Pago Pago, American Samoa

Pago Pago Harbour

We made two loaves of bread before we left Suwarrow. When we were ready to leave a squall came over with rain and wind on it, so we waited until it had passed. The engine started and Jeremy went forward to start weighing anchor. I thought the gears were stuck in neutral as I could not shift the control handle. Jeremy came back and soon realised we were stuck in forward gear and moving slowly over our anchor. After squirts of WD40 and physical disengaging of gears in the engine compartment, the problem was sorted. Unfortunately, the anchor chain had tangled itself round some bomies (coral heads). It took us a while to free the chain, but we eventually motored out of the pass and into the ocean.

One of the many Religious sites on Tutuili

The wind was light at first from the NE and ENE. Jeremy put two poles out and we sailed with the genoa poled out to starboard and the no.2 jib poled out to port. Squall clouds passed frequently bringing many wind shifts and course changes. The worst squalls seemed to start at midnight at the beginning of my 3 hour watch. Sometimes, we had to motor for a while afterwards if the squall took the wind away completely.

A rather large bruise - Ouch!

It was after one of these squalls that I had my fall. I started the engine and went over the stern roof to shut down our Hydrovane. Without warning, I was flung over the roof, which had our liferaft on it and a solar panel and was deposited on the opposite side deck, still holding on to the mainsheet, which was strapped down with a block and tackle, known as the handy Billy. Jeremy shouted from his bunk below and came out to help. I finished shutting down Heidi and went below to check on the damage: swellings on both shins, one bleeding a little; one grazed knee; one bashed forearm and discomfort from inside one leg. I cleaned myself up, applied an ice pack on the worst of the swellings and thanked my lucky stars (or guardian angel) that nothing was broken and I was still on board and not swimming in the Pacific Ocean. I finished my watch to let Jeremy get some sleep. Then I took two paracetamol tablets and went to bed.

Two days later, on Saturday 15^th June, we anchored in Pago Pago Harbour, Tutuila Island, American Samoa, said to be the best harbour in the South Pacific. It is impressive with high sided mountains rising up on both sides. There was no response from the Harbourmaster on VHF 16, as it was the weekend. We flew our yellow Quarantine flag and had to stay on board until Monday. Jeremy used the time on Sunday to put the original gearbox coupling back on as the replacement, bought in NZ and repaired in Tahiti, had started to vibrate dangerously again. We hope to buy a new one in Australia.

The disintegrating gearbox coupling

Checking in was rather confused. Some locals told us to take the dinghy ashore and visit the various offices. Others said we should take Sal Darago to the wharf. A dinghy came out to us with the instruction from Customs to go ashore at once. The Danish catamaran from Suwarrow, had arrived on the Sunday and they had to go ashore as well. Both boats weighed anchor but ours was stuck fast. Local guys offered to help but we could do nothing until we’d checked in. Jeremy put a buoy on the end of the anchor chain and dropped it overboard. We went to the wharf, tied up and officers from five agencies gave us forms to fill in. The K9 team came aboard and inspected Sal Darago. Nothing was removed. We had to walk to the Harbourmaster’s Office, where Jeremy filled in another form and indicated on it where we were anchored.

SD on anchor from the small boat wharf, Pago Pago

After stopping at the bank and a shop for provisions, we returned to our anchoring spot, retrieved the anchor chain and secured Sal Darago to it. Jeremy dived the anchor and put a trip line on it. The chain was not stuck on anything but the anchor was lodged in a crevice in bommie. Jeremy moved it away from the crevice.

Some of the very many colourful local buses - one $ a ride

We have been here for a week. The people are friendly and helpful. There’s a laundromat and supermarkets about 10 minutes’ walk away from the wharf. The buses are plentiful and each ride costs a US dollar. Big stores like Cost U Less and KS Mart are a bus ride away in Tafuna. Hardware stores and beverage stores like TMO and ACE are also in Tafuna. There are very few tourists. On the opposite side of the harbour there is Aua Gas Origin, where most cooking gas bottles can be filled. Not ours, though, because the man believed the valve on our bottle was beyond its 10 year use by date. It wasn’t if you use British dating i.e. 08/15, but here they use US dating i.e.15/08.

The road to Tafuna

Checking out was straightforward and expensive. The harbour fees were 52USD, Customs cost 100USD and Immigration charged us 20USD each as we had foreign passports. Our US visas were not valid outside the US, we were told. We learnt that we had not been seen by Immigration when we checked in, but the officer was pleasant and stamped our passports for entry.

A church at Leone

We have spent about two days trying to fill in various “required” forms online for our entries into: Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Australia. The more frustrating aspects are a) going off line because the signal is poor, b) pressing send only to be told that some data is missing when we are unable to fill it in and c) the names of family members who were not visiting Australia with us (Does Nina count?).

