Almost Day 0- Samoa to Tonga

Apia Harbor traffic as Tao prepares to exit

We are as prepped and ready as we're going to be to push off from Samoa today (13 Monday) en route to Tonga. Not quite sure which island group will be our destination, that all depends on time and weather. If the weather window closes, we will likely set course for the closer more remote Niuatoputapu group, an approximately 2 day passage, if the window stays open, then Neiafu in the Vava'u group, approximately 3 days away. We shall see. After being ready at 0600 Samoa time (1700 UTC) to let go the docklines, we were stalled a bit by some large container traffic in the harbor exit. Again, we wait and discuss staying just one more day. However, the weather looks good, so as long as it holds, we should still have time to get through the pass between Upolo and Savaii Islands by nightfall, so after the container ship is berthed, we will get underway.

Overarching everything, we continue to struggle with the dwindling amount of time we have to get to Australia before hurricane season and the infinite amount of things we would like to do between here and there. In a perfect world, we could either head to NZ (staying upwind) or leave Tao in Tonga or Fiji this hurricane season and stretch our South Pacific exploration another season. But we are more and more feeling the pressure of time and money, trying to fit other things into our lives in addition to this sailing adventure, things that require a shift of focus and energy. So, we continue on and promise to help each other to work at enjoying the small amount we have time to see and not get frustrated with all that we don’t have time to do- at our pace. We constantly reassess our plans and talk about alternative ideas for what islands we will visit. We are now on “the milk run” (though in our opinion Western Samoa is still a little off the track because so many people stop in American Samoa with purportedly more services and then skip this beautiful island with twice the amount of land and half the amount of people). After 3-months completely disconnected, we find ourselves in a marina, barraged with the fleet of cruisers moving through together. It has been refreshing, however, to be the only US vessel among German, Danish, Swedish, Swiss, Italian, Japanese, New Zealand, and Australian cruisers. Among several very interesting cruisers, early in our time here we enjoyed meeting John and Amanda Neal, owners of sailing school aboard Mahina Tiare flagged from the Southern Cook Islands, and Amanda the author of one of the few useful cookbooks we have aboard. And the folks from s/v Convivia, another fun young cruising couple from the Bay Area that we have heard of through the cruising grapevine from friends, have just showed up so we look forward to getting to know them. We welcome socialization and relish having deeper conversations about more than just the weather. However, we still chafe at being in a large pack and search for options a little off the beaten path. It is a balance and as we reorganize our schedule (once again) to include more visiting time, we remind ourselves, it is about the journey and not necessarily the endpoint destination.

Fa'a Samoa

Time was sliding by as we continued to learn the town of Apia and chip away at our ever growing lists. We were getting sucked into the easy dock life when our BadBoy wifi antenna decided to stop working. It was definitely time to get off the boat and to explore Upolu Island a little bit outside of Apia. First, we visited the flea market and haggled over a few souvenirs. Next, we took the self guided walking tour around the peninsula on the west end of Apia Harbor. Our big exploration of Upolo was taking the local buses to the SE side of the island. Most people that come here decide to rent car for a day (125T minimum) or take a day long guided taxi ride around the entire island (200 T was the least expensive price that we were repeatedly offered away from the taxi shack at the harbor). However, that is not how we tend to like to explore, so we decided to try out the bus system. The buses here are not set up for touring, there is no schedule and times change daily but we made it work by picking just one goal to explore on the other side. The bus was an adventure in itself- set up to bring people from the other side into Apia to shop, the earliest bus we could catch was at 1030 (not quite an early morning), leaving us a mere half hour to enjoy our goal before that bus headed to Apia once again for the last trip of the day. We decided to take our chances that we could find another way to get home that evening, and really, would it be so bad if we had to find place to stay on the other side for a night?

