Tales of Old Samoa - The Diver and the Shark

    My only venture into free-diving 60 feet deep was when we were living on the island of Aunu'u, in American Samoa One weekend the Pago Pago Dive Club chartered a small boat to bring them out to "my" island. They tied up to the Aunu'u mooring buoy just offshore.
     I brought my mask, fins, and snorkel down to the beach to join them. Most of the club members had SCUBA gear, and soon they were splashing by ones and twos over the side of the motor launch "FiaFia". Within minutes several divers surfaced with remarks that they'd spotted black coral about 60 feet down off the edge of the reef.
     From the surface I could spot far below the black smudge that they were talking about. I was determined to get some for myself.  I floated quietly, face down, breathing through my snorkel and hyperventilating for almost a minute. Putting my head down, I kicked for the bottom. I could feel the pressure compressing my chest and lungs. The negative buoyancy slightly accelerated my descent as I glided down.
     I planted my feet on the sandy bottom, 60 feet from the surface, grasped the black coral firmly, and pulled hard. It wiggled a bit.
     I twisted it, hoping to separate it from its base. It yielded only slightly.
     I was beginning to feel the carbon dioxide building in my bloodstream, urging me to breath.  Releasing my grip, I headed leisurely toward the surface.
     Floating face down on the gentle waves, breathing again through my snorkel, I could heard admiring remarks from those with SCUBA gear, pointing out to others, "Hey! Did you see Hastings diving? He went all the way to the bottom out here!"
    After a few minutes of recovery, I drew extra deep breaths again, getting ready to head down. I was determined to surface with that piece of black coral. Kicking hard, I raced straight down. I leveled out two feet from the bottom, and found myself staring head on at the face of a large shark not more than three feet away!

    All thoughts of black coral vanished as I planted a foot on the bottom, pushed hard, and took off toward the distant surface as fast as my fins could propel me. I shot halfway out of the water like a Polaris missile, spitting out my mouthpiece and yelling "SHARK"!!!!!!
     To my amazement and consternation, as I took a deep breath I realized that my friends, my fellow divers, were all laughing! I was miffed!
     "There's a large shark down there!" I repeated, thinking that perhaps they hadn't heard my warning.
     "We watched the whole thing!", someone replied.
     "We saw the shark at just about the same moment that you headed for the bottom. There was no way we could warn you! You were heading straight down, and the shark was swimming along the bottom. It looked like you were going to collide with each other.
      You leveled out and stopped suddenly. The shark saw you and stopped just as abruptly. You both froze, staring at each other for about two seconds, and then you both flipped around and shot off in opposite directions!
     If we could have heard shark-frequencies and understood shark-talk, that big fellow was probably screaming "PALAGI!!! I'm being chased by a palagi!!!"

Another tale of old Samoa - Pago Pago i le Po - Pago Pago Harbor at Night

Tropical Night Magic

      The perfume of night-blooming jasmine slipped through the corroded copper wire window screens of the house by the bay. Its sweet aroma almost masked the combined stink of sour mud and fish oil wafting across from the cannery less than half a mile away across the water.
      Perched several feet in the air on sturdy posts, the house had a rocky front yard just six feet wide, ending suddenly at a stone wall that dropped a few feet to the waters of the harbor at Pago Pago. The kitchen window faced away from the bay, only inches from the paved road that skirted the deep, L-shaped harbor.

      Directly across the road stood an old two story building known in the 1960's as the Max Haleck General Store. Many years earlier it had been the Haleck Hotel. Somerset Maugham had tarried there for several days, watching torrents of water sheeting down from low-hanging clouds, inspiring him to write a tropical tale of Sadie Thompson and rain.
The night was warm and humid. Unlike the stifling hot summer nights of a big city, soft tropical breezes flowed into the harbor from the southeast tradewinds of the open ocean, gently caressing moist skin.
      Lights from across the across the bay bounced shimmering reflections through the open front of the house, dancing across the ceiling of the darkened living room. Just outside the door on the side of the house, standing in the small grassy yard, I could watch a slow-moving light soaring away from the low hill on the side of the bay, gaining altitude as it hummed along a thick steel cable. The small hanging gondola swayed slightly from side to side as it began the steep caternary swoop toward the towering black wall of Mount Alava and its red-winking transmitter tower. From that high point TV programs beamed out across the island of Tutuila and over the 75 miles of open ocean to the islands of Ofu, Olosega, and Ta'u, a day's journey by boat toward the east.

      Retrieving a long, pointed Samoan paddle from under the low steps where I had stashed it, I stepped barefoot across the rocks. Reaching under the house, I grabbed the curved bow of my paopao, a fourteen foot long outrigger canoe. I lowered myself over the edge of the stone wall into the shallow water of the bay, moving cautiously in my flip-flops so that I wouldn't cut my feet on the jagged oyster shells that covered the bottom. A quick tug, and the narrow wooden canoe slapped down onto the water.
      Hewn from a single log, the paopao hull was perhaps a foot and a half deep, but too narrow to sit inside. A short board set atop the gunwales served as a seat. I dipped the paddle into the water, and found the shallow bottom just a few inches below. A couple of shoves with the tip of the paddle sent the canoe gliding out across the coral shoal and into deeper water.

      I paddled along the waterfront past the boat shed and the main dock where freighters unloaded goods and occasional cruise liners disgorged hoards of silver-haired tourists intent on bargaining for carved wood souvenirs and shell leis in the few hours ashore before heading off again toward some other south seas port. The lights from the government housing along Centipede Row cast sparkling paths across the black water. Passing the oil dock, I could smell a pungent mixture of diesel oil mingled with the sweet smell of the blossoms of the pua trees that grew on the grounds of the Rainmaker Hotel.