Not quite Diamond Rock (Martinique), but impressive

We are hoping to leave here tomorrow, Monday 24^th June, for Samoa, about 85 miles away.

Suwarrow, Cook Islands

Suwarrow, Anchorage Island beach

This isolated atoll lies approximately halfway between Bora Bora and American Samoa. The night before we arrived we came across some fishing vessels called Ping Tai Ron. They were directly on our course, were well lit and had AIS, so we knew they were 4 miles away and barely moving. Jeremy called them on VHF to find out which way we should steer to avoid them and also to let them know that our downwind sail rig meant we had little room to manoeuvre. We received no reply. We sent several more messages by voice call and direct by DSC. Total silence from Ping Tai Ron.

Admiring the sunset

We tried steering to port and the ship turned the same way, so we steered to starboard and it moved to starboard; we went to port. As we neared the fishing vessels, we only saw one big ship, even though there were AIS signals for four vessels. It took us two hours to pass and was quite scary in the dark. Jeremy hand steered and I watched the radar and the AIS down in the saloon. If we went 6 knots, so did the ship; if we went 3 knots, so did the ship. As we tried to return to our course, the ship closed on us. It came as close as one third of a mile and it was big. When we arrived in Suwarrow, we reported the incident to the Park Rangers.

1952 -77 Tom Neall lived alone on this island

The voyage from Bora Bora took 6 days. Apart from occasional SE winds on the first day, there were no SE Trade Winds. We had winds from the E, ENE and NE of varying speeds with squalls from time to time, which could change the course by 45 degrees and give wind speeds up to 21knots. At other times we barely made 3.5knots. We had read about the pass into Suwarrow, but all went well. Our waypoints were accurate. We called the Park Ranger Station when we were a mile off to check on the conditions. The anchorage is behind the sensibly named Anchorage Island and there was one US yacht called Ocean Star lying at anchor with Steve and Alice on board. We chose a spot amongst the bomies and dropped the anchor.  Suwarrow is now an official port of entry into the Cook Islands and cruisers are supposed to give 48 hours’ notice of their arrival. Harry and John, the Park Rangers, came aboard after lunch and we were cleared for Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity. The cost was 50USD.

The "Pass" side of the island

 As we admired the colours of the 11 mile long lagoon behind us, and watched the many palm trees swaying in the breeze ahead of us, our son-in-law, Ben, was celebrating a milestone birthday back in the UK. Happy **th.  Birthday, Ben;-)

Many interested black tipped reef sharks

We stayed in Suwarrow for 4 days, enjoying coconut husking demonstrations by John and collecting our own green coconuts from the trees on Anchorage Island. It’s amazing what Jeremy can do with a machete, a length of rope and a walking pole (actually a mark one boathook works better)! We took a dinghy trip to a reef said to be a manta ray cleaning station. The snorkelling was good, but there were no mantas, just one or two black tipped reef sharks which seemed a bit too interested in us. We had to row back to SD as the outboard refused to start. Later investigations by Jeremy revealed a tiny piece of plastic in the fuel intake pipe. At the same time he converted our 2.5hp outboard into a 3.3hp, as advised in Practical Boat Owner. We walked round the entire island twice at low tide on separate mornings.

Strange underwater phenomenom

We cleared out on Monday 10^th June. Harry prepared our clearance document and we gave him the six(!) forms he needed for his records. On the way back to SD, we said good-bye to Ocean Star and Jeremy helped Steve release the last of his in-mast roller reefing sail that he and Alice had struggled with the day before. A Danish catamaran, appropriately called Double Joy, arrived so we went across in the dinghy to say hello and goodbye to Kel and Ula.

Coconut crab

We left for American Samoa the next day.

Inspecting the "Pier"

Tropical idyll

The Society Islands 2

Some of the peaks of Moorea

Moorea

Moorea is the island that inspired the musical and the film, South Pacific. It is very beautiful with its variety of mountain peaks standing starkly against the sky. Our anchorage behind the outer reef was close to Cook’s Bay. We stayed for one night breathing in its relaxed and peaceful atmosphere after the hustle and bustle of Tahiti.

Bye bye Moorea

We weighed anchor at 1600 hours and motored out into the sea heading for Huahine 94 miles away. We motored all the way noting the long, high swell coming up from storms further south.

Huahine

As dawn broke we could see the outer reef.  Huge waves crashed on to it, sending spray high into the air. We had planned to go to the main village of Fare, where there is a shop. However, we still had all the groceries we needed from Papeete, so Jeremy identified three possible anchorages in the lagoon on the west side of the island. We were tired and hungry after our overnight sail. All we wanted to do was drop the anchor, eat and sleep.

