American Samoa

American Samoa___________

Rain is the key word here. Yes, I made it to American Samoa, and yes I’ve picked up my brother—but the real factor is constant rain. In Suvarow it rained and stormed for a few days then passed. On the passage to Samoa—the same—it stormed like crazy for two days straight: rain, rain, rain, and a lot of wind. It was a rough trip. I was ready for it to be done. Too much rain. The wind wasn’t so bad, sailing under a jib alone and then down to the storm jib. I did have some breaking seas which weren’t so pleasant, but not real dangerous.

Rain, rain, rain.

Luckily, I hove to outside of Pago Pago for the night and the wind and storm died down nicely and gave me calm conditions to enter the harbor. (Sorry, Pago Pago is the main harbor of American Samoa. Used to be a big military base in WWII.)

This is funny: when I finished with customs and anchor my boat back in American mud once again, I hear a shout from shore. Blind as I am I get the binoculars out and find a silhouette that I recognize: My Brother! Wow, and I was worried that finding him could be a chore. And there he is—perfect—right where he should be. I still didn’t have my dinghy prepared and couldn’t be bothered so I VHF’ed my friend George: “Gdangist, Gdangist this is Araby. Do you copy?”

“Yes, this is George, go ahead.”

“George, my brother’s on the beach. Can you give me a right over to pick him up?”

“Okay.” And then he was gone.

“George, George, do you copy?” Nothing. Then I see George rushing over in his dinghy hardly a minute and a half later. He looked a little confused. I pointed to the beach where my brother was with a smile.

Then he laughed. He thought I said, “I am dragging on the beach. I though this was a laugh as there was next to no wind. But the laugh would be on me in the end.

As we pulled up to the beach—only as I got out of the dink not 20 feet from my brother—did I realize THIS IS NOT MY BROTHER! It was Brian. Oh man was I taken. I couldn’t believe it. I laughed so hard, I had to apologize to Brian at being so utterly disappointed to see him. (After all, it had been a good two weeks. He didn’t go to Suvarow.) What a bummer.

Brian wanted to get a bite to eat, as did I. I still had to prep my boat so he came back with me to help out and chat. We did the work. I was so ready for a good meal ashore I can’t begin to relate it. As we dinghied to the dock I see a figure standing on the fishing wharf. I have no binoculars now, but the silhouette is right. . . and I recognized the shirt. . . is he looking at us? I turn a little, a little more. . . Sure enough, there stands Will next to a cab. Just pulled up minutes ago. Bloody perfect timing.

How do you like that? And he was starving to eat as well.

Since then, nothing but great talks and more rain. We have accomplished a ton of work in the time between showers. He is so enthused to be here. It is going to be a blast, I can tell already.

We’ve gotten the boat ready to ship out again and Herb and Jim have just arrived. They also got rather slammed with bad weather that just seems to be sitting on top of us right now.

This is motivation for me to head south directly to Tonga instead of heading west to Western Samoa, which is supposed to be a splendid spot. Everyone loves it but it isn’t renowned for its diving and I doubt that it is out of this foul weather pattern we have here.

So south it may be—just as soon as the weather changes enough to get out of here.