      Looking south, away from the lights of Fagatogo on this moonless night, I could see the black silhouette of Rainmaker Mountain against a brilliant background of thousands of stars and the faint double smudge of the Magellanic Clouds. The five stars of the Southern Cross pointed toward the mouth of the harbor and the ocean beyond.
As I turned again, I could feel the long ocean swells raising, then lowering me, gently urging me back the way I had come. I glided along the eastern side of the bay, skimming the surface of the smooth ink-black waters.

      The tip of the outrigger began to glow with a faint eery blue-green light. It pulsed each time the paopao surged forward, suddenly leaping around the paddle with each stroke. Now it brightened, sparkling like thousands of bright watery stars, swirling galaxies of light suddenly flashing into being and fading away in the glowing wake.
The phosphorescence stayed with me for most of the return trip, escorting me back to my starting point, leaving me with a lingering sense of connection with the whole Universe.

Tales of Samoa -O le afa o tausaga 1966 - The 1966 Typhoon in American Samoa

The 1966 Typhoon in American Samoa

The wind made a soft whistling sound as it slipped through the wire screens. The sound was always there, along with the constant background booming of the surf crashing on the edge of the reef just a hundred yards from my back door.

The salt spray, carried in the south east trade winds, coated the copper wire screens that faced the ocean, turning them green by the day after they were first put on the house.

The moist breeze carried the smell of the sea and salt through the open rooms, leaving a crystalline layer of salt on wooden walls, and left the woven floor mats, the cushions on the furniture, and even the sheets on the bed always feeling slightly damp.

We had lived in the new principal’s house on the school grounds of Aunu’ufou School since September of 1965. It was a wonderful blend of North American and South Pacific architecture. Four-by-four posts evenly spaced around the outside of the house held up a low pitched roof that was covered with heavy cedar shakes. The 30’ X 30’ concrete slab floor, covered with woven pandanus mats, made a cool surface in a hot, humid climate. Breezes from any direction could flow through the openings all the way around the house, which had no exterior walls. The breeze could be moderated and blowing rain stopped by pulling up heavy canvas curtains that were attached with grommets to sail tracks on the sides of the supporting posts. Inside there was a 10’ X 30’ living room on one side, three 10’ X10’ bedrooms on the opposite side, and an island in the center that was divided into a long narrow kitchen, a small bathroom, and a utility closet. A wall mounted ladder next to the door of the kitchen ascended to a small open loft.

On our bookcase near one of the living room windows was a single-sideband radio, our only two-way connection with the rest of the world from the little mile-wide island of Aunu’u. Some men on the island made the early morning trip to work before sunrise each day, rowing in longboats across the narrow channel between Aunu’u and the main island of Tutuila, but as school principal I lived at my work place. Whenever we needed school supplies, or food for the cafeteria, had mechanical problems with the pump that supplied the only running water on the island, or wanted groceries from the Burns-Phillp Store in Fagatogo, the single-sideband radio was the means to communicate our needs.

Squeezing the hand-held microphone and holding it close to your mouth you’d call, “Pago Radio, Pago Radio, Pago Radio! This is Aunu’u, OVER!” and wait for the reply, "Aunu’u, this is Pago Radio, OVER”, and the conversation would begin. Most often we would need a phone-patch, which simply meant that the radio operator in Pago Pago would dial the telephone number of the Department of Education, the Department of Public Works, the Burns-Phillp Store, or anyone else who actually HAD a telephone. Telephone conversations required the active participation of the radio operator, since he had to switch the telephone connection from broadcast to receive each time the party on the opposite end had finished talking. We got in the habit of ending each sentence with “OVER!” and pausing long enough for the switching to take place.

The single-sideband radio also acted as an open party-line, connecting us 24 hours a day to all of the other isolated schools whose only communication was via radio. In the mid-1960’s when there was only a single, mostly unpaved road only along the southern shore of Tutuila, a few very bad, very slippery, often dangerous roads led zigzagging over steep mountain slopes to villages on the north shore, and some villages were accessible only by boat. Schools at Aoloau, Nu’uuli, Vatia, Masefau, Aoa, Tula, and even Swain’s Island 200 miles to the north all kept in touch with each other via the single-sideband radio.

Our first Christmas 14 degrees south of the Equator on a one-mile-wide island in American Samoa had come and gone. Christmas in the tropics was different than it had been in California. Granted, California has mild winters and doesn’t fit the Christmas stereotype of snow-covered roofs and roasting chestnuts, but in Samoa it was steamy! We were south of the Equator where summer begins on December 21 and winter begins on June 21, but Samoa is close enough to the Equator that it makes little difference, except that the normally steady southeast trade winds often die out completely, leaving temperatures in the upper eighties and humidity in the nineties.

We had drawn the outline of a Christmas tree on brown butcher paper, and cut out pictures of ornaments and toys out of a Sears Roebuck catalogue to paste on the paper in lieu of real decorations, but of course that magic smell of evergreen boughs was not there, replaced by the fetid scent of the nearby flooded taro patches, with overtones of sulfur dioxide. We’d sung Christmas carols, read the nativity story, wished friends and neighbors “Manuia le Kirisimasi ma le Tausaga Fou!” (a healthy Christmas and New Year), and we opened presents, but somehow it just wasn’t the same.

January had brought little relief from the heat and humidity. The cooling trade winds had not yet returned. Hordes of mosquitoes, normally blown downwind away from the house and school by the sea breeze now hovered in swirling clouds around the window screens, many finding their way into the house each time a door was opened. Those that found their way in were most annoying at night, when they would hover with high-pitched whining wings only inches away from sleepy ears. An energetic dance performed by men is Samoa is called the “fa’ataupati” or slap-dance (you can click on fa'ataupati to view it, and then come back to finish the story). It is said that it was originally meant to depict the actions of dealing with swarms of hungry mosquitoes. That is wholly believable!

