Island Hopping

9/23/11 – Pago Pago, American Samoa

I woke up at 5:30am to find us stopped next to a few islands electrically lit up in the dark sky before the sun had risen.  I later found out we had stopped to wait for our Pilot boat to escort us in, and that these islands are called the Manu’a Islands, also part of American Samoa.  We walked the decks as the sun rose over Pago Pago, a beautiful island of lush green vegetation filling the mountains surrounding us.  Pago Pago is actually pronounced Pahng-oh Pahng-oh, a lot different than what we previously assumed.  We disembarked after being cleared at 8:30am and the days excitement began immediately.  We had not even stepped foot off the ship when an old man was wheeled out on a stretcher with his family following behind, tears running down their faces and luggage carts being pushed off; clearly an emergency big enough to send them all home.  After the drama passed, we were finally allowed to step onto the island of Tutuila in the city of Pago Pago. 

(Town of Vatia)

Flying Fox (Fruit Bat)

America Samoa is the only U.S. territory south of the equator, created from a hot spot, and most people live on the island of Tutuila. Tutuila is a volcanic caldera with a steep ridgeline looming to the north of Pago Pago Harbor, marking the south boundary of the national park area.  With no expectations or set plans, Tommy and I decided to get off the ship and see what the island had to offer.  This led us to hopping on the local $2 bus from Pago Pago over to Vatia, located over the mountain on the opposite side of the island (the north coast).  All the land in between the two towns is the National Park of American Samoa.  The Samoan people are definitely on island time because we sat on the bus for a half an hour before finally leaving, but were lucky enough to be offered a Samoan Donut from the bus driver.  When you are a kid, your parents teach you never to eat food from a stranger…but we did, and it was well worth it.  We could not pass up trying a taste of the local cuisine, and were not disappointed at the piping hot, funnel cake tasting Samoan Donut.  The drive was breathtaking with the stunning views of the green mountains and crystal clear ocean water, allowing us to see the reefs along the shoreline from the roads up above.  Once in the small town of Vatia, Tommy and I were feeling up for an adventure, and boy did we get more than we asked for!  We really wanted to hike through the National Park, and were told by two local ladies that there was a trail that started in Vatia and ended in Pago Pago.  Little did we know that we were going to be on an extremely strenuous hiking trail up to the 1,610 foot summit of Mount ‘Alava.  Once again we came up against island time and discovered that the local woman’s estimated 40-minute hike to the peak actually took 2 grueling hours!  This was not solely a carved out hiking trail, but instead consisted of ladders with ropes that we had to use to pull ourselves up staircase after staircase before slowly lowering ourselves back down the opposite side of the rolling mountain trail.  With only one water bottle ¾ full, we had to ration our drinking, and were beyond dehydrated when we finally made it back to the ship.  Our last sips were almost two hours prior to making it back to Pago Pago.  We believed we had reached the top two times before we actually did make it to the summit of Mount ‘Alava, and although exhausted and drenched in sweat, the panoramic view made it a very worthwhile hike.  Now on the way down we ran into a couple who relieved us by letting us know it was a wide cut relatively easy three mile hike to the bottom.  Unfortunately this was not exactly true because it was more like a four-mile hike to the end of the trail and another two miles to the harbor.  Once again it was made worthwhile by the flying foxes we spotted all throughout the canopies.  Flying foxes are fruit bats, and we saw a handful flying overhead and hanging from the trees, truly a neat sight to observe.

I wish that this had been the end of the excitement, but the excitement turned terrifying on our way from the end of the park to the harbor on the paved road.  There are a lot of stray dogs on the island, and we were warned that they are not friendly dogs by any means.  I am terrified of dogs, so my fears were only heightened when we were chased by three big strays down the road.  I had to jump up on a higher rock to keep them from attacking before escaping to sprint down the hill to where Tommy awaited with two big rocks ready in hand.  We must have been a sight to see for the locals, two Americans walking down through the town with huge rocks in our hands, but we were not going to risk being in another situation like that again!  Of course 20 minutes out from the harbor a tropical storm rolled through pounding us with water, and were lucky to end the tiring, stressful end of our adventure by hopping in a quick cab ride to the ship.  Water never tasted so good, and the Jacuzzi was heaven to sink into after our four-hour hike.  The people on our original bus out to Vatia were thrilled to see that we had made it back in one piece, and were awed by the adventure we had just experienced.  As hard as it was, we would both do it over again for the thrill of adventure, and the breathtaking views!  I am pretty darn sure we are going to sleep like babies tonight out at sea!

