4/8/09 12:00

We spend a few hours both Saturday and Sunday driving around the Island and found it to be very lush and tropical with lots of little village communities scattered throughout.  Once you escape from the tuna canneries and giant trawlers in the harbour, the island is quite beautiful. The Samoans are extremely friendly and everyone says hello or goodbye depending on which direction you’re travelling in, as mostly there is only one road and the East road doesn’t join up with the West Road so you go either left or right when you leave Pago Pago and return the same way you left.  The road sides are all decorated with piles of painted coconuts and planters made from hundreds of painted old tires. Each neighbourhood has its own colour scheme. Flowering shrubs line many of the outlying roads even miles away from the villages. The roads are excellent.

We saw dozens and dozens of churches and many pillared structures which are used for various ceremonies.  Each family has its own and I suspect there is status attached to having the biggest and most elaborate. Sunday is a very religious day and everything is closed.  You can hear them singing all day long.

Saturday the Scrabble series was levelled at 3 all.  The Final was played Sunday just before leaving for Russell’s final dinner with us and he went away happy as he won.

The airport was full of hundreds of locals either greeting the big plane from Honolulu which had just arrived, or seeing off their loved ones, so Russell got away on time.

I tried unsuccessfully to do the check out paperwork on Sunday.  Today is a holiday but there was a skeleton staff on duty and I have managed to get our clearance although the customs man only happened to be passing by with his family to check his e-mail. He was in a good mood and didn’t charge me overtime.  He had already had an overtime fee from an old Dutch couple who had arrived earlier today.

The exhaust manifold on the AC generator is disintegrating. Steve has patched it up with some epoxy goop we got in Greece and hopefully it will last until we can get a new manifold.  Unlike the DC generator you can actually get at the AC generator to see what’s wrong.

We will have dinner shore and then set off for Westerm Samoa tonight which is only 75 miles away.  We will arrive is good time to commence what I believe is another elaborate checking in procedure.