The brightly painted old school bus, packed with locals, assured us that Jesus was the man, and sported varnished ceiling, wooden seats, and the forward area was hung with feather boas and lights flashing with the beat of the fun loud mostly American music. After a quick detour to the hardware store to pick up several bags of cement for one of the passengers, at 1030 we were finally underway. The bus took us about 15-miles literally along the water’s edge of the E coast of Upolo Island, slowing frequently at speed bumps that marked village limits and stopping at several smaller towns along the way. We were reminded of Nicaragua as we watched a mother feeding her infant Samoan Coca-cola straight from the glass bottle. Eventually we turned away from the ocean onto Le Mafa Pass Road that took us up, up, and up into waterfall filled steep tropical forests before dropping us back down, again literally to the waters edge, where we were driven along the southern coast of the windward side of the island. Not surprisingly, the bus raced by our “stop,” but a local nicely pulled the stop wire and the driver reversed the several hundred yards back to the turn off for our destination: To Sua Ocean Trench.

To Sua is made up of two deep trenches. One is accessible for swimming and connects underground to the other trench as well as the ocean. A sturdy wooden ladder leads from the surface down into a brackish-water-filled pool. Strong currents flow in and out through a small tube connecting to the ocean and cold water filters above ground creating the unique environment. Since we were there at low tide, Chris adventured with his snorkel out to the ocean and back again through the tight water filled cave. The above ground area surrounding the trenches have been turned into an idyllic tourism destination with lovely gardens surround the trenches and superb views from small huts overlooking the ocean. A nearly indistinguishable footpath to the W drops into a tiny secluded beach and one to the E leads to huge blowhole at high tide as well as views of Nuutele and Nuulua Islands off the SE edge of Upolo Island.

 

  

It was an easy decision not to attempt to catch the bus a half hour later back to Apia. Instead, we enjoyed an idyllic lunch (that we had gratefully packed, because there were no restaurants or stores), swimming and exploring To Sua. After this, we headed west along the highway on foot in hopes of hitching a ride to Siumu, a town in the center of the south coast that we heard had a later last bus back to Apia. Very few vehicles passed, and after about 2-miles, we turned off following signs to the small town of Matatufu where there was supposedly a taxi driver that could take us the additional 15-miles to Siumu. After meeting several of the curious townfolk, we found the taxi driver who could not speak English, but was happy to drive us to catch the 1700 bus back to the city. While awaiting the bus, our G10 Canon camera decided to stop working giving us a Lens Error and refusing to shut down. As we were dealing with this, a bus came by to the other corner and was gone before we had time to think. Chris assumed this was not the right bus as it was going a different direction than we were told it would go, but Shawn was not so sure. After questioning a few more passersby, indeed, that was the final bus and was headed to Apia, but via the long route around the W side of the island, not the short route over the mountain that we had expected. At least we were at a relatively busy crossroad with cars passing every few minutes- several different taxi’s stopped, but we decline still hoping that another bus would appear. Finally we started walking N and the first vehicle by stopped for Chris’ thumb. A nice relatively young (our age) local in a beat up Toyota LandRover pulled over. He hopped out to move some scary looking saw blades from the back seat to the trunk to make room for both of us. Turns out that he works for the lumber industry in Samoa, and was on the south side of the island to weld some equipment, headed back to Apia at just the right time for us. After some good conversation, in which we found he was raised palagi-style, he let us out at his office in Apia and we made it back to Tao perfectly as the sun set.

Our successful day came to a crashing halt when we realized that not only was our wifi antenna not working, but our main camera was dead, and to top it all off, we had left SPOT sending out a signal all the way back in To Sua… It was a miracle that Chris was able to get back to To Sua the next day and recover SPOT (who is not allowed to leave the boat again without a leash!) and returned to Tao, via the hardware store, of course. The following day we enjoyed a sail around Apia's small harbor in Fatty. Just as a cargo ship was headed out, we crossed to the local Fish Market, and returned to the marina at sunset, where we met nearly all the new cruising boats that had arrived over the past few days as we slowly tacked upwind to Tao. After another day of work, we managed to get our wifi antenna working by scraping, drying with alcohol, and generally cleaning the connectors and we were back in action only to realize from our weather analyses that our Tuesday leave date would take us right into some weather between Samoa and Tonga. Maybe this would provide us time to visit the other island, Savaii in Tao, but we seem to have plenty still to do, and so we find ourselves still here in Apia. Fa'a Samoa, loosely translated such is life in Samoa (more directly translates to "the Samoan way").