Sazbury Nakerln was conquered tonight.  Last night the chef visited our table once again to check in on how our dinners have been thus far on the cruise, and Tommy just happened to have the correct spelling of what I previously said was Salisbury Noken in his coat pocket.  I figured this out by watching it being made on TV on the Chef @ Sea channel.  It was absolutely delicious and was shared with the couple who sit across from us.  I guess the last time we ordered chocolate chip soufflés they were envious and ended up ordering them for the following night, so when they heard me putting in another order, they told the head waiter that they wanted whatever we ordered the following night.  As a surprise he brought it out for them with us, and we all enjoyed my favorite dessert together.  It was very fitting because earlier in the evening Anne and Arthur had given us the list of things we must do in Sydney, so it was nice to have something to thank them!

9/23/11 – Apia, Samoa Islands

Another hot humid day greeted us this morning.  Apia is on the island of Upolu and is the capital of Samoa.  It is the only place on the island to dock mainly because it is the only village touched by modernity.  The rest of the island, we soon found out, was made up of small villages with only one or two stores in each one. 

We walked into the visitor center in the middle of the town of Apia, and were greeted by a gorgeous picture of a natural ocean water trench 75 feet below the ground.  Tommy immediately pointed to it and said, “We are going there!”  Soon after, we were in a cab on our way to the To-Sua Trench.  Island time is very different than our regular fast paced time, so the estimated hour long drive from the North to the South side of the island actually took an hour and a half.  I did not mind the scenic drive that took us through many villages allowing us to see the Saturday meetings in session in big outdoor huts.  The island of Upolu is very poor with houses made out of clay or wood, no walls, but instead open huts with a mattress on the floor for sleeping.  It felt like we were going back in time to a more primitive era especially with all the men and woman in the traditional dress, men in longs skirts and women in long Polynesian dresses, always covering their knees.  People living in the South Pacific islands are extremely hospitable.  Yesterday in America Samoa and today in Samoa we were met by the nicest people, all eager to make our time at their home as enjoyable as possible.  Our taxi driver told us the main reason for why they are that way is because religion is a very strong part of the culture, which was also shown through their many churches scattered throughout the island (the prominent religion is Catholicism).  We passed wild horses, pigs, dogs and roosters along the way, and were able to see straight through the crystal clear water to the ocean reefs from the road.  But the best part was when we cut across the center of the island through the vast valley surrounding us on all sides with the incredibly verdant mountains towering over us. 

The To-Sua Trench was a great place to visit and swim in before we made our way to the South East tip of the island where an extensive white sand beach was waiting for us.  The beaches on the North side of the island were all black sand beaches from the crushed up basalt, but this beach was the softest, brightest, creamiest white sand.  The South side of the island was hit hard from a tsunami in 2009, and most of the houses were wiped out and eroding, but a hotel was rebuilt on the beach where we had lunch called the Taufua Beach Fales.  By hotel, I am referring to 10 tiny huts with a mattress on the floor and cloth to hang over the windows for privacy…a bit different than your typical hotel.  At lunch we tried their local Samoan beer brewed in Apia called Vailima; it was very tasty.  After spending an hour on the beach, we packed up to leave, giving ourselves a little under 2 hours to get back.  Towards the end of our drive, our taxi driver asked us what time we had to be back on the ship, and when we told him 4:30pm (which we had already told him a few times throughout the day) he said he would try to get us back by that time.  This shocked us quite a bit so we asked how much time we had left to go, and he replied that we had one hour.  Well we did not have an hour to get back and had already been driving for over an hour!!! You never know what time means when you are on island time so we were not surprised, but very relieved, when 10 minutes later we were back at the ship.  Thank gosh!  Tommy and I were already scheming about how we would get a flight to Fiji without our passports etc.  I am not sure why he thought that 10 minutes was going to take us an hour, but now that we are safe and sound back on the ship, who the heck cares!

9/25/11 – Crossing the International Dateline

This day does not exist for us.  The International Date Line is an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface opposite to the Prime Meridian.  As a result of crossing this imaginary line, Sunday September 25^th 2011 does not exist, so we skipped from Saturday the 24^th to Monday the 26^th! 

