PAGO PAGO, AMERICAN SAMOA

Our tour bus, with its decoration of fresh flowers

Our tour guides, who are young students

Pago Pago, another island in the beautiful South Pacific, or as I saw on one man’s T-shirt – “Where the hell is Pago Pago”!

The Samoan group of islands lies in the centre of the South Pacific surrounded by Tokelau, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji and the Ellice Islands. Since 1899 they have been divided into the now independent nation of Western Samoa with nine islands, and American Samoa with seven islands. Tutuila is the largest island on the American side being one third the size of the Isle of Wight and Pago Pago is the capital.

Pago Pago is pronounced Pango Pango, because the early missionaries didn’t have a letter N in their printing set, so had to print the name Pago Pago.

The islands are not blessed with very many beaches, and there are sharks in open water, so swimming was not an option for us!  We took an organised tour in what are the island’s normal buses, which are always decorated in fresh flowers!  We were told there was one bus with a grass skirt around it, but unfortunately we didn’t see that one!

Pago Pago gets some 200 inches (508 cm) of rain a year, and we certainly experienced a bit of it while on tour.  However it doesn’t last long, and we soon dried out.

We had to be back on the ship for a 1530 departure to make our way to New Caledonia and our stop at Noumea and that tropical cyclone.

THE DAY THAT NEVER WAS!

We went to bed as usual on Monday night 21^st February, GMT -13 and when we woke up Tuesday had disappeared completely and we were GMT +13 on the 23^rd!  We also have to put the clocks back another hour tonight so we will then be GMT +12.