Explosions, fire, crime, monsoon rain............Apia, Samoa begins with a bang

Robert Lewis Stevenson's last home

Has anyone seen April 23rd? We kind of missed it this year. The 85 mile sail between American Samoa and Samoa went off without a hitch, and we arrived outside of the bay in Apia on schedule at 9:00 AM (the official and oddly late opening time of the Apia Port). 9:00 AM on the 24th despite leaving on the 22nd. Even at our slowest, it doesn't take us two full days to go 85 miles. We had crossed the International Date Line. As instructed, we called in to the Apia Port Control on our VHF in order to get clearance to enter the bay.

L'ORIENT- "Apia Port Control, Apia Port Control, L'ORIENT, L'ORIENT"

Apia Port Control- sound of crickets

Over and over and over and over we attempted to call them, 9:00, 9:10, 9:20, 9:30, 9:40. Nothing (to the 5th power). We started to worry that something besides the date was amiss. Finally we used the cellphone and reached a clerk twice removed and ended up after two attempts to speak with someone responsible. After almost an hour, we were given permission to enter. What a start. But little did we know.......

So we anchored in the bay and waited for immigration, customs, and bio-security (yes, that's part of it). The officials upped their game efficiency wise, and processed us fairly quickly. And we got lucky that the "marina" was virtually empty. Visions of air conditioning danced through our heads as we entered our slip. Most of this "marina" had been wiped out by a cyclone several years ago, but 24 slips remained and we quickly chose one. 

L'ORIENT finds herself by herself

There used to be 64 slips here (before the cyclone)

Predictably, we plugged into the power pole and the juice coming out of it blew all our breakers. The marina sent some electricians, who rewired the pole and added a transformer. This arrangement worked (sort of) for one day. Then the pole started smelling like burnt wire. Then it caught fire, and during a rainstorm it literally blew up from the rain hitting exposed 240 volt wires. The electricians did not respond this time. We decided that maybe power was a bit too risky.

The "marina" dock is held together by crude patches, rope, and luggage straps

The evening only got more interesting. At 4:30 AM I awakened to three people walking around on our boat with flashlights. We had been boarded. Due to the above electrical issue a jerry rigged solution had the power cable running through our cockpit door. We sleep with the door securely locked every other night, but tonight we just pulled it up and had shoved some towels in the small crack to possibly keep out any critters. Little did we know that the critters we had to worry about were of the human variety. They used our manual bilge pump handle to push in the towels, but thankfully did not go any further than that - the handle was left on the floor of the cockpit. They did end up stealing two hats (including Kirstin's favorite all the way from Costco in Hawaii) and my flip-flops, which were in the cockpit. Oddly, they also took Kirstin's flip-flops but left them on the bow of the boat. How chivalrous. OK- this is beginning well.

Praying for my shoes return - the Apia Catholic cathedral

While we could have gone back into the bay and anchored, which is safer from a fire, explosion, and theft perspective, we like the fact that we don't need the dinghy while in the marina. So we roll the dice and stay put. What more could happen ?

How about extreme weather? The only place I've ever been where the rain is nearly this intense is Panama during rainy season. Looking through a hatch during the rain is like looking underwater. And the lightning is everywhere. When it rains, you're in for 8-12 hours of fire-hose type intensity. What kept us amused in the last round of torrential rain was that it happened during the international fishing tournament being held around us. A 23 boat traffic jam of drenched anglers all trying to get their prize winning catches to a small dock in torrential rain and lightning is a sight to behold.

Wanting to further boost the local economy, we hired the electricians to do a small job- installing a switch and re-routing some wires. The job got off to a poor start as they mis-cut a hole in the wall. It quickly followed with the electrician dropping his cell phone into our seven foot deep and very stinky bilge. After they broke the switch ($250) and lost some of the pieces, they were informed that their services were no longer required. Their coda was to steal/remove the transformer they had installed on the pole (which we had paid for). Our consolation was that they didn't realize it had been damaged in the power pole explosion caused by their shoddy work.

British colonial monument to something 

Despite this bumpy start, we really love Samoa. Samoan culture is much more apparent here than in American Samoa. Below are numerous examples of Fale Tele, which are meeting houses that are part of each neighborhood. The villages each have a chief, and the chief and heads of each household meet here weekly. So a 15 year old that vandalizes something gets dealt with by the chief of the neighborhood and parents jointly. The police are actually not the social structure that maintains order. Kirstin became obsessed with these meeting house structures and took far too many pics of them. I hate wasting film.

The Fale Tele is everywhere - Samoan meeting houses

The 747 of va'as

Making a living here seems to be more challenging than in Yankee Samoa and many men are away working in New Zealand and Australia for years at a time. It was explained to us by one of our favorite servers that her man in New Zealand also had another family there, aside from her (his wife) and her children. Hmm. Not sure what to make of that one. We just left it alone.

