Pirate Party

Our boat, under construction in Nick's front yard.

 Last week an email came through the Dissociates mailing list saying that Saturday was a special occasion. In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, a Pirate Party was going to be held out on Coconut Point. This wasn't going to be a stand around and drink in costume affair, it's one where you were expected to show up and build a boat to sail around Coconut point to an island in the neighboring lagoon and back. Not to be denied the opportunity to build a watercraft and paddle it around, I showed up at my friend Nick's house early and we began constructing our vessel. We bagged two of the Coast Guard kayaks and lashed them together, we built platforms for sitting on out of surf boards and an old shipping pallet and soon were ready to roll. We hoped to have time to build a mast for a sail or a coconut launcher for boarding actions, but ran out of nails prior to either of those ideas coming to life. We did manage to construct a solid raft that eliminated the play that I worried would doom any on the water momentum.

The crew getting ready to undertake our voyage.

Next we recruited a crew. Picking up two able-bodied men, Jorge and Zach to man the paddles. With our compliment of sailors in place we set about getting our boat in the water. Carrying the boat down to the launch point we were still a little concerned about the stability, but we tightened up our lashings and got the SS Sea Bitch on the water and provisioned ourselves for the voyage. Jorge had the foresight to bring a large patio umbrella to the party. We skeptically added that to the boat's supplies. With as brezzy it was that afternoon, I didn't believe that we'd be able to open it or hold on to it when open, but we had the room, so what the hell.

Jorge paddling.

Our first leg of the voyage we were moving perpendicular to the wind heading eastward along the shore of Coconut point. The current was with us and we made good time and even managed to enjoy a beer while we made our way to the end of the Point and our turn northwards into the Pala Lagoon. The boat paddled smoothly and we ended up passing a few of the kayakers who showed up to witness the spectacle. Once we got the boat turned to the north, we decided it was time to try and use the umbrella as a sail. I stowed my paddled and pulled out the massive wooden umbrella and set about opening it up.

Our umbrella sail in action. 

With the sail unferruled we quickly caught the wind and plunged towards our next destination, Coconut Island in the Pala Lagoon. It's a tiny clump of dirt in the middle of stagnant lagoon. It's defining feature is a single palm tree that is struggling to hold onto one edge of the island. Sara's previously kayaked out to it, but made the mistake of going at low tide, so the approach to the island was through knee deep mud, dragging the kayak behind. Thankfully, this voyage was at high tide and it was smooth sailing the whole way in. Turns out our home-made catamaran was an excellent downwind sailing ship. We flew towards the island with little more than a some rudder work by Jorge in the rear of the boat.

Party on Coconut Island. 

 Once we reach out destination it was time to tie up and enjoy some grog in true pirate fashion. We passed around beers from our cooler and relaxed on the tiny piece of land in the middle of the Pala. We waited for the fleet of kayakers and aspiring pirates to float their way in to the island. Slowly, the armada started pulling up to the island and tying onto our boat. Which may not have been the best idea, as we were only tied onto an inch in diameter branch on a dessicated little shrub.

Having some refreshment on the deck of our boat.

The other pirates paddle their way in.

Nick enjoying a Corona.

The after party.

Eventually most of the other people on the water made their way to the little island. As land to stand on started to be at a premium, some of us resorted to hanging out and watching the sunset from our boats. The sun started to dip its way past the horizon, but we still had a few stragglers left to make it to the island.

The last boat in was optimistically built out of a solar panel with an electric motor attached. The cloud cover and the lateness in the day conspired to force them to paddle the whole way. They made it to the Island with the pirate flag flying and half a bottle of rum. Excellent work on their part.


















The next leg in the journey was to get back to Coconut point. We launched from Coconut Island and tried out our umbrella sail, this time running east, perpendicular to the wind. Turns out our little catamaran tracks well without a dagger board. We were able to catch the wind and track true going across the wind. This made our trip back to Coconut point an easy stroll compared to the rest of the fleet that was stuck paddling their way back through the early evening light.

