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America Samoa -Sept. 5, 1999
Position: America Samoa -Sept. 5, 1999 After many years of travel we have finally found Pago-Pago (pronounced Pango-Pango). It is the harbor and main town of American Samoa. It is no wonder that the American Navy would want such a large natural harbor. The picturesque harbor is very deep, surrounded by high almost wicked looking mountains, which plunge straight into the sea. A more breathtaking view would be hard to find. It is very protected from the open sea. A very pleasant anchorage in which we sat out a gale of 50 knot winds. Several boats came limping in, grateful for a safe harbor. It was still blowing in the harbor such that some of the yachts were dragging anchor. The problem is the water is over 100' deep and difficult for smaller yachts to have sufficient anchor chain. One of the yachts came into the harbor with the foresail partially unfurled and flapping in the heavy wind. They could not anchor so kept motoring around the harbor hoping someone would help. Our crew set out in the tender to assist them and found a very worried European crew desperately in the need of help. Our crew got the boat to a sheltered dock and their sail under control, after which the 3 worried and now relieved crew went to a hotel. We think they may have given up sailing, as they didn't come back to the boat for the two days before we left. Samoa is one of the American islands in the Pacific. It is about as American as St. Croix, with the same type of government but Polynesian natives. Conditions are about the same with Samoa, having two large tuna canning factories compared to our refinery. There were more than 50 large tuna boats in the harbor. Net boats, each with a helicopter on board and longline boats all taking their turn to unload at the factory docks. We also saw very large frozen tuna being loaded from the net boats directly into large freezer cargo boats for shipment to Japan. Unfortunately the tuna plants put out an unpleasant odor. The government is correcting the harbor pollution and odor. The tuna fishing industry moved from San Diego to Samoa. Presently there are two plants, Chicken of the Sea and Starkist. This is a very large $250 million a year business, good local employment. Even at minimum US wage it is a good salary compared to other island jobs. Many natives live off the land. The only major hotel, the government-run Rainmaker, was built in 1960 to jump-start the tourism industry. It failed miserably and is in a terrible state. Unfortunately, Todd was required to spend a month at the Rainmaker while looking into the development of cable TV on Samoa. We are fortunate that he made the correct decision not to proceed. St. Croix is a more pleasant location, more accessible, and proved to be a more successful location. The island is very green with a single road along the south shore where the homes are located. We enjoyed playing an 18-hole golf course, not bad for island standard. On the eastern end of the island we found one the best-rated bars in the world, Tisa's Barefoot Bar. It is a delightful island-beach style restaurant, a characterful fala bar with good food and pinacolada's on a sandy beach. The location makes it vulnerable to the waves of hurricanes. Its native construct makes it easy to rebuild after big storms. We enjoyed our 4 days of being back in the USA with $1, English newspapers, radio and TV. |