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 se asiasiga i Aunu’u

o se asiasiga i Aunu’u - A visit to Aunu'u

     It was a given that if you lived on the mile-wide island of Aunu'u, you would have very few visitors. Although barely a mile of open water separated the beach in front of the village from the boat landing at the village of Auasi on the island of Tutuila, it could be a daunting trip.
     The long ocean swells, driven by the steady trade winds slipped easily past the eastern side of Aunu'u, rolled across the channel, and crashed mightily on the point of land that gave partial protection to the beach at Auasi.
     The twenty to thirty foot long boats used by the men of Aunu'u to row across the channel each day at dawn on the way to jobs in town were carefully handcrafted on the island, the design copied from early Yankee whaleboats and handed down from father to son over several generations. During the day four, five or even six of these bobbed gently on the ends of their short mooring lines over the sunlit sandy bottom just off the beach of Auasi, sheltered from the ocean swells by the fringing reef thirty yards offshore where the waves spent most of their energy.
     A trip to Aunu'u most often involved waiting for the busses bringing the men and women back from work and shopping trips to the stores and businesses around Pago Pago Harbor. You would wade with the ten or fifteen people out to one of the longboats scramble up out of waist deep water over the side into the boat, finding a place to sit among the returning villagers and the woven coconut leaf baskets of taro, coconuts, bananas, store-bought goods, and occasional chickens or trussed live pigs.
     Fully loaded, the longboats sometimes had as little as four or five inches of freeboard between the edges of the boat and the surface of the water. Regardless, the six or eight rowers would run out the hand carved oars, and one man would sit high on the very tip of the stern, manning the steering sweep.
     Back-paddling on the oars, the rowers would keep the longboat from being swept with the current out through the break in the reef until, with a sharp "Ey-yo!", the steersman would call out the signal for everyone to pull in unison, as hard and as fast as they could. The boat would cut sharply through the choppy water, climbing the rising swell of the next wave just outside the reef line, and everyone would settle back and relax for the fifteen minute row across the channel. That was on a calm day!
     Living in the school principal's house at the school on Aunu'u, we were relatively isolated. The school was perhaps a quarter of a mile away from the main part of the village, along a sand and coral gravel path that skirted the shoreline. During the week after the students had gone home, and on weekends, the school grounds were usually deserted. Our connection with the rest of the world (in other words, the folks on the big, seventeen mile long island of Tutuila) was by single-sideband radio, which we kept on twenty-four hours a day, sitting on a low bookcase in the living room.
     To get in touch with anyone you picked up the microphone, keyed the button on the handle, and called, "Pago Radio, Pago Radio, Pago Radio, this is Aunu'u. OVER". Usually by the second or third call, someone in the communications office would reply, "Aunu'u, this is Pago Radio. OVER", and you would request a telephone patch to the Burns-Philp General Store to place an order for a couple of week's supply of groceries to be taken down to the boatshed on Thursday for delivery to Aunu'u. We could also call directly the same way, to the other schools scattered around Tutuila, the Manu'a islands of Ta'u, Ofu, and Olosega, and could even talk to the school on Swain's Island, 200 miles to the north.
     One Saturday morning we received we were hailed on the single sideband from Pago Radio. It was Kay Purinton, the photographer for the educational television station KVZK-TV calling. Her 70 year old mother had come to visit for a few weeks from the mainland United States, and Kay thought it would be wonderful if the two of them could come out to visit us on our little island over the weekend.
     We were delighted! We could show them around our little piece of paradise, and Kay could take pictures. There was only one problem; they wanted to come that afternoon. The longboats that took people to the Saturday market in Fagatogo on the main island had left Aunu'u before sunrise, and wouldn't return until just before sunset. Not to worry; I'd trot down to the far end of the village and talk with Gaosa, who had an old fourteen foot aluminum boat with a 15 hp outboard motor. He'd probably loan it to me. I told Kay to come on. I'd arrange a boat and meet them on the beach at Auasi.
     Gaosa wasn't at home when I arrived at his fale a couple of hours later, but his wife gave permission, and sent two teenage boys to bring the outboard motor down to the beach. The boat had seen hard use. Its thin aluminum skin was scraped, dented, and even had a few small cracks high on the sides where the middle seat was attached. The oars that the boys tossed casually into the boat were in worse shape. They were castoffs from one of the longboats. One had an inch wide crack in the paddle, and the handle of the other one was broken off, leaving a stub about three and a half feet long. No problem; we had the motor didn't we?
     The two boys and I had no difficulty sliding the boat into the water. The outboard motor started after four or five pulls and a bit of coaxing. We splashed easily over the small waves washing in to the landing, and quickly putt-puttered out into the cobalt-blue channel.
     The trip across was uneventful, although as we left the more sheltered water on the windward side of Aunu'u I noticed that the wind was stronger than usual, and coming from directly behind us instead of quartering from the starboard side as it usually did.
     The surface of the channel was choppy, but the swells were small, and since the white capped waves were all traveling in the same direction as we were it was easy to navigate through the break in the reef on the opposite side. We slid the bow of the boat up onto the beach where Kay and her mother were waiting.
     We gave them a hand into the boat. One of the boys perched himself on the bow, the second one shared the middle seat with Kay, and her mother sat on the stern seat with me. I yanked the lanyard to start the motor, but it was not cooperative. I yanked it again, several times, but was rewarded by nothing more than a couple of hazy blue coughs. I squeezed the primer bulb in the fuel line and tried several more times. At last the outboard rumbled into life. I eased the choke closed, moved the shift lever to forward, twisted the throttle, and started out through the short chop back to Aunu'u.
     We hadn't cleared the reef by more than a hundred feet when the motor gave a shudder and died. I gave the rope start handle several quick tugs, and this time we were able to travel another fifty feet before the motor quit again. I told the boys to use the oars to keep us from drifting too close to the breakers while I tried to restart the engine. Kay moved cautiously to the front of the boat, and the two boys faced front and paddled from the middle seat since they were not able to actually row with the ancient oars.
     I tried for another five minutes to restart the balky engine, while the boys paddled energetically. I had just about given up on the motor. When I turned around, I noticed that we were not where I expected to be. There is a very strong current that sometimes flows through the mile-wide channel between Tutuila and Aunu'u. Depending on the tide, it may move east toward the open ocean or west along the coast of the big island. This afternoon it was moving us parallel to the shoreline, and we were no longer anywhere near the opening in the reef. It was too late to try to get the boat back to shore. There was nothing to do but to try to paddle to Aunu'u. I tilted the motor up out of the water to reduce the drag a bit, and the boys really put all their energy into paddling now, dipping and swinging in unison to keep the boat pointed in the right direction.
     The boat pitched vigorously as the bow crested each sharp wind-driven wave, slamming down into the trough behind it before rising immediately into the next one. Wind blown spray soon had us all soaked. Kay took off the towel she had wrapped around her shoulders, and began using it to soak up the water that was beginning to accumulate in the bottom of the boat. She wrung the towel over the side each time it was saturated, but was only staying even, not making any progress in lowering the level of the seawater sloshing around our toes.
     The boys and I took turns, each paddling as hard as we could for the next half hour, but it was soon apparent that we were not getting anywhere heading directly into the short choppy waves and strong headwinds. In all that time we had succeeded in moving no more than a few hundred yards offshore while the current had carried us east almost a half mile. Now what?
     We had no hope of paddling to Aunu'u, and there was no way to get back to Auasi. Between us and safety back on the beach were eight foot high waves crashing loudly on the edge of the jagged coral reef. Were we worried? Not particularly.