Thursday, February 10th was pleasant. The breeze was once again blowing off the ocean, making the day seem a bit cooler. It did seem unusual that the wind was blowing more from the west than from its almost constant southeast direction. Long, streaky looking clouds scurried across the sky, constantly dimming and brightening the sunlight.

Our first hint of impending trouble was in the early afternoon, when we heard a voice half garbled with static on the single-sideband radio. It was the school principal on Swains Island, two hundred miles to the north, calling via Pago Radio with the information that conditions had been deteriorating there all day. The wind velocity had been picking up all morning, and at high tide the surf was actually washing into the edges of the vegetation at the top of the steep coral sand beach on the western side of the island where the school was located. This was startling, since it was a first quarter moon, a time in the lunar cycle when tide levels experience far less change than at full moon or new moon. The principal said that he had dismissed school early and sent all the children home to help their parents get ready for the storm that was coming.

By late afternoon the sky over Aunu’u was dark, with chunky looking low hanging clouds scudding rapidly from horizon to horizon. When I walked the half mile down the path to the village and boat landing I noticed that the surf was up here too. As the longboats came in carrying the men from work on the nearby island of Tutuila, they had to pause just beyond the waves that were breaking where there was normally no surf to contend with, timing their approach to the beach to come between the wave sets. They jumped quickly overboard into shallow water as the bow of each boat touched the sand, and hurried up the beach to grab the lago, slippery sections of wood that they placed at intervals up the slope. Every available person scrambled to grab sides of the heavy wooden longboats, sliding them much farther away from the water’s edge than usual.

Then they did something that I had never seen done before. Each longboat was cumbrously manhandled and rolled upside down and left on the flat ground high above the beach. I asked what was going on, and was told that there was a big storm coming, an afa … a hurricane. They could read the warnings of wind direction, of cloud shapes and speed, could take heed of the unusual number of frigate birds heading away from their normal ocean patrols toward the land.

As I headed back home I could see much scurrying about in the village. Teenage boys and young men were hitching themselves up the trunks of coconut trees, machetes in hand, and hacking off large numbers of whole coconut fronds. As the long sections fell to the ground they were immediately gathered by younger children, and one at a time dragged toward the scattered fales, the open-sided thatched roof houses. There the adults were busy setting the heavy coconut fronds on end, side by side, all the way around each house, and binding the branches to the fale, girdling the entire house with sennit, the thin strong rope made of braided coconut-fiber strands.

The single-sideband was full of chatter back and forth between the various school stations now, and the Swains Island principal came back on the air about 6:00 p.m., saying in a slightly shaky voice that he was going to sign off the air now, and would not be back on again, since the waves were now beginning to crash against the outside walls of the flimsy building he was in!
Everyone else there had already left the tiny village to make their way cautiously toward the old Victorian style house “Etena” on the lee side of the island, through coconut groves where gale force winds were knocking off coconuts at an alarming rate. Getting hit by one of these would cause serious injury if not death.

The weather was deteriorating rapidly, and there was little we could do by way of preparation. I pulled all of the canvas curtains up on their sail tracks to the tops of each opening, and tied them securely. There was still a gap at each edge almost an inch wide, and it had begun to rain. The strong wind was sending raindrops right on through the cracks at the edges of the curtains, straight into the living room.

We moved all of the furniture to the far side of the room away from the openings, and turned the heavy bookcase against the wall to protect the books. Soon the power went off, and with it our radio connection to the outside world. We lit a kerosene lantern, put our three year old son Mark to bed in his bedroom on the side of the house away from the wind, and went to bed ourselves. That was the start of one of the longest nights in my life.

We lay there in the dark, listening to the developing storm. It is true that the wind sounds similar to an approaching freight train. A distant roaring sound with deep rumbling noises underneath grew louder and louder as it approached. The air around the house was still, but the sound was still growing in intensity, louder and louder until you were certain that any second the entire house would be hit. Instead, the entrained gust went howling past, near, but leaving only gentle swirling eddies to puff around the house.

Over and over the pattern would repeat, terrifying in each approach, sometimes passing on one side of the spot where we huddled, sometimes on the other, sometimes scoring a direct strike, grabbing and shaking the walls until we were certain that we were seconds away from being crushed under collapsing roof timbers. The whole house would shudder and tremble, and Mark woke up in his room calling, “Daddy, it’s raining in my bedroom!” We rushed to snatch him out of harm’s way, bringing him into our room which had the distinction of having solid walls on three sides instead of only two, as the other bedrooms did.

About the time the storm reached its peak around three in the morning on Saturday, there was a loud bang and a tearing noise, followed by violent flapping and crashing. I went cautiously toward the sound, coming from the living room, and found that the force of the wind against the strong canvas curtains had pulled the screws holding the sail track right out of the wood posts, and the sail, with heavy wood battens at top and bottom was standing out almost straight from the opening, flapping wickedly in the hurricane wind. I grabbed a hammer, some 16 penny nails, and a couple of boards from the utility closet and like Don Quixote charging the windmill, marched in to challenge the beast.

I put a single nail through one end of a board, nailing it to the post on one side of the opening. Rotating it, I moved it across the flapping canvas to nail the other end to the opposite post. At that point another violent rush of wind hit the house, and boards and I were sent tumbling to the floor halfway across the room. Charging back into the battle, I managed during a brief lull to get two planks nailed across the canvas, bringing it more or less back into position.