9/26/11 – AT SEA

Tommy and I made great headway today on our puzzle!  Today was one of three days left at sea, meaning we have very limited time to finish this puzzle, and I do not think Tommy will allow me to leave the ship until it is complete.  That being said, I was under command today to stay stationed at the puzzle all day with only a short break for lunch. 

Apparently I caused quite the scene two nights ago with my Salzburg Nakerln.  Anne stopped by our table tonight to let me know that once we left the dining room, everyone stopped by their table to find out what we all were eating for dessert and how they could get some!  Oopsy!

9/27/11 – Suva, Fiji

I have always wanted to go to Fiji and I am actually here! 

I wrote that first line above this morning when we were first pulling into the port of Suva on the largest islands of Fiji called Viti Levu, and that was about as exciting as Fiji got…  Although we were greeted by the sun shining in a cloudless blue sky, it soon was drained away by rain, beer and clouds; beer because the only thing to do was drink.  We scored a great deal for a driver to take us from Suva to Pacific Harbour where a boat would be available to take us out snorkeling around the island of Yanuca, but as we drove further east, the clouds moved in faster.  We tried to wait out the dark clouds by walking around the small town and touring the one other hotel in Pacific Harbour, but there was only so much time we could waste before we made our way back to the Uprising Hotel.  There was no point in snorkeling with the ocean so grey and the rain starting to pour down, so we decided to try their four local beers in hopes that it would eventually clear up.  Well it never cleared up, and the entire island remained covered by ominous clouds and scattered rain throughout the entire day, so after trying the four local beers, we tried some of the local food.  The day was not a total bust because Ameilia, the bartender at Uprising Hotel, made it a great day at the bar.  The beers were all delicious: Fiji Bitters, Fiji Premium, Fiji Gold, and Vonu (which means turtle in Fijian), and lunch was very tasty as well.  For lunch we had Kokada, which is a local dish of fish marinated in lemon juice, coconut milk, onions, and chili salsa; an absolutely delicious dish served in half of a hollowed out coconut.  The inside of the coconut was grilled and salted making an appetizing side dish, and I do not even like coconut! Food and beer were the highlights of our day spent undercover out of the rain in Fiji.

9/28/11 – AT SEA

Today continued to be overcast, which is probably what Tommy was praying for all night; overcast skies mean puzzle days.  We are limited with our time on the ship now, so we are in crunch time with the puzzle.  We got a large chunk finished with the remainder to be completed either tomorrow or our next sea day.  Tomorrow we are in Ile de Pins, New Caledonia.  We were supposed to go to Nomea, New Caledonia first, but they had to switch the port order for some reason I am unaware of.  We are praying for a sunny day because we have heard the beaches are beautiful!

9/29/11 – Ile de Pins

What a beautiful port to sail into!  This has been our most picturesque port to sail into thus far.  Ile de Pins is a very small island of New Caledonia right off the mainland.  It is so small in fact that there is basically nothing at all on the island.  There was one hotel, one restaurant, and a few crafts shops, but besides that, it is all beach and beauty!  This left us one thing to do, go to the beach, how unfortunate for us!  The sand was the finest grain of white powder squishing through our toes; I have never felt sand so soft and cushy making it feel like your feet are melting into the ground.  It sounds like I am painting a fake picture, but this is how incredible this small island was.  The water consisted of three shades of transparent turquoise, allowing us to see the reefs and fish from the shore.  More land snorkeling!  I was happy to be tendering into this port because it gave us a gorgeous 360 view of the Ile de Pins and the other small islands surrounding us.  The most unique part of the island was the towering pine trees that inhabited this tropical environment.  One would never expect to find pine trees amongst white sand beaches and palm trees swaying above, but there they were making a very rare setting that was quite beautiful to see.  

We got off the ship and were met by some of the local villagers who greeted us by placing a crown of flowers upon our heads.  Off to the side a group of locals sang, chanted and played their music for us visitors, welcoming us to their homeland.  We walked to a close by beach where a sandbar created a pathway to a small island.  We had been warned of extremely venomous, deadly water snakes that inhabit the small island and swim around the rear of it, so I knew I was NOT going to be snorkeling anytime soon!  Well we were lucky enough to see one of these black and white striped water snakes slithering down the rock on the island into the water where we stood.  It was really neat to see, but as it slowly descended towards the water, we decided to retreat back across the sandbar to safety.  We did not feel much like spending the day with our entire cruise ship on the two main beaches by the ship, so we adventured in another direction and stumbled across a path that lead through the forest out onto a small secluded beach with an incredible view of our ship.  We set up camp there and had this incredible beach to ourselves for the day! 