Samoa (Western) from Apia Part 1

We have been quiet on the blog since we made landfall here in Samoa (pronounced Sah-moah with the accent on the first part) so there is much to report. Checking in to Samoa (along with the recent time change and switching to driving on the left side of the road, they have dropped the “Western” descriptor) was an all day affair. Having spent the whole of Sunday tidying up, we were ready at the stated 0900 time. When 1000 rolled around, we were happy to see an obviously official man in what looked like a solid print sarong and an aloha shirt headed to one of the other boats also awaiting check in. This turns out to be traditional dress for a male- the sarong, however, is a “lavalava” and the aloha shirt is actually printed with traditional Samoan designs. Another official in traditional dress, who turned out to be the Quarantine Inspector spoke little. He just handed us a form to fill out and requested us to bag our trash and take it to the quarantine facility right next to the marina for proper disposal for a minimal fee of 3-Tala (divided by 2.25 = US dollar amount) no matter the size of the bag. The next lavalava wearing official to our boat turned out to be the very nice Ministry of Health official. After visiting other boats that had gotten here before us, he boarded our boat where we filled out several forms while he looked around Tao defining it healthy, and answered Shawn’s pressing questions about appropriate dress for tourists (we want to be respectful, but also comfortable). A thin strapped dress ending just above the knees was deemed plenty respectful- at least within the city of Apia. Down came our yellow Quarrantine flag, and finally the more severe looking Customs officer made his way to our boat. We quickly showed our passports and filled out more paperwork and he informed us that Immigration was quite backed up so we needed to go to their office in town for the next step of check in.

As we stepped ashore from the docks, the taxi drivers jumped to offer us a ride, but we opted to walk along the waterfront the mile or so to the Immigration office instead. Once we found the office, we took a number- like at a US post office, and patiently awaited our turn amongst a large number of locals apparently all renewing passports at the same time (there is a lot of travel between American and Western Samoa requiring stops to Immigration). Soon enough it was our turn and we filled out more paperwork, received our passport stamps, and were on our way back to the marina and our final stop at the Port Authority to pay for our slip. Just before 1700, the end of the work day, two Port Authority officials came to our boat to supply us with required Apia Marina tags and proceeded to want to chat for nearly an hour. We made a little mis-step when we told them we were scientists as it became apparent that they think scientists believe in Darwin and not God and they drilled us with questions about religion, the start of life, etc. Chris fielded them well and finally they relented and took our USCG vessel documentation to make copies and told us we pay upon checking out. We sat down and breathed a sigh of relief as the sun set on our first busy day in Samoa.

Samoa, approximately 2,250-miles south of Hawaii consists of two main islands formed from extinct volcanoes rising to 6,000-ft on Savaii and 3,600-ft on Upolo. Of the approximately 177K total Samoan inhabitants, 25% live on Savaii, 20% live in the capital and commercial center of Apia on Upolo, and just under 2% are European. Fanning was a poor Micronesian island and Suwarrow had only 2 Northern Cook Island residents, so Apia with approximately 36,000 residents is our first foray into South Pacific Polynesia. It is a mix of big city yet traditional and everyone is welcoming with a smile. Although some are quite portly, most Islanders are medium sized and dark skinned. Many of the men sport beautiful tattoos sharing their family stories on their arms and traditionally dressed women almost always have flowers in their hair. When they speak English, it is a crazy fusion of Crocodile Dundee’s Australian accent in a Polynesian body. Although Samoans have tended to retain their traditional ways despite exposure to European influence (most Samoans live within traditional social system based on the extended family headed by a chief), tourists of all sizes and shapes are welcomed with open arms. The first questions everyone asks is where are you from, where are you staying, and how long will you be here? Here we are “palagi” (pronounced pah-lahn-ghee), tourists of white descent, and most Samoans are surprised when they hear we are from the US as the bulk of white tourists they meet are from Australia and New Zealand.