To add to the stress of that night Jan, who was eight and a half months pregnant, began to have contractions! I was certain that I’d have to deliver a baby during the height of the storm. Fortunately they were false labor pains, perhaps heightened by the tension of the storm, and faded away with the coming of morning.

The first light of dawn found us exhausted and groggy from lack of sleep. As we opened the door to explore the rest of the house we found in the back hallway books from the case that had been turned against the wall on the other side of the house. What violence of turbulence had managed to extract them from their shelter and fling them around several corners I couldn’t imagine. We later learned that the wind vane at the weather station on Tutuila had registered speeds of up to 120 before it snapped off its pole. By today’s standards the 1966 typhoon would have been classified as a Force 4, and maybe even a Force 5.

I used my pre-video 16mm movie camera a little later that morning to film the violent surf just outside the house, trees still whipping around in the strong winds, and damaged and collapsed houses in the village.


It was another couple of days before a motor launch was able to make its way through still rough seas to the island to find out if we were still alive. Very seasick friends helped Jan and Mark aboard the launch for the trip back to Pago Pago, and I stayed behind to help with cleanup in the village and at the school. The next day storm driven swells sent monster waves across the reef with such force that surged over the low places in the sand dune that separated the house and school from the ocean. Churning torrents of salt water swirled a foot deep around the foundations of the school buildings, threatening to undermine them, and children and adults from the village came to pile chunks of coral rock to break the force of the waves.

It was several days before I could join the rest of the family, and another 39 days before my daughter Lynne was born in the old Navy hospital in Utulei. Samoan friends, following the tradition of naming children after significant events near the birthday, suggested that perhaps we should have named her “Afa”!

Tales of Samoa - o moa i le sami - Chicken in the Sea

o moa i le sami - Chickens in the Ocean
o se tala moni: A True Story - High Surf, Frozen Chickens, and a Rescue

...sometime long ago, perhaps 1966

One of the more unusual jobs as principal on the small Samoan island of Aunu'u was making certain that all school supplies, including lesson plans, television sets, light bulbs, writing paper, pencils, cooking utensils for the kitchen, and of course food for the cafeteria arrived at the school promptly. The list may seem rather prosaic until the location of the school is taken into account.

There were two ways to get to Aunu'u. You could go to the open air market in Fagatogo in the afternoon when all the village aiga busses were there, and either by asking around for the bus to the village of Auasi, or if an experienced commuter, going directly to the correct bus. Clambering up the welded-on back steps, you'd pick your way up the center aisle between the two parallel wooden benches that stretched the length of the converted truck body, ducking your head to keep from banging it on the low supports for the plywood ceiling, and murmuring "tulou, excuse me, tulou" as you stepped in front of people, over bare feet, trussed chickens, and aiga baskets filled with green bananas, taro, breadfruit, and sometimes canned goods.

The driver - in our case a perpetually cheerful man with only one good eye - would engage the gear with a clash and a roar, and head out, usually with several people in pursuit, running to grab hold of the back and swing aboard at the last opportunity before the bus made a right turn past Nia Marie's Grocery, Haleck's Store, and gathering speed, rushed on down the road past the Burns-Philp store toward Pago Pago at the end of the bay.

The paved road toward the village of Auasi wound around the bay past the Van Camp and StarKist tuna canneries at Atu'u, past Aua, and up over a small rise and around the corner that marked the mouth of Pago Pago Harbor. The south-east trade winds would pick up a bit as we skirted the south shore of the island of Tutuila eastward past Lauli'i and Alega.

The paved road ended at the village of Faga'itua, and the coral gravel washboard climbed sharply for several hundred feet as it rounded the east end of Faga'itua Bay, narrowing to just barely bus-width. The waves broke directly on the rocks below, unimpeded by fringing coral reef at this point, and on days when there was not much wind each swell would build as it approached the shore, curving up and over and seeming to slow its motion just before curling over, opening a momentary crystal clear window into the ocean through which you could catch glimpses of fish swimming along, unaware of the world of air.

Lurching sharply back down and around a few more corners, the bus would stop at the village of Auasi long enough to unload before heading on to Tula at the eastern end of the island. Three or four longboats, their construction unchanged since they were first copied from the designs of 19th century whaling boats, would be tethered to coral heads in the shallow still water just off the beach.

Soon sets of long oars would begin to appear from the houses just up the hill from the road where they had been stored since morning, and the men carrying them would wade into the water, shipping them in the oarlocks, four on each side. In addition to the eight rowers the steersman would man the fa'auli, the long steering oar at the stern of each boat.

Meanwhile, everyone else would be hitching up skirts and lavalavas, wading to the long boats with baskets and burdens and scrambling over the gunwales to find seats between the rowers, or if a bit late, on top of someone else. Often the gently bobbing longboats would sink lower and lower under the increasing loads until there was not much more than a three or four inches of freeboard along the sides.

One by one the longboats would be untied. The rowers would cautiously maneuver the craft to align with the 'ava, or break in the coral reef, and then with short choppy movements backstroke, keeping the boat stationary in the outflowing current. The steersman perched in the stern, keeping a careful watch on the patterns of incoming breaking waves would determine that the time was right, and with a loud "hey-yo!" all eight rowers would bend their backs in unison and pull on the oars with long, powerful strokes, rapidly accelerating the longboat into the riffling current of the cut in the reef, racing to get out far enough to climb the steepening slope of the next incoming wave before it crested.

As the bow cleared the crest it would flop down the backside of the wave with a splash, often sending cascades of water over the edges into the boat. Often there was a carved wooden bailer or a plastic jug with the bottom cut out to get the incoming water back out, but frequently the seawater was ejected by many cupped hands, all splashing the water back out of the boat.

