After a rock and roll night we woke today (Sat, 3 Feb) to a smooth approach to the island of American Samoa. At sunrise the weather was raining, hot and humid. I managed to get shots of a rainbow that formed astern and made a panorama (attached) but the shots were not all from the same point so you will find flaws in the matching areas of the multiple photos. Almost did not get the shots because as soon as I walked outside from the air conditioned ship the lens completely fogged up. One of the travel photographer’s banes: humidity making fog when the camera quickly moves from one type of weather to another. I’m glad now that I took lens cleaning fluid and pads along with me as taking any small dust off the UV filter on the lens helps to keep the moisture off as it has nothing to “cling” to.
By the time we got to the entrance to the Pago Pago (pronounced Pahngo Pahngo) harbor the sky cleared of the rain and I shot another panorama of the harbor (attached).
The first thing you notice when you look around is the number of churches you see. Seems like every block there is another and every denomination is represented. It’s quite amazing and the building designs range from the classical cathedral shapes to simple open-air buildings with nothing more than a cross or name on them.
The excursion I picked traveled to the east end of the island (the other went to the west end) and returned. We passed many interesting sights (and more churches) and stopped a few times for photos. The bus was small and open-air so we liked it when the driver continued to move as things got hot and sticky fast when the bus was standing still. The no-window aspect helped when taking shots out of the window but the trees and electrical poles did now and again get in the way. I counted 450 photos taken today with 118 of them worth considering for further editing.
Samoa is also the home of “Charlie” the tuna. This is where most of the StarKist tuna is caught and processed. If you’ve eaten from a can of this tuna it probably came from Samoa. Our ship was at the wharf just across the harbor from the tuna processing plants. I’ve also attached a photo from the bus of the ship waiting for us.
One of our stops was at Two Dollar Beach. Not certain why it was called that but the beer was $5 at the bar. 🙂
We left about 4:30pm and are now headed for Suva, Fiji. We’ll pass the International Date Line tomorrow and move from Sunday directly to Tuesday, skipping Monday. Then, as we travel west we’ll continue to periodically turn the clock back an hour here and there so that by the time we get back to Los Angeles the time on the watch I’m wearing should equal the watch on the desk in my cabin. If it doesn’t there will be a real mystery to solve!
More later.