As far as we can tell, Samoans tend to be quite religious, 55% belonging to the Congregational Church and 40% divided between Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches. We observed many homes outside of Apia flanked by well decorated family crypts and on Sundays nobody works. It is so quiet at the harbor, that Chris worried doing some drill work that someone would come ask him to stop work. Education is free but not required, though most primary school children attend classes. Many learn English in school, but not everyone seems to understand when we explain we sailed here, and others eyes just get really big. Author of Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, chose to spend the last years of his life here and is buried atop the beautiful hills above Apia with a memorial and museum. The town is an interesting balance of traditional Samoan and 2012 world influence. Locals are nearly all adorned in lavalavas and puletasi (the woman’s version), but there are also Digicel offices on nearly every corner.

 

With several boat projects, many tasks requiring internet, and complete re-provision required, we have spent most of our time thus far in Samoa figuring out Apia. During the days, there is a traditional veggie market where women manage the sales and men can be seen sitting in quiet circles drinking traditional kava. There are also grocery stores with dry goods ranging from corner store to upscale air-conditioned and filled with imported goods. Frankies is the local’s choice for inexpensive goods and there are 4 of them around Apia including the wholesale store that supplies them. Chan Mao provides groceries for the large Asian population here and sports the largest assortment of fabrics in town. Lucky Foodtown (we love this name) and Farmer Joe’s (the name is so reminiscent of Trader Joes in the US but the store of course not the same at all) carry most of the imported goods that us palagi search for. Hardware stores range from a familiar looking ACE hardware store to more local Bluebird Hardware and finally on the outskirts of town we found the widest variety and selection of parts at SMI Hardware. We have managed to take several evenings off to watch traditional dancing and fire throwing ceremonies at the bar/ice cream shop across from the harbor as well as at the historically significant Aggie Grey’s Hotel. Both were fantastic experiences.

We spent the first week of our stay ensuring that the tropical bugs were not able to take residence on Tao by pulling out gear we hadn’t seen in months, cleaning areas, spraying all inaccessible pathways throughout the boat and generally reorganizing. After trying out the cafes of the two wifi providers in town (LavaSpot and PostNet) and finding little difference, we chose to use our wifi antenna and the least expensive internet cards purchased in town from PostNet. Back at Tao, we suffered through the slow connection, but were able to take care of basic internet tasks and have computer to computer (no video) Skype calls with our families to catch up a little bit. In the second week, Chris re-did the hatch project with silicone that he had found in town (he had used 4200 in Suwarrow when our silicone was found to be hardened already), changed the engine oil and zincs, and finally finished building the cockpit bed while Shawn took multiple loads of laundry to a local mat and sent e-mails out requesting RSVPs to our March 2013 Mexico destination wedding. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until this final week that we decided to pay the twice as high rate to see if the other wifi connection was any better, and indeed it is worth every penny. Usually with a little extra leg work we can find how the locals get by, but in this case, other cruisers research was correct. LavaSpot hotspot is the way to go if you want to get internet done efficiently (137Tala for 20-hrs at LavaSpot versus 80T at PostNet). Hindsight is 20/20, but we know now in this case, you really get what you pay for.

Day 5- Talofa (Greetings) from Apia, Samoa

Time: 1950 Zulu (0950 Hawaii time)
Position: 13-deg 50-min S 171-deg 46-min W
Wind: E 12 Seas: E 6-ft
Avg. Course: 257-deg T
Avg. Speed: 4.7-knots
Rig: side tied in Apia Harbor at dock(!!) B16

Day-5 was brilliant! With the past few days of heavy cloud cover, and some intense late night computer weather downloads, our battery bank had gotten a little low. Through the morning, we jibed the boom over to starboard tack to give Sunny, atop the dodger a clear view of the sun and hence the whole solar array improved efficiency, and the banks nearly filled up through the afternoon. Just after the noon point, we raised the main to triple reef and Tao commenced to race along sailing her preferred broad reach the whole way to our Apia goal. As darkness descended, we were briefly treated to a sliver moon, once again growing among the millions of stars. Aside from the general buzz from drawing close to landfall, the nights excitement was Shawn sighting a vessel off our starboard bow. It was our first visual ship contact since just out of Hawaii. She hailed the small fishing vessel to determine its course and speed. After a brief pause, a jovial Australian voice responded calling her "mate," saying that he his crew was on deck and he, the captain, had been sleeping, and joking that we must have a good radar for they're a small boat. That would be the every 15-minute horizon scan- they were 6-nm away and quickly passed us by. At 0200 in the morning as we changed watch, we dropped the triple reefed mains'l because we were going too fast, averaging over 5.1-knots. It was difficult to find the normal relaxing rhythm of the late night watch. So close to land and a harbor, Chris was highly motivated to do horizon scans. Slowing our speed worked well, allowing us to sail the last few miles into the Apia Harbor entrance in early morning sun.