9/30/11 – Noumea, New Caledonia

Today was awesome!  Tommy and I agree that New Caledonia has been our favorite place thus far. Ile de Pins is very close to Noumea, so we arrived at the port sometime around 3am when I woke up to see us already docked.  We ended up getting off the ship at 8:30am and met a nice man who offered to take us on his speedboat to a small island for a very reasonable price. We arrived at the island called Ilot Maitre that was about a 15-minute boat ride from the main island.  The island itself was about a quarter of a mile long and 100 yards wide.  It was made up of a hotel that occupied three quarters of the island and other fourth was an area marked off for visitors.  The hotel had small huts out on the water, which Tommy described as “knock off” Bora Bora huts. Although they were still nice, they were not as authentic and luxurious looking as the ones we have seen in magazines and on TV.  Within the first 5 minutes of our arrival we saw a baby sea turtle pop its head out of the water, a clear sign of a great day to come.  After exploring the island like the adventurer-ers we are, and nearly walking into a massive spider that looked to be extremely venomous (until I realized it was just Molly saying hello from Richmond), we settled down on two chaise lounges that only hotel guest were supposed to use.  Clearly we had no problem acting the part of hotel guests, and had no trouble using their facilities for the day.
Today was the day that we decided to FINALLY go snorkeling in the South Pacific, and boy was it worth it.  The coral was so vibrant in color, reflecting neon green, pink, blue, and purple, colors I have never seen before on a reef.  The fish were equally unique with their brilliant patterns and colors splashed across their bodies.  But the best part was the baby turtle Tommy spotted hidden beneath a reef.  Once we coaxed it out from its hiding place, we swam with the turtle for 5 minutes before heading to shore.  The only negative side to our snorkel escapade were the tiny jellies that continuously stung every inch of our bodies, some stings hurting hard enough to make me jerk and spasm under water.  It was worth the pain to see the incredible reef, but not the most enjoyable sensation!  After basking in the sun we took a nice walk around the island.  The high tide had receded leaving beautiful sand dollars washed up all along the beach.  If today was not fun enough, the boat ride heightened our excitement as we raced across the water so fast that we were flying off our seats.  The captain continuously had to check over his shoulder to make sure we were still onboard and had not flown off the side!

As most of us know, Tommy is a pretty funny guy, so it is no surprise that he says a couple things a day that has me on the floor laughing.  Today was no exception as he pointed out that he felt very much like Michael Segal, walking around with his Fred Segal canvas bag slung over his shoulder, making friends with everyone in our vicinity.  He said, “Mr. Segal would be very proud of me, showing New Caledonia a taste of Fred Segal.”  Then later, he randomly brought up Halloween and that instead of our families sending us candy they can send us sunscreen.  He thought this was such a brilliant idea, but I am pretty sure my family has never sent me candy to college for Halloween so I'm guessing Australia would be no different! 

TCC (Tommy Country Club)

SOARING SEEGS

Pulling into the port.

We are a special looking couple aren't we...

(Speed boat ride to island of Ilot Maitre)

Our best Sunset of the Trip!

So romantic...

10/1/11 – AT SEA

We were in group 1 for immigration clearance this morning, which was actually the best time to have, 8am.  Not only did we get to get it over with and go straight to breakfast right after, but right when we showed up for immigration I saw a humpback whale breach three times and splash its tail once out of the window behind the immigration officials.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time!  I have been hoping to see whales, and knew the only chance would be around Eden, Australia because of their migration patterns, so Tommy and I were thrilled and lucky to finally spot one this morning!  It was overcast and chilly today, which is exactly how we wanted it to be on packing day to keep us indoors un-regrettably.  This also led us to start ANOTHER puzzle.  We decided to do the map of Australia to help us learn the geography of the land and give us ideas of places to visit.  We were putting it together pretty fast when we were joined by an older Australian man from Melbourne.  This was a very lucky circumstance because he ended up helping us with the puzzle while telling us a story about each part of the map puzzle pieces he picked up.  Some of these stories gave Tommy quite a fright, such as the ones about the seawater crocodiles and great white sharks…  When the man left Tommy said he was going to stay in his apartment all day everyday to avoid the dangerous animals in Australia.  Not only did this man provide us with entertaining stories, but he was also damn hilarious!  Every situation he described ended in him saying that someone nearly sh*t their pants, and when we asked if he had ever dove or snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef he replied no that he did not swim but his wife snorkeled, but then corrected, “well she used to snorkel but she is bloody damn old now so she can’t do that anymore.”  Needless to say we were laughing for a good hour straight.

