a bit embarrassed about the whole thing - - he was too confident about his new mooring, and when he saw 'Arcturus' going past, thought that it was Lance’s boat that was dragging (upwind[?]) rather than the ‘Melon dragging. Watermelon’s 35-hp engine would not be much good in a real crisis situation; in 35 knots of wind we’re lucky to make 2 knots against wind and seas – in anything worse we couldn’t count on saving ourselves with engine alone.

Pago Pago, because of the high mountains, has strange wind pattern. A boat 200 yards away can experience 5 knots of wind while another one is hit with 40 knots of wind, depending on wind direction, etc.

I’ve noticed that people who’ve never been through a hurricane or cyclone on their boat cannot fully appreciate the paradoxes and wierdnesses of the experience. With all the reading and research that I have done on hurricanes, cyclones, and -other storms, I may have been intellectually prepared for one, but not emotionally or physically prepared - that only comes with the real thing. Peter and I both agree that the reading and learning are very important, but there is no substitute for experience. (On the other hand, ignorance is a sure precursor to disaster, and we’ve certainly seen plenty of examples of that). Incidentally, one of the best books we’ve read was HEAVY WEATHER SAILING by K. Adlard Coles. His recommendations go against much “conventional” wisdom (he advises against sea anchors, for example. He believes that heaving to is a poor strategy in most severe conditions, and he feels that a light displacement boat like ours is better than a heavy-displacement cruising boat), but our experiences tend to agree with his, and he’s made us feel a lot better about the ‘Melon. Of course, we’ve noticed that weather that we considered annoying some other boats thought of as dangerous. We have not yet been in a “survival” situation, and hope we never are.

“Why would someone on Samoa without a car want a license to drive?” Because Peter’s Massachusetts driver’s license has expired, and he needs some kind of driver’s license if he ever wants to rent a car somewhere.

Three cyclones have breezed through here the past several weeks. The family mythology says that I am a witch. Now here’s why the label just doesn’t go away. We were supposed to sail to Western Samoa for a few weeks while we waited for things to arrive here. Western Samoa does not have any good cyclone harbor, but we figured that we would have adequate notice of any storms to make the 24-hour sail back to Pago Pago if necessary, since the first cyclones to go through here took three days to arrive. Two days before we were to leave I dug my heels in and said that I didn’t want to go that week, I had a bad feeling about the trip. Two days after we were supposed to leave, but didn’t, a cyclone formed just 200 miles from here, giving us a scant 12 hours’ notice of its arrival. These were really three tropical storms for us, nothing scary in a protected harbor, but anyway, the storms are past now. As a result of the enforced delay we found much work to do on the ‘Melon while we waited, and now we can’t go anywhere until we put the boat back together.

One of the nice things about the cruising life is the generosity of other cruisers. Everybody helps everybody else. Assistance offered to one boat is repaid by the recipient helping the next boat in need that comes along, a “what goes around comes around” philosophy. Peter has always given his assistance without expecting repayment, but occasionally he receives an incredible return. A boat came in here on which, after a year out, almost everything was broken. The skipper, Joe, is a retired neurosurgeon, a really nice guy with definitely enough money to support his new lifestyle, but not a whole lot of boat knowledge. One of the things that went bad on the boat was his electric windlass, so he ordered a new one from the States. Then he couldn’t get the old one off, and asked Peter to come by and help him. Peter made it look magical as he released a pin and the windlass just lifted off the mounting base. With great flair Joe picked up the windlass and was going to throw it overboard. Peter made a flying leap and grabbed it just before it went over. With about a week of work and a few new parts, we now have an electric windlass. No more hauling 100 feet of chain up manually! I’ve been trying to get Peter to agree to an electric windlass for the past three years since it’s getting harder and harder for him to haul up the anchor, but he’s always resisted, mainly because this particular model of windlass, discounted, costs about $2000. That’s a big return for a small investment of time, wouldn’t you say?

It’s a little frustrating not moving, but on the other hand it’s been several years since we’ve had access to U.S. mail and laundromats and other good things like that. Watermelon is going to look and be really clean for the first time since she left St. Martin in July, 1990.

It’s taken quite a while to finish repairing and installing the new electric anchor windlass - the bow of the ‘Melon had to be reinforced before it could be installed, which entailed much searching for materials and parts. Then Peter discovered that the mounting platform for the manual windlass, which we have retained, had dry rot, so he has had to pull that out and rebuild it. So the new electric windlass had an unexpected bonus in that the potential failure of the manual windlass was discovered before it could be a problem. (You ask why we would retain the manual windlass when we now have a new electric windlass? We couldn’t mount the electric windlass where the manual windlass was, so there was no reason not to leave it, and the rotted supports for the platform would have had to be removed and repaired even if we hadn’t kept it.)

We’ve just gotten a huge supply of charts taken from one of the abandoned long-liners here. We’ve now got charts for a big chunk of Asia and the east coast of Africa. I guess we’ll have to go there just so we can use the charts, right?

Pago Pago grows on one, although it’s very easy for a yachtie to get island-happy here. The harbor is so polluted that one cannot swim off the boat, the tuna packing plant sends out the most horrible smells when the wind is from the East (its usual direction), and with 30 or 40 fishing boats in the harbor most of the time, the fuel spills are a weekly occurrence. Then, watching this corrupt government mismanage a totally U.S.-supported economy irritates us. Tutuila is no island paradise, and they’re just blowing smoke if they think they can develop a tourist industry here. The American Samoans don’t want to work, and don’t if they can possibly help it. But they resent the Chinese and Koreans who come here and open the shops and stores and make money, and prey upon the Western Samoans who come here under their sponsorship to work in the tuna canneries. No, not a place to spend as much time as we have. In their favor, the Samoans are nice people, friendly and quite sweet. But their culture is so different from ours that it’s really easy to dislike them. They are not a physically attractive race even if they weren’t so grossly fat. Their obesity is cultural: the bigger and fatter you are the more affluent and powerful you are. One of the yachties who’s been here too long says that to know the Samoans is to despise them. We haven’t reached that point yet, we’re still at the “it’s a joke, isn’t it?” stage.

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