Once past the line of breakers, the mile and a quarter trip across the channel to the island of Aunu'u was uneventful. The landing on the beach on the opposite side was rarely as exciting, since it was on the more sheltered lee side of the island. The oars were shipped, people jumped out in to the shallow water, unloaded their belongings, and a number of small wooden logs, or lago were laid out on the sand leading up the beach to higher ground above the high tide line. Everyone would grab the sides of the longboat, and with a series of united heaves, slide the heavy wooden boats up to safety.

The OTHER way to get to Aunu'u was on the supply boat, dispatched once a week,, if the weather was good out of Pago Pago harbor, about eight miles away. This was the usual route for all supplies coming to Aunu'ufou School.


Our communication with the Department of Education and the rest of the world was through a single-sideband radio kept on all the time, sitting on top of a low bookcase in the living room of the principal's house. Orders could be called in through "Pago Radio", the communications center, and several week's supplies of groceries could be ordered via telephone patch to Sid Hill, the manager at Burns-Philp General Store. Some other merchants would also take orders for groceries over the radio, but Sid at B.P.’s was very reliable at getting the orders put in cardboard boxes and taken down to the boat shed in Pago Pago early in the morning on days the weekly supply boat was scheduled to run.

The normal supply boat schedule called for delivery of supplies to Aunu'u and then around the eastern tip of Tutuila to bring supplies to the isolated north shore villages of Aoa, Masefau, Afono, and Vatia, weather permitting. That last was significant, since neither boat used to deliver supplies was particularly seaworthy in rough weather.

The first boat "Fiafia" was a low slung diesel powered launch about 40 feet long. Many times it would start out from the mouth of the harbor, only to run into seas too large for it to handle, and turn back to safety. Soon after I would get a call on the single-sideband advising that the supply run for the day had been cancelled, and that they'd try again the next day.

Slightly more seaworthy but considerably more ungainly was an ancient and decrepit World War II era LCM or twin-diesel engine landing craft. The drop gate at the front had long since ceased to be functional, but it could venture out of the harbor when the smaller "Fiafia" could not.

I would leave the school office around 10:00 a.m. on supply boat day and walk the hundred yards or so to the top of a pile of coral gravel that made a low ridge just above the beach next to the school. Squinting into the sunglint off the water I could usually spot the supply boat coming a good half hour before its arrival at the mooring buoy just off the Aunu'u landing.

On sighting the Fiafia or the LCM I would head over to the 7th-8th grade classroom to inform the teacher/assistant principal Petero Savai'inaea that the boat was on the way. Instruction would stop at that point, and the students, teacher, and I would leave the school for the quarter mile walk through the banana plantation and along the narrow paths through the taro swamp to the boat landing. Most often, about the time we arrived the supply boat was idling just offshore.

The boys in the class along with the teacher would slide a longboat on the slippery lago logs down across the beach into the water and without delay row out to the waiting supply boat. Everything was loaded into the lighter, rowed back through the small surf to the beach, and carried up the slope. The longboat was dragged back up and propped in place, and then the long trek back to the school began.

Each student or adult would pick up a box or load and placing it on their shoulders, back or head, begin walking along the soft sand road that skirted the village, heading back to the school. The most cumbersome items were the classroom television sets that corroded out with disruptive regularity and had to be replaced. Two students usually had to pair up to lift and carry these TV's in short stretches with frequent stops to rest, but eventually everything got back to the school and classes resumed.

On the infrequent occasion when something as large as a refrigerator had to be transported from the landing to the school, that had to wait until the return of the village men in the late afternoon. A five inch thick trunk of ironwood, cut twelve to fifteen feet long would be placed on top of the tipped over appliance and tied on. Six or eight men would then position themselves to lift the supporting pole, and then go swinging off down the trail with the refrigerator, all stepping in unison.

It was on a day less than a week after a major storm that this story took place. The supply boat had attempted a delivery four days in a row, and had been turned back by huge seas each time. It was Friday, and from my vantage point on the coral mound I could see the LCM slogging toward Aunu'u, periodically disappearing completely in deep troughs and reappearing on the crests of the storm swells. I rallied the students and teacher, and also Mata'ivasa the cafeteria cook, since the monthly shipment of cafeteria supplies was also scheduled.

When we arrived at the beach there was only one old and rather leaky small longboat on shore, and my own 14 foot aluminum boat. The surf at the landing was rough, even on this sheltered side of the island. The teacher and boys maneuvered successfully through the breaking waves, and quickly rowed out to the waiting LCM. All the school supplies were offloaded into the longboat, which was quickly run back up on the beach so that the now somewhat soggy boxes of school supplies could be removed before the saltwater leaked through the plastic wrappings.

Mata'ivasa the cook, manning two oars, quickly pulled through the incoming surf in the aluminum boat, pulled alongside the LCM and efficiently stowed the boxes of cafeteria supplies, which included three cases of frozen chicken. In his eagerness to return to the beach he let his attention wander. As he exchanged joking comments with others on the sand, a large wave popped up just behind the boat and lifted the stern. Before he could react, the breaking wave had flipped the light aluminum boat stern over stem into the shallow water, dumping its entire load.

The cases of canned goods sank in three feet of water, and boys and girls plunged into the surf to retrieve them, convulsed with hilarity of the situation while Mata'ivasa, spluttering and hooting with laugher, staggered up out of the water, readjusting his sodden lavalava around his waist.

My boat! I watched in dismay as my upturned boat tumbled back out toward deeper water, floating amid splinters of the main seat, chunks of Styrofoam flotation material, and the disintegrating cardboard cases of frozen chicken. I kicked off my flip-flops, charged down the beach, and plunged into the surf in hot pursuit.