After my raving about New Caledonia in my blog yesterday and how great the island was, I have to follow it up today with the bites/stings all over my body.  I am not sure if it is a reaction to the tons of jellyfish stings I got in the water while snorkeling or some invisible mosquito that attacked me while I was lying in the sun, but I was clearly attacked by something!  Of course I was blessed with sweet skin, attracting every bee, plant, jellyfish, etc. to come taste and mark my skin, but Tommy was blessed with stinky skin and only has 2 stings/bites compared to my 50! 

Well Tommy and I just got back from a great dinner tonight.  Anne and Arthur, the couple who sit across from us, have been sharing a table with two totally obnoxious Australians for the entire cruise, and decided to spend their last three nights outside of the dining room to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with their dinner companions.  Because tonight is one of our last nights at sea, Anne and Arthur were so kind as to write us a nice letter and send a bottle of champagne to our table, what special people to do something like that!  We were so touched by this gesture, starting our dinner off on a great note.  At the end of our dinner, the ship had a ceremony parading the chefs who are behind the scenes making our meals every night.  When it ended, Tommy and I got up to leave the dining room, and as we were walking out I felt something tickling my foot.  I looked down to see something dragging off my sandal, hanging out from my pants, and was humiliated to see that it was a pair of my panties…  I know this is a bit awkward to mention on a blog, but how can I not share the humiliation of walking around with a pair of your underwear dragging off your leg!!!  Everyone knows the feelings of accidentally stepping on a piece of toilet paper and looking down to see it trailing it behind you, well this was SO much worse!  To say the least, I turned bright red as I noticed people staring at me as I bent down to examine what was the green lacey thing that was stuck to my sandal only to find out that it was not toilet paper or a napkin, but instead my underwear!  Tommy and I could not stop laughing for the five flights of stairs down to our room and decided that it was too funny not to share it with all you reading my blog!  Total humiliation, but a great laugh.

I just reopened my computer to add to tonight’s blog after making a call to the front desk.  You are probably wondering what could be so important to call the front desk and then feel the need to blog about it.  Well…we currently have ocean water streaming into our room through our window.  You think this is an old ship?  YES!  I am 100% sure that the Volendam is in need of some big repairs; our window is so old that it has cracks in it allowing the huge waves crashing over our windows to leak through.  Tonight may be a bit restless because their solution to this problem was to put a small towel on our window, which we quickly added two more big ones too once they left.  I hope we do not wake up soaking wet!

10/2/11 – AT SEA

Today is our last sea day!  It is hard to believe that the cruise has flown by so quickly, but we are eager to get to Australia, especially Tommy who has never been there before.  Tomorrow we will arrive in Eden, Australia and the following day we get off the ship in Sydney.  The weather has turned a bit chilly, staying in the 60s these past few days as we arrive into Australia’s spring season.  I have been told though by some contacts I have in Sydney that it is quite warm there right now, so I am hoping to sail into a beautiful day in Sydney harbor. 

Tommy and I just completed our map of Australia puzzle, marking the end of our sea day puzzle days! 

We had really rough seas today, making it hard to walk straight without running into somebody or the wall.  The pool was hitting the wall and shooting up reminiscent of a blowhole.  In our room the waves crashed over our window, adding to the water leaking in through our window.  Our sealed towels had to be continuously changed as they were soaked through by the ocean water… totally normal to have to worry about water coming into your room right?  I was not surprised when the captain came over the speaker system this evening to announce that the swells were so big causing us to be extremely delayed to Eden and in fact the ocean in Eden was also very rough so we would not be able to dock or even tender in.  Tommy and I were expecting either an extra sea day or alternative port, but were pleasantly surprised to hear that we would be arriving in Sydney a day early!  At 8am tomorrow morning we will dock at Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia!  Our Aussie adventure is starting a day early to our great excitement!  AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OY OY OY!