We readied Tao for entry into both a new country and a new harbor- en route to the now required marina. We did our best to tidy up down below in case we did get checked in upon our weekend arrival. On deck we pulled out the haus pipe teak plug, attached Rocky, removed jack lines, rigged dock lines and fenders, turned on Yannie, dropped the jib, and finally hailed the Apia Port Control. We had been told someone would come pilot us in, however they just said to hail them once we had entered the harbor. A huge and beautiful squall reared up just as we lined up on our entry bearing into the channel. Big cumulus clouds with the sun behind and obvious rain, nicely passed behind us. Waves were breaking on both sides and we momentarily wondered where the good surf on Samoa is. To make the entry just a little more exciting, our roll call on The Rag of the Air net came up, so we checked in as confirmed arrival as we motored in.

Inside the little breakwater, Apia is a tiny little harbor and the port control waved us into an enormous slip. Historically there is an anchorage just inside the breakwater, but larger shipping traffic were unable to turn without interactions with anchored boats, so the harbor now requires a marina stay. We have not been along side since Mexico, what a luxury. It was all of a sudden so calm that it felt like we were on the hard. Once again, we find ourselves having thought we were making landfall on a Saturday, and unknowingly getting propelled forward another day. All of our information says that Western Samoa is on the same time as American Samoa, which is the same as Suwarrow. However, December 2011, there was apparently a change moving Western Samoa from UTC -11 to UTC +13 hours. We are now officially across the date line, one day ahead of Hawaii and 1 hour earlier. Luckily, no check ins on the weekend, so tomorrow 0900 local time we (and two other boats that arrived this weekend) will be visited by immigration, customs, quarantine and ministry of health. We hear there is a shower (fresh water but not hot) so we'll likely find that and recover during our quarantine on the boat before clearing into the country tomorrow morning.

[Aside: We apologize for any confusion about timezones throughout our recent posts. Unfortunately, all of our onboard information outdated, creating our confusion (thanks for filling us in on the updated Internet information Mum and Dave, not so easy to get for us) which we passed on to you. To muddle the waters more, we have also been waiting until very early morning to upload blog posts that were written over 12-hrs earlier at the previous noon point. Therefore, posts written on one day show a blog post date of the next morning... Clear as mud? Too tired to explain any better today.]

Day 4- welcome day of smooth sailing

Time: 2200 Zulu (noon Hawaii time)
Position: 13-deg 23-min S 170-deg 02-min W
Wind: E 12 Seas: E 7-ft
Avg. Course: 284-deg T
Avg. Speed: 4.5-knots
Rig: 80% jib
24-hr distance noon to noon: 107-nm
Distance to Apia: 104-nm

What a difference a day makes! Day-4 we started with sprout salad and pasta lunch followed by jibing to starboard tack to make some northing as well as to avoid the land masses of American Samoa. For several of the late afternoon hours we ran with the triple-reefed mains'l as well. Apia is nearly directly downwind from Suwarrow and we have found ourselves jibing around the direct line between the two. First we had to avoid the uncharted "breakers" reef and we hadn't quite decided if we were going to drop the hook before Western Samoa or not. Now we are jibing around our most efficient cruise track line as it is much faster and more comfortable to sail a wee bit above directly down wind. As the sun dropped down, we pulled the mains'l down for the night and grateful to be where we were with such comfortable conditions, we consumed a "Thanksgiving" meal. That is, in our Frank-n-cooker (our rebuilt pressure cooker whose handle rivets fell prey to corrosion), we cooked potatoes and butternut squash. Since it was the last or our potatoes, we went all out and mashed them with lots of butter, then added instant stuffing, and topped everything with a can of cranberry sauce. Delicious.

