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Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Our second day in Fiji we were tendered to shore. For those not into ship lingo, a tender is a small boat to transport people (or goods) from ship to shore or reverse. Our tenders double as lifeboats, should the need arise. They are amazing boats – rated to hold 120 as a tender and 150 as a lifeboat. They have twin diesel engines, are stocked with food and water (see stocking referred to here) and who knows what amount of emergency supplies. They are designed to right themselves if completely capsized, and they have full radio communications gear, radar, chart plotters and other GPS navigation equipment. There are 16 of these, stored on deck 4, one right below our room. (There are dozens of other lifeboats in pods that automatically inflate when they hit the water. They also have emergency supplies but I don’t think they have all the powered gadgets.) You will see its bright orange roof on many of my pictures. The picture below shows the davit extended that lowered “our” boat to be used as a tender.

I understand a lot of the equipment on the tenders, but here is a lever that I didn’t realized they had. It’s reassuring to know even if we were to ditch in the frozen arctic seas, that Skates could be released so we could skate across the ice fields to safety.

Tender visible between ship and dock.

So this day was in Savusavu, on Vanua Levu, the other big island. We did a fair bit of walking, but that’s about it… It was amazingly hot and humid. The views were beautiful, but the town was not quite so photogenic.

Leaving Fiji…

We then had a strange thing happen… we crossed the International Date Line. We’ve done that many times before, in an airplane, but then you just say you lost a day, and when you land you adjust to the new time and date. Here at midnight of Saturday the 13th, we set the calendar back a day, and had a second Saturday the 13th! It seemed far weirder than when done on a plane. One Saturday we were in Fiji, and the next one we were at sea. The scheduling folks would say stuff like: “On the 2nd Saturday, the one at sea, I’ll do such and such.” Weird.

Pago Pago, American Samoa

We eventually arrived at Sunday, and simultaneously arrived in American Samoa. Samoa refers to the Independent State of Samoa. It consists of two main islands and several other, smaller, islands, mostly uninhabited. American Samoa refers to an unincorporated territory of the United States. The International Date Line runs right between Samoa and American Samoa, in the 40 mile stretch of ocean that separates the two. It has the potential to raise a lot of questions over what day it really is! Maybe you can time travel a day at a time, going back and forth between islands. Again, Weird.

Below is American Samoa, as we approached.

Even from quite a distance, the waves breaking on the rocky shore looked impressive!

Tugboats always accompany our ship into a port… they are insurance, to make sure we go where we are supposed to. (Unlike an unfortunate ship in Baltimore, for instance.) The tradition is that the tug should never touch our ship, unless we mess up. This port they performed an additional service, however. Our ship was longer than the dock, and the bow lines needed to be sent far away to shore. The tug retrieved lines from our ship, and took them to a bollard around the corner, where the lines would have the proper angle from the ship. This, however, was outside of a few boats on the dock, locking them in for the duration. I guess they weren’t going out anyway, so it all worked out. You can see the taut lines in front of the tug, and behind the grey-hulled boat in the picture below.

Below is a short video of more unusual tugboat behavior… it is from a previous port, but shows a tugboat matching our speed, but backwards!

The dock where we stayed in American Samoa was obviously more commonly used as a container port. Some decorations were placed along a wall of containers to give us a welcome. A local church (or many?) excused a bunch of young people from attendance, so they could give us a dance and music show as part of a welcome.

Again, the heat and humidity tempered our desire to hike a bit! We explored the town on foot, including getting our stamp to say we’d seen the American Samoa National Park.

We were able to venture into this church. It has a few plaques with interesting dates: Cornerstone laid March 1933; “Opened for Dedication” March 1949; Closed for Refurbishing and Face Lift March 1992; “Opened for Re-Dedication for the Worship of God, and Services to His People” July 1994. So it looks like it took a long time to get going, possibly due to WWII. And a lot of “Marching”…

Around lunchtime, it started to rain, so lunch onboard the ship looked good. Later in the afternoon, the rain let up, so we ventured out again. An interesting viewpoint on top of a hill looked inviting, so we thought we’d try for it. An inviting wide drive up to a series of white buildings was not the proper route – we were told that rather strongly by a guard at the base of the drive, protecting the Governor’s Mansion.

Around the point was this small park, with a stairway up to a smaller viewpoint. It seemed to have a walkway up higher yet, but this also was a failed attempt. It lead to a locked gate and the backside of the Governor’s Mansion.

We walked quite a ways farther, around that ridge of a hill, but never found the proper route up to the top. Heat, fatigue and the portent of additional rain may have influenced our search a bit…

Lots of places had poles decorated with braided palm leaves. Here is one with a few additional embellishments.

Back in the ship, I went out on the verandah and saw a huge rainbow – It made an arc that even came in front the ship next to us. I grabbed a camera, but it was already disappearing. In a few more seconds it was totally gone.

Soon it was time for the tug to escort us out…

And we left American Samoa.

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From the start of our cruise in Auckland, there was a daily class offered for learning to play the Ukulele. We didn’t attend, but lots of folks did, and one night they gave a concert for the rest of the ship. Their teachers played a few songs, and demonstrated Hula Dancing. Then the whole class played, and did a Hula as well. It was fun!

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Keeping a ship like this shipshape requires continual maintenance. I saw this guy doing something to one of the four glass elevators that run outside midships. I’m also including a guy’s t-shirt with a motto I approve of!

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Pollywogs to Shellbacks

Traditionally seafarers have made a big deal over crossing the equator. The first time a sailor makes the crossing, he is usually subjected to some form of torture by the more experienced crew. The newbies are Pollywogs, the veterans are Shellbacks.

The crew went through an elaborate ritual for the Pollywogs on this trip. Tried by a Prosecutor, King Neptune of the Deep, and the Captain of the ship, they were condemned to a few indignities. First was “Kiss the Fish,” which some were visibly repulsed by.

After the fish kissing, they were placed on tables, and multicolored foam was smeared all over them. I’m not sure what the foam consisted of… it was very tenacious, and I doubt it tasted good. (I saw one guy taste it and he didn’t go back for more.) Some were allowed to go right into the pool to clean off, some were condemned to sit in the sun for a while first. It was crazy fun, even if it went on too long (to get all the pollywogs tried and hazed.)

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Most cruises will have the cabin stewards make little animals out of towels and place them on your beds. I’ve heard they have classes in this art, and have to be able to do many animals in order to qualify for this position. I thought it would be fun to make some for Rio, our main cabin steward. I started with a snake (gotta start small) where I made paper eyes and a forked tongue. Rio responded with a far better snake, but reusing my eyes and tongue. Later I made an octopus, reusing the eyes and a couple of towels to make all eight legs. Pretty sad looking, but still fun.

Then I decided to make a bit larger creature… and came up with this guy I placed in the bed. I told Rio there was something in my room that he needed to see. He came in only part way, and turned and faced me in the door. I said to go on in, and he went in, facing away from the bed… without seeing my artwork. Until he turned again – he saw it a jumped a foot in the air, yelled, and then laughed for a very long time! I was glad he didn’t have a heart attack! It was great fun, and he showed his assistant. We haven’t had any escalation since then. (Note the book is titled “The Maid”. Seemed appropriate.)

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Leaving American Samoa, we will have 5 days at sea, heading for Hawaii. I’m looking forward to those days… fascinating ship and beautiful seas… awesome!

Next week – Hawaii!