Once we were back to land, we broke down our boats and carried them back to the yards we got the parts from. To finish off the evening we had Tutuila's most popular cover band, Three Leg Dog playing on a balcony and enjoyed some beers at Kelly and Alden's place at Coconut Point. Piracy won this event.

Super Bowl

Just like on the mainland, Sunday was set aside for the Super Bowl. The Coast Guard Lieutenant hosted a barbecue at his house for the game. He rotisseried two pigs (that had been hanging out the previous day) and otherwise welcomed us for general revelry. We'd hoped to spend the day outside and watch the game with the benefit of a friend's projector, but the rain and wind conspired to keep us bottled by in the apartment.

After a half of jockeying for position to see the game, Sara and I bumped over to some friends of ours who were neighbors and opted to watch the rest of the game in the comfort of the couch.

One abnormality is that none of the TV station we receive in American Samoa have commercial access to the Super Bowl feed. Instead they mooch off the military feed for the game. This is great except for one unanticipated aspect: we don't get the commercials. The military feed has a number of military specific public service announcements in place of the commercials, think "loose lips sink ships" and the ilk. These are not allowed to be shown on civilian broadcasts, so instead American Samoa gets video feed from various churches during the commercial breaks. This seems to be the best alternative the broadcasters on the island could come up with.

As a person that does not go to church, this is a nice reminder as to why I prefer to spend my Sunday doing outdoor activities. Every image that is shown from these churches is people falling asleep in the pews or looking deathly bored. There's occasionally shots of the priest or preacher talking, but no sound comes through and they usually quickly pan to people dressed up in their finest outfits, sweating their way through Sunday. It's truly a testament to how much sway the churches hold here, that the local population all go to church and spend their Sundays looking insanely bored.

Glad I only have to experience during commercial breaks during the Super Bowl. But it also means I need to waste time later in the evening tracking down the commercials online.

Australia Day

We got a fully down-under accented email yesterday:

"Stone the f*%kin crows mate - it's australya day tomorra an we're gunna av a do at our place to celebrate. Yous guys are all invited so don ya thongs and ya green an gold clobber an rock up ere round 7 for tucker. We'll chuck some rissoles on the barbie (not bloody shrimps!) an will ave all the trimmings wif good ol lammos and pav for afters. Alls ya need to bring is yourselfs and some stubbies o piss or longneck coldies of amber nectar (or some plonk!) for drinkin' an we'll ave an esky wif ice. Aw yeah, and if yas are one of those vedgie types and meat just ain't ya thing, ya might wanna bring somefin else for ya burger.

See yas tomorra ya flamin galahs.

Hooroo,"

Who can say no to a celebration of Australia Day. The day commemorating when the British settlers of a penal colony first sailed the majority of their fleet into Sydney Cove after giving up on settling Botany Bay. Just as inspirational as the signing of the declaration of independence, if you nation was a commonwealth nation consisting of six self governing colonies and other territories that federated together into a parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the head of state of Britain. Bureaucratic negotiations totally trump a revolution.

Not to be one to deny an excuse to get together an celebrate, I eagerly agreed to participate. After a post-work paddle in the harbor that took us past the iconic Fatu ma Futi, I rinsed up at the pool showers at the Sadie's by the Sea Hotel and headed over to Coconut Point for the Australia Day celebration.

This mostly consisted of hanging out on Aussie Ben and Sarah's front porch, which Sara and I have written about a few times before. This time it was spiced up with burgers (and veggie burgers) with authentic Australian toppings like beet root, pineapple and american cheese. We also had it explained to us that Australians don't say "shrimp," those are called "prawns," thus the saying "throw another shrimp on the barbee" has been ruined for me.

That said, nothing's more Australian than a barbecue in January. Sara wasn't feeling well, so she missed out on the evening. Luckily I was able to bring her some of the traditional "lammos" and "pav," a.k.a Lamington and Pavlova. Those will help you get over anything that vexes you.

Soccer

American Samoa takes its sports seriously. The sports most people focus on are football, volleyball, rugby and cricket. So it was big news when AmSam's "National" soccer team won their first game this week: http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/Worst-ranked-American-Samoa-win-first-ever-FIFA-?urn=sow-wp6950

We'll see if the sport takes off here.