Bellys full, we continued on that starboard tack all night, marveling at nearly clear star filled skies, so different from the 100% cloud cover of 24-hrs previous. Most refreshingly, there was little convective activity and only a few sightings of lightning late in the night very far to the NE of us. Early in the morning we passed 50-nm due north of the island of Tau that we had noted as a possible closer anchorage. Once the sun rose, (around 0700 Hawaii time), we jibed again to port tack and are now sailing a comfortable course directly toward Apia. The morning's weather analyses agreed with a look out the portholes, showing conditions looking benign. The Rag weather forecasts confirmed that there is a ridge over Samoa for the next week, which means good stable weather to come. Mentally and physically we are preparing for landfall tomorrow in Apia, the largest city in Western Samoa, surely with more hustle and bustle than we've been around in nearly 3-months. Until then, we are soaking up the more relaxing portion of what has turned out to be an unexpectedly trying passage.

Day 3- Data versus Faith versus Luck

Time: 2200 Zulu (noon Hawaii time)
Position: 13-deg 45-min S 166-deg 37-min W
Wind: ESE 13 Seas: E 7-ft
Avg. Course: 267-deg T
Avg. Speed: 4.0-knots
Rig: 80% jib, whisker-poled out
24-hr distance noon to noon: 95.5-nm
Distance to Apia: 205-nm

Since we had only been slowly sailing through the morning, just after yesterday's noon point we raised the main to its triple reef. After being passed ahead by a squall we jibed back to port tack in its wake of very light winds to get back to our most efficient cruise track line. The afternoon saw lots of cloud building and mostly 12+ knots of wind, however as evening approached, when it peaked up to 20-knots, we dropped the main. In the twilight there was one small lone bird that circled us several times before bravely alighting on our forward pulpit. The boats roll soon had him in flight again, but he persevered and landed again- this time on our dodger mere feet from where Shawn stood watching. Chris' first instinct was, "You're going to let him land and poop all over?" Shawn said, "Yes, he must be tired. Any port in a storm, eh?" And Chris quickly relented feeling magnanimous toward the little guy when he saw him preening and immediately nodding off to sleep regardless of Tao's uncomfortable rolls. We named the lone black bird, "Twilight".

After an apple (still from Hawaii!) tuna and fresh alfalfa sprout dinner, all of which Twilight was uninterested, Chris headed to the bunk, darkness descended like a cloak, and the lightning began to our East. Luckily, it was far enough away that we could not hear thunder. But there was a ton of electrical activity with flashes every 10 seconds or so for nearly an hour and then less frequently but eerily closer for the hour following. Amid flashes of light, Twilight took off and was gone after a mere 3-hrs of rest (and yes, he did leave us a little splatter of bird poop). With him, the lightning and wind also disappeared. Small breaths of breeze came from the ENE and slowly moved us along, with our now whisker-poled out jib still flogging in the swells. The rest of the night continued light and variable with drier winds filling in lightly from the E, with a smidgeon of S in it as the sun rose. There was 100% cloud cover for over 10-hrs straight as we passed through the zone. Chris had downloaded more weather data around 0200 Hawaii time and Shawn awoke at 0700 to 2-hours of analyses of all the data sources. She scoured and plotted the information for where all the convergence zone, front, trough, ridge(s) had moved and where convection was forecast. At 0900, The Rag morning net came on and the weather guy David from Chameleon, gave us a fill that said we were "smack in the middle of heavy convective activity surrounding Samoa". However, he took some weight off our shoulders when he added that from his IR image the bulk of it looked to be East of us, now in our wake.