Breaking waves at Huahine

The first anchorage had a resort built close to it with lots of thatched bungalows on stilts sitting just above the water. The second anchorage had five or more yachts and catamarans anchored in it, so we chose to anchor off Motu Valorea.  Unfortunately, there was a current running at 1.5 knots, so swimming and snorkelling were out of the question. We spent the time researching our navigation for our trip to Suwarrow (one of the Cook Islands) and American Samoa. We left the next day, 24^th May, which was a special birthday for our sister-in-law, Eileen, and also the day the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, resigned.

Raiatea and Tahaa’a

These islands share the same outer reef. We went to Raiatea first, a journey of 27 miles. There was enough wind to fill the genoa but not enough to keep the wind in it in the big swell. We motorsailed, arriving at lunchtime and having the all too familiar problem of finding an anchorage that was neither too shallow nor too deep. Our chart plotter showed a possible place south of the main town of Utoroa. What it didn’t show was the small pearl farms and other fishing obstacles we had to negotiate. We dropped the anchor close to a sandy shelf and had lunch. Later, we snorkelled and found that the sandy shelf was fairly free of bomies, but only about 5 feet deep, which is the same depth as Sal Darago. We put out a second anchor to stop us swinging off the shelf and drifting into the deep lagoon.

Replacement gearbox coupling

The next day, Saturday 25^th May, we weighed both anchors, motored very slowly across the lagoon watching out for reefs and bomies until we reached the deep, marked navigation channel. We went straight to the place we’ve always called the carenage at Utoroa, but apparently the carenage is 5k away. We tied up to the town quay, where boats can stay for no charge but you have to beware of the possibility of theft from your boat and the attraction of the quay at the weekends for groups who like to drink and party.

Rainbow over Tahaa'a

I needed to see a doctor as I’d developed a fungal infection which was not responding to first aid treatment. The French yacht in front of us had a female doctor on board who was running a clinic in the town. The Lord provides again! An hour later, we were waiting outside Laetisha’s surgery. Half an hour after that, I had a prescription for antiseptic and antifungal powder and a diagnosis of “not serious”. The consultation cost 3600PCF (36USD) and the prescription a little less.

Cruise ship leaving Tahaa'a

We shopped in one of the well-stocked supermarkets and came out into heavy rain. After unpacking our shopping in SD, we braved the rain to dash to a take-away van and buy a couple of lunches. Soon afterwards, we left the town quay and motored in the rain to Tahaa’a, anchoring not far from the village of Tiva, on the edge of the shallows before the outer reef. We were going to go to the lovely anchorage off a motu further north, where we’d been nine years ago, but it had been taken over by a resort of thatched bungalows on stilts over the water. Sadly, unspoilt Tahaa’a, like Huahine was cashing in on Bora Bora style developments.

Grey clouds over Bora Bora

We spent three nights at anchor, mainly relaxing, after Jeremy had replaced the Panama gearbox coupling for the Tahiti one. We weighed anchor on Tuesday 28^th May and proceeded to motor round the lagoon, stopping for two baguettes at a very small harbour in Baie Vaiorea. Finding an anchorage for the night proved difficult with reefs that we could not see rising up from 19 metres to 1 metre. We scraped both keels leaving a little of our antifoul paint behind as we turned away and headed for deeper water. After a brief stop for lunch in a bomie infested place, we motored on and found good overnight anchorage behind three catamarans on a sandy shelf with some well-submerged bomies.

Sunset over Bora Bora from Tahaa'a

The next day, Wednesday 28^th May, we left the anchorage early and motored to the town quay. We wanted a laundry and believed there was one nearby. Sadly, there was no laundry in Utoroa but a woman called Violetta will do laundry. She is based near the carenage. We shopped, had lunch, then returned to our previous anchorage near Tiva village on Tahaa’a. We left via Passe  Papai  just after 0700 the next morning and motored 25 miles to Bora Bora.

Bora Bora

This island is remembered as an American military base during WW2, when service people outnumbered locals. Today, Bora Bora is a tourist destination said to be the most beautiful island in the South Pacific. As we neared the only pass into the lagoon, I checked online for anchorages and learned from Noonsite (a cruisers’ website) that new regulations had come into force in January this year and anchoring was only allowed in one designated area. What actually happens is most visiting boats pick up a mooring and Francis comes along in his launch with two other men on board, welcomes you to Bora Bora, charges you 5000PCF for 3 nights, asks you to photograph a map of the mooring fields, checks the captain’s passport and offers services such as water and rubbish disposal. Laundry service will start next month, although he did his best to find someone to do our laundry. His wife would have done it but we found Sophie by telephoning Tourist Information. She collected our laundry from an agreed place ashore and returned it the next day.

Mai Kai Marina, Bora Bora

Today, we went to the gendarmerie to clear out of French Polynesia. We should have given them more than 24 hours to arrange this. All being well, we can pick up our clearance documents tomorrow (1^st June) and leave for American Samoa, over 1000 miles away.

Local brew

Au revoir, French Polynesia.