A few quick strokes brought me even with the boat, now bobbing upside down low in the water just outside the surf line. This should be simple. Don't bother with trying to turn it right side up. Just grab the bow and side-stroke back close enough so that the kids could help me pull it in the rest of the way to the beach. That was a major error in judgment that almost resulted in my drowning.

The tide was on the way in. As the tide ebbs and flows here, a strong current sets in the channel between Tutuila and Aunu'u. Just beyond the reef line and the breakers, the current was now flowing eastward, parallel to the shore, about as fast as a person can walk. There was no way I was going to be able to swim and tow the boat back to the landing.

I called out "'Aumai le va'a!" bring the other boat! I hung on tenaciously, determined that my boat would not float out to sea to be lost forever. I saw the students and Mata'ivasa running back up the beach to re-launch the longboat. I was not worried. Yet.

The water below my kicking bare feet turned rapidly from green to cobalt blue as I drifted into deeper water.

Bloop! A big chunk of flotation foam popped out from under the boat, and bobbed away rapidly, propelled by the stiff breeze that was blowing in the same direction as the current. The boat settled noticeably.

Smaller chunks of Styrofoam began to escape with alarming frequency, and the boat settled lower, dropping the already submerged stern even lower as I clung to the bow, urgently grabbing whatever pieces of white plastic I could reach to stuff back up underneath. Still the boat floated lower.

I could see that the longboat had been launched, and that they were now in pursuit, but still several hundred yards away. I was determined to hang on and hold out for their arrival.

I looked down into the deep blue water to discover that my white bare feet were almost exactly the same color as the countless pieces of semi-defrosted chicken that were drifting along with me under the surface just below.

I noticed that large fish were beginning to respond to the lure of chicken blood in the water, and were tearing with great gusto at the chunks of chicken. I began to pivot as much as I could, looking all around for the arrival of the first sharks.

Calunk! Another big chuck of flotation escaped. Now the boat was floating vertically, just eight to ten inches of the bow above the water, pointing at the sky. The current had by now carried me beyond the eastern end of the lee shore, and the swells and choppy water increased the difficulty of keeping my head above water.

Every few seconds another small wave would splash over the back of my head and cascade across my face, forcing me to breathe between assaults as I continued to the battle to retrieve pieces of escaping flotation. The longboat was getting closer, and as I yelled to them to hurry I took a great mouthful of saltwater.

I was choking and sputtering now, and gasping for air, and each successive wavelet submerged my head completely. The longboat was only a few yards away. People were shouting, "Hold on! Hold on!", and I gagged on another mouthful of water.

I felt the boat slip under the waves and begin to sink, pulling me with it. My brain processes slowed. Almost as an afterthought I remember thinking, "I'm going to drown! This boat isn't worth it!" I let go, and struggled toward the surface, only a foot or so above.

Two pair of strong arms reached into the water and grasped my wrists. I shot back into the world of air, and was catapulted over the side into the longboat. I coughed the remaining water out of my mouth and nose. When I looked around thankfully, I saw Lisi Thompson, my fifth-sixth grade teacher, leaning over the bow of the longboat, holding onto a rope that was stretched taught, straight down into the water. Could it be a shark?

"Lisi, what is it?” I called.

"It's your boat, Siosi!” he replied.

The last of the flotation had popped out just as the longboat had caught up, and Lisi had reached over and grabbed the floating bow line just as it was disappearing under the surface.

In short order the soggy school principal and his waterlogged boat were deposited safely back on the beach, and everyone laughed about the incident. As for the chickens…sharks and other reef-denizens must have had a special treat that afternoon!

Tales of Samoa - o le sami faigata

Ole Sami Faigata - The Dangerous Sea
It was proved, over and over again, just how dangerous the ocean could be while we were in Samoa. I remember that two yachts left Pago Pago about the same time headed for New Zealand. They were caught in a big storm. One survived. The other was last heard from via radio somewhere near the island of Niue, in trouble, and never heard from again.
Then there was the trimaran "Extended Adolescence", which brought a young man rumored to be a draft dodger to moor for a time in the harbor. I think I remember that a government agent (F.B.I.?) was sent to "collect" the young man, but before being taken into custody, "Extended Adolescence" headed out to sea. The trimaran did not reappear in any port for several months, and it was circulated that perhaps the boat had been lost. Long after any hope of seeing the sailboat again, it came limping back into Pago Pago, having been dismasted in a storm, and sailed back on a jury rig using the jib sail attached to the mainsail boom as a makeshift mast. The young man in question left the boat moored in the harbor and flew back to the States to face the charges. The "Extended Adolescence" broke its moorings during the big hurricane of 1966, and broke up on the rocks at the head of the bay.
Speaking of storms, I also remember the day that several teenagers decided to take surfboards out to ride the storm surf somewhere off the village of Matu'u. They got caught in a strong current and swept out to sea. Two were eventually rescued by the Coast Guard, but one was never found.

Living on the island of Aunu'u, we had our share of close calls.