Through the morning, clouds disappeared, the sun shone through strongly, and between 14 and 18-knots of easterly winds pushed us along. As the noon point neared, we passed approximately 45-nm due north of Rose Atoll. We discussed weather and decided that there is an important time lag between what a forecaster sees and reports and when we get that data. By the time we get the data, that weather has moved on, we've already been through it, and there are few things that can accurately be forecast for the future. That said, our GFS model GRIBs were right on in their prediction- from that data source as well as hints from our NOAA spot reports, we went into last night knowing we were moving through moisture and convection and feel very lucky to have come through so unscathed. Before leaving on any passage, we collect as much data as is feasible in the time frame (of course one could spend a lifetime studying weather in any particular area) and make conservative choices about our weather windows. Shawn, not a gambler or much on faith (i.e. anything other than data and scientific law), is a strong proponent for as much data as possible, but at some point you just have to believe everything will be okay and along with all of our compiled data, Chris' faith that we would be fine along with a dash of luck were quite important in getting us through the convergence zone, trough, and convective activity that have "popped up" since leaving Suwarrow.

Our noon point showed that Day-3 was quite slow going, but also that we are within just about 48-hrs (assuming winds hold) of our Apia goal. Not a big deal, but our starboard water tank seems to have a small leak. Best case, we overfilled the tank and it ended up getting caught somewhere that has just finally made its way to the bilge. Hopeful case, one of the hoses is leaking. Worst case, one of the (very inaccessible) tanks welds is failing. Put it on the list to check when we make landfall... We are under the impression that Samoa (as was Suwarrow) is UTC minus 11-hrs, still in the same day as Hawaii time just one hour earlier. To keep with the sun, our watch schedules will definitely have to be shifted off of Hawaii time as we move west of Samoa. We will continue to download and analyze weather data, keep our fingers crossed that we do not come across any more unstable weather during this passage, and hope for a little faith and luck if we do as it seems that maybe a good dose of data, faith, and luck might be a winning combination.

Day 2- onward to Apia under the New Moon

Time: 2200 Zulu (noon Hawaii time)
Position: 13-deg 45-min S 166-deg 37-min W
Wind: ESE 13 Seas: E 7-ft
Avg. Course: 262-deg T
Avg. Speed: 4.5-knots
Rig: 80% jib
24-hr distance noon to noon: 108-nm
Distance to Apia: 300-nm

First order of business, tempt Chris to eat with a healthy, er at least tasty Cup-o-Soup and take seasick meds. Check! Good move as the food stayed down and a mere hour later he was getting feisty. We have been watching our bearing change to an uncharted reef where breakers were reported in 1988 and we entered our Rose Island waypoint into the GPS, just in case. Rose Island would be a wonderful destination- a tiny but full protection atoll full of wildlife. Unfortunately, one is supposed to check into American Samoa first and request permission to visit it, which apparently is not frequently granted. We do have information on how to enter, but we heard through the cruisers grapevine that Samoan scientists have requested that cruisers not visit in order to protect several endangered species that use the area. As Environmental Scientists, that rings true for us, so although it would be a wonderful respite, we will respect the rules and only stop if an emergency arises. Another thought was a roadstead anchorage off the western edge of Tau Island- also of American Samoa. Unfortunately our timing is such that we would have to stand off to make that work and we are unsure of the anchorages protection anyway. Therefore, it makes most sense to both of us to just continue to our intended destination of Apia, Western Samoa even though we will likely make landfall on the weekend.

Chris was well enough to check into the PacSea Net and even followed it with an off frequency conversation with some family friends that check in on us while underway. Shawn awoke for her watch which started with a nice sunset followed by a few sprinkles and then fresh alfalfa sprouts and literally "souped-up" leftovers for dinner. Chris' appetite is already back. The New Moon night was blissfully relaxing with stable weather, star-filled skies, and only a few passing sprinkles. What a change from the night previous. As the morning dawned, having passed over 30-nm from the uncharted reef, we jibed over to starboard tack to get back onto our route to Apia. A beautiful sun rise through a rain-filled squall which passed overhead and then illuminated a brilliant double rainbow in its wake. Our weather downloads for the day look promising and The Rag net weather confirmed good winds for our passage. Winds have backed to the E and go through cycles of between 5 and 15-knots, but mostly it has been a gorgeous 10-12-knot sailing morning under mostly sunny skies. By our noon point the clouds have built up and filled in. The forecast for tonight is for a wet one, we shall see.