THEY SAY THAT IF IT’S RAINING WHEN YOU SAIL into Pago Pago, you will have good luck for the rest of your cruise. Not this time! One of our passengers became seriously ill Tuesday night—not the cough that’s affected half of the ship—but something requiring his evacuation—the second time since Vancouver. Bad luck for him and for us. We will have to skip our call in Savusavu, Fiji and proceed on to Suva where he can be air-evac’d to New Caledonia or Sydney. (It will be an interesting medical report. We crossed the International Dateline during the night so the date of his event may be in doubt. For certain, it won’t be Tuesday, 29 October, another day removed from our alarmingly dwindling supply.)
Welcome to Pago Pago
The harbor at Pago Pago (pronounced “Phango Phango”) must be spectacular on a sunny day but it was a bit dreary in the rain. Noordam docked behind a rusting container ship loading—or unloading—containers in a crayon box of colors. Across the harbor some of Pago Pago’s tuna fleet were moored—much of our canned tuna comes from American Samoa.
High Court of American Samoa
America — sort of
Sorry, Charlie
Yes, it’s American Samoa. There is even a US Post Office and a National Park, aptly named National Park of American Samoa. The rain had tapered off when we left the ship so we walked the mile from the ship to park headquarters, alternately passing and being passed by Bruce and Linell from Victoria BC. One thing lead to another and we ended up sharing a taxi into the park. The ranger and David, our driver, cautioned about venturing too far into the park since flash-flooding could wipe out the road at any time.
David, out driver
National Park of American Samoa
Bruce, Linell and window dressing
David stopped at his usual viewpoints and anytime one of us spotted an interesting bird. Linell is a fledgling birder and Bruce has a quick eye. Even David pointed out the Crimson-Crowned Fruit Dove, Connie's target for the day.
Crimson-crowned Fruit Dove
We needn’t have worried about going too far into the park. At every stop David had to add more water to the radiator and he mumbled something about needing air in one of the tires. He was able to open Linell’s window but we couldn’t close it when the rain came down, so she covered the opening with her raincoat. Well, David needed our money more than Holland America did, we had a good couple of hours and made some new friends.