Before today's seawalls and breakwater constructions on the landings at Aunu'u and across the channel at the village of Auasi, the 20 to 30 foot longboats from Aunu'u used to make the crossing twice daily, about sunrise and sunset. There were many instances over the years of longboats being shattered on the reef at Auasi.
I can remember vividly some morning trips in to a principals' meeting in town when I wished fervently that I could just get out and walk! The fresh water flow from the small stream at Auasi had left a break in the structure of the coral reef there, probably 15-20 feet wide where there would be an opening in the line of surf crashing on the reef, called in Samoan an avaava. Water tossed across the reef by waves would rush back out through the opening, creating a strong outflowing current.
Whenever there were nearby or distant storms, however, the large swells would break farther out, completely closing out the opening. This made arrivals and departures much more "interesting"! Incoming longboats would wait just outside the point where the huge waves were breaking, getting a feeling for their size and frequency. At some point which I never learned to discern, the man handling the steering sweep oar would call "ey-yo!" in a booming voice, and the six or eight men manning the oars would bend their backs, pulling with all their strength. Someone would be calling the cadence, "ho, ho, ho, ho", while one or more of the passengers shouted encouragement. "Malo! Malo", and "Malo i fa'auli" (Good work on the steering oar!). The next wave would begin to build behind the longboat, lifting the stern, and suddenly we would be surfing the steepening slope, shooting through the avaava to the calm protected waters inside.
One time, coming home from Fagatogo, I was on the first longboat to go out from Auasi. Since the surf was exceptionally high, our boat waited outside the surf line for the other boat to negotiate the passage. They waited, and waited, and waited some more as giant wave after wave crashed on the coral. Finally we heard the call to row and saw men pulling with all their might as the next wave approached. The swell passed beneath us, and as it approached the reef it began to rise higher and higher. The other longboat disappeared below the racing mountain of water. The top of the wave began to peak and curl over, and there was a collective groan of anxious anticipation, for we were all certain that the other boat was about to be crushed. As the fifteen foot wave began to crash down, the bow of the longboat miraculously came smashing up at a 50 degree angle through the breaking curl, the bow coming down with a resounding smack on the backside of the wave as if to punish it for its bad behavior. Immediately six or seven people jumped overboard from the now-flooded boat to keep it from sinking, and our longboat quickly went to the aid of the other, helping to pull it out away from other waves while everyone assisted in bailing out the half swamped boat with much laughing and hilarity.
The same reef opening almost claimed our whole family on another occasion. We had decided to make the crossing on a fine, sunny day. Although there were some medium size waves as I dragged our 16' aluminum boat across the Aunu'u beach and attached the 20 hp motor, I could see that just beyond the surf the cobalt surface was glassy. Two teenage boys from the village asked if they could come with me, Jan, my 4 year old son Mark, and my 1 year old daughter Lynne. I had no idea at the time my affirmative answer would be so important.
The mile and a half trip across to Tutuila was uneventful, although I started to get a bit apprehensive as we approached Auasi. Although the surface of the channel was very smooth, the ocean swells were very large, and as we got closer to shore we could hear the deep booming sounds that warned that the waves were breaking heavily on the reef.
It was soon apparent that there was no opening in the crashing waves, and that if we wanted to get to shore it would be a matter of waiting outside the surf line and going though the avaava in the gap between the breakers. We waited….and waited some more, trying to get the feel and timing of the approaching waves. At last it seemed that there was a little bit longer opening, and I let one wave pass under us, then followed the breaker close behind... a strange sensation, since we were going forward, but actually climbing up the back of the wave. It left us, crashed down on the reef in front of us, and gave us a clear view of the opening in the reef, marked by the swift backwash of water from the previous wave.
I approached the choppy outflow cautiously. Suddenly one of the boys in the boat yelled, "Look out!"
I glanced over my shoulder to see another huge wave starting to build behind us. I slowed the engine to idle, expecting the wave to pass under us so that we could follow it in. Bad mistake!
Instead, the stern of the aluminum craft was lifted at such a steep angle that the boat began to slide down the face of the wave. If I had cranked the throttle to wide open at that instant, we might have made it to calm water safely. A second's hesitation was all it took; the skidding bow slid off to the left. The wave began to curl. The right gunwale scooped up the choppy water, and the entire boat went stern over bow as the sea crashed down on us.
My feet slammed onto the bottom, and with a push I shot to the surface. Jan had our one year old daughter Lynne securely in her arms. The boys were bobbing in the outrushing water. I couldn't see my son Mark!
As the capsized boat, baskets, suitcase, and all of us were swept back out toward deeper water I heard a muffled "Daddy!" coming from the air pocket under the bow. I reached under the edge and dragged a very frightened boy still in his lifejacket out of the gasoline fumes to the fresh air.
I wrestled with the boat, turning it right side up, but the weight of the outboard motor kept the transom at the stern submerged, making it impossible to bail out the water. I put Jan, Lynne, and Mark in the swamped boat, and grabbed the bow, for it was becoming obvious that the current was slowly pulling us toward the point of rocks where the huge waves were still crashing.
The very next swell unbalanced the flooded boat, and it tipped over again, slow motion. We clung to the overturned hull, and I gripped the bow handle, side-stroking as hard as I could, trying to fight the relentless current.
The two boys in the meantime and swum across the reef, body surfing in on large waves that kept them from being torn to pieces on the sharp coral. They gained the beach, and without hesitation ran up the hill to a house in the village where earlier longboat crews had stored their oars for the day.
They rushed back down to the shallow waters near shore where there were several longboats floating at anchor. Leaping in to one of them and casting off the mooring line from the bow, they began to maneuver the heavy wooden boat to a point near the reef opening. They struggled to keep from being swept into the incoming waves. Without a third person in the stern to man a steering oar, they were hard pressed to keep the longboat from turning sideways and being swamped by the breaking surf.
Somehow the two of them managed to get that boat, normally manned by four or six oarsman and another man at the steering oar, out through surf that would have challenged a full crew, arriving just in time to keep us from being swept by the towering waves onto the rocks on the Auasi point. We all sat in the longboat, thankful that we were alive. Eventually we paddled around to collect still floating suitcase and baskets, but we weren’t yet ready to attempt the reef opening again.
Some sharp eyed observer on Aunu'u had noticed that there was trouble on the other side of the channel, and soon another well-manned longboat came to our rescue, providing extra hands for disconnecting the drowned outboard motor and rowing both boats ashore, towing the aluminum boat. (The outboard never DID run properly after that!)