The Stevenson Household

Supposedly the first indoor fireplace in the South Pacific - the walls are covered in Tapa (paper like fabric made from tree bark)

Stevenson's safe where he kept his manuscripts in Samoa - we should have thought of that.

A visit to a new island isn't complete in Kirstin's book without a sweaty vertical climb and she got her wish here. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and 11 other titles, lived in Samoa for the last four years of his life which ended at the age of 44. His original house was destroyed in the early 1990s by a series of cyclones but was rebuilt and is now open as a museum. Stevenson was not content to be buried next to his house - no, only the top of the mountain would do for him. 

The tour of each room was prefaced by "only that suitcase was original to the house; the rest is a reproduction". I'd honestly rather imagine that this was actually Stevenson's stuff.

A tragedy of the tour is that the Samoans were gifted by Queen Elizabeth II a few very rare and valuable first editions of Stevenson's work. Sadly, they stored them in a non-airtight plastic display case in Samoa's high heat and humidity. They didn't look very healthy when we saw them during the tour.

The grave of Robert Lewis Stevenson.....worth the 2 miles vertical hike ? You decide.

So I found myself climbing the steep path up trailing Kirstin and thankful that I was not also lugging Mr. Stevenson's casket. Turns out that this climb is a type of Crossfit for Samoan men - many of whom lapped us multiple times as they came up and down twice in the time it took us to do it once. We also had a lovely conversation at the top of the mountain with a ED doctor visiting from Australia who mentioned that she was training the local hospital staff in using defibrillators. That was until she realized that they were using the same pads over and over for the last few years which seemed to account for their low rate of resuscitation success. If the hike hadn't already sent my heart racing that news certainly did.

Only 3000 steps behind me

See that red roofed house? - he could have been buried right there

The only solution for my sore bones was a massage. Kirstin had been out exploring Apia while I tried to control the electricians and she came up with a Shiatsu massage location favored by locals. This became our home away from home - can you have three massages in 12 days? Oh yes, you can - particularly when a 60 minute massage sets you back $15 (plus a 100% tip - we're not that cheap). Not only was the massage deal of the century, these were the best masseuses we have ever had. 

I miss this place already and my massage was four hours ago

I think this might be a different kind of massage place...

In addition to being pampered we have also been extremely well-fed. The only time we have cooked on the boat in Samoa is on Sundays when almost everything is closed (we saw one small Chinese run grocery store open). 

A Samoan Sunday - no cars and even the Chinese department store (it's no Macys) grinds to a halt

When not dining in some amazing Indian restaurants, we fell hard for a restaurant walking distance from the marina called Paddles. Run by an Italian/Samoan family it features not only the best food we have had in quite a while but warm and welcoming owners who kind of feel like friends now. Dinner is punctuated by a visit from "Ma-ma", the Samoan matriarch and her Italian husband the engineer/chef. Our meals end with us making a new reservation.

The banana food group is well represented in Apia's fruit and veg market

We did a drive around the countryside and Samoa is strikingly beautiful. Kind of like Hawaii with 1/10,000 of the tourists (maybe 1/100,000). Beautiful beaches, waterfalls, hiking and a million shades of greenery.

A not-so-bad swimming hole

Samoa possibly could use a few more tourists

Obligatory perfect waterfall

But why not some sport? Our visit to Samoa coincided with the Pacific Rugby Challenge 2023. This pitted Tonga-A, Japan, Fiji, and Samoa in a round robin tournament. While Kirstin is a rugby fan of some standing, I had never been favored with a ticket......so off we went. The violence of rugby is quite appealing, and paired with a complete lack of player safety equipment.......this sport is quite watchable. The pregame meeting at mid-field between the teams is amazing. The teams engage in a choreographed war-dance chanting thing meant to psych out the other team. Each "haka" thingie lasts for several minutes. It's basically next level trash talking and quite exciting (a few seconds are below)

They serve beer at the game, which made our seats next to some obnoxious and discourteous female Fiji fans bearable. But we didn't cave, even as we were engulfed by Fiji fan's flags and shrieks. We are Manu Samoa all the way. Even though Fiji gave us a 50-25 beatdown in front of the hometown Samoan fans, we left quite satisfied. Samoa never gave up and did register the hit of the day.......which in another time (before the NFL concussion issue emerged), would have led off the "You got jacked up" segment on ESPN.

You don't just come to Apia Park stadium and expect to walk out a winner vs. Manu Samoa !!

Sadly our time in Samoa comes to an end on Thursday as a marina reservation and flights to the USA are awaiting us in Fiji. Come visit Samoa - we would love to come back... Watch us on the tracker (Where are we tab on our site) as we sail to Fiji across the next five days.

Resting our weary bones in Samoa