Tales of Samoa - o le momono i le va'a - The Plug In The Boat

My first experience with Aunu'u was in 1965. When we arrived in Samoa in March of 1965, quite a few consolidated elementary schools were under simultaneous construction, and virtually all of the construction was behind schedule (surprise, surprise! Things are almost ALWAYS behind schedule in Samoa. What's a schedule?)

Although I had been hired as a school principal at the tender young age of twenty-seven, when I first walked into the old office that sat approximately where the entrance to the Rainmaker Hotel now stands, I was told that school assignments for principals were still pending, and that we would be housed temporarily in Tafuna, the new government housing area out near the airport on the main island of Tutuila.

Other school principals were also living temporarily in Tafuna, awaiting school assignments, including Dick Danner, Doug Thorpe, Don Miskovsky, & Harold Hooten. Between us we were loaned an old blue government jeep, which we used to go shopping, visit schools under construction, and most often to drive down the dirt road from Tafuna to the end of the airport runway where there was a nice swimming hole!

One afternoon when the whole unassigned principal corps and families were down there swimming, I was wading out of the water after some snorkeling when I stepped on the dorsal spines of a stonefish. It felt like someone had inserted a hot poker through the arch of my foot and rammed it up past my knee almost to my hip! Needless to say, I let out a huge yelp, and yanked that foot out of the water. As I set the other foot down I managed to place it exactly where the first foot had been, thereby puncturing the sole of that foot on the stonefish too! I tumbled into the shallow water, groaning and causing everyone much concern while I contemplated the ephemeral qualities of life. Fortunately, neither wound was either very deep or particularly serious, evidently due to the fact that I had chosen a very small stonefish to exterminate, and within 40 minutes or so I was able to walk around again.

I was soon assigned to the newly opening Pago Pago Elementary School until the end of the 64-65 school year to work with Cantley George, the first palagi principal, and Mageo, the Samoan principal.

Not long after that, Dick Danner was assigned to become the first principal of Aunu'u Elementary School when it opened for the beginning of the 65-66 school year. I was with him and Tasi Tuato'o when we went out one day to see what progress had been made on the school construction.

When we arrived at the village of Auasi there were the usual number of longboats bobbing at the end of ropes attached to chunks of coral in the calm waters inside the reef, but nobody there to meet us as promised. Tasi proceeded to walk up the road about a hundred yards to the place where the road curved sharply around the point toward the village of Tula. He grabbed a small soft piece of wood and another short stick, and hunkered down just off the road. Using the short stick, he gouged a trough several inches long on the soft wood, and then, his hands and arms working like the pistons on a steam engine, rubbed the small stick back and fort in the groove, faster and faster. In less than a minute there was a wisp of smoke. Just like that there was a tiny fire to which he added other small sticks, then larger sticks. When the fire was well established he dumped a great armful of leaves on the flames, and a column of billowing white smoke rose into the air and blew off toward the west.

Less than ten minutes had passed when we saw another longboat putting out from the beach at Aunu'u. Before long the four rowers and the man working the steering oar had crossed the channel, maneuvered through the cut in the reef, and were jumping out into the shallow water to pull the boat up to the beach.

After greetings, introductions, and handshakes were exchanged we all climbed into the longboat for the crossing to Aunu'u. We waited just inside the narrow passage through the reef called avaava in Samoan. The rowers backpaddled to keep the current from taking us out until the proper moment.

The steersman gave a "ey-io!", and the rowers pulled on the oars, shooting out through the cut, surging over the incoming swell with only a little water splashing into to boat, and we were on our way. The color of the water quickly turned from shades of green to light blue as we reached the deeper water just beyond the reef. The clarity of the water was impressive; you could see the coral on the bottom easily, thirty or forty feet below. Within a hundred yards or so the bottom dropped away and the sea became a wonderful cobalt blue. A couple of flying fish erupted ahead of us as we approached, skimming away just ahead of the cresting swells, extending their gliding paths occasionally with a rapid flippity-flip of their tails on the surface of the water.

About a third of the way across the mile wide channel, Dick Danner, sitting between a couple of the rowers, leaned over toward the bottom of the boat, picked up a wad of leaves, and casually tossed them over the side. Much to our surprise, two men simultaneously shipped their oars with a yank, and standing on the seats, leaped overboard! As we gazed at them in amazement and looked at each other, we saw immediately the cause for their unexpected actions; there was a four-inch fountain jetting up inside the boat from a finger-sized hole that had been drilled next to the keel. It seems that all the longboats had several of these holes drilled right next to the keelson. When pulled up on the beach the holes are left open to drain any water that has splashed inside. Before the boats are put in the water a small cone of banana leaf, rolled tightly, is pushed firmly into each hole, sealing it tightly. The rolled up piece of banana leaf that Dick had so thoughtfully decided to clean up turned out to be the PLUG!

The errant soggy plug was duly retrieved from the water while another one of the longboat crew kept his heel on the open hole. As the two swimmers clambered back over the gunwale and stuffed the rerolled plug back in the drain hole everyone, Samoan and Palagi alike, was laughing so hard that we had trouble staying on the seats. Everyone except poor Dick, who apologized profusely, and spent the rest of the ride across to Aunu'u sitting very quietly!

The tales of the boat, the floating frozen chickens and a near drowning, and another tale of the drifting photographer and her aging mother will have to wait for another posting.