     We had the wind and the current working to assist us with an alternative. We would simply stop fighting the forces of nature and use them to our advantage. Down the coast of Tutuila just a couple of miles was Cape Fogausa, and just beyond that the sheltered bay and beach of Faga’itua. We'd head there. It would take us a couple of hours, but we'd be safe, and I could use the single-sideband radio at Faga’itua High School to call Aunu'u and let them know we were OK. We had turned the boat and were beginning to paddle in that direction when Kay's mother pointed across the stern toward the east and said, "Look!"
     Coming around Matuli Point just east of Auasi was the grey boxy outline of the LCM, an old WWII landing craft that was used by the Department of Education to bring weekly supplies from Pago Pago around the island to the north shore villages and schools where there were no roads. Its course back to Pago Pago harbor would bring it very close to us. Not more than two minutes later Kay's mother pointed again, this time toward the island of Aunu'u, and called, "My goodness! Look over there!"
     Someone on walking on the beach, perhaps Gaosa's wife, wondering where we were, had spotted our little boat struggling against the wind and waves, and had summoned help. Heading our way, alternately appearing and disappearing above then behind the intervening waves was a big white longboat, manned by eight oarsmen and another on the steering oar. They were coming at full speed, smashing through the chop as if they were competing in the annual longboat races. A young boy sat in the bow, beating a tattoo with two sticks on a large battered cracker tin, setting the pace for the rowers. Faintly we could hear a voice in the wind, calling, "Malo i galue! Malo I fa'auli" - "Good work! Well done on the steering oar!"
     It was evident that the longboat from Aunu'u would reach us before the lumbering supply boat. The rowers were only a few hundred yards away when I heard the long, loud blast of a ship's horn from the west. Turning around to look the other way I saw the sleek white shape of the Coast Guard cutter slicing through the waves toward us at 20 knots!
     The longboat pulled up alongside us and threw us a line. About then the Coast Guard caught up, and after a brief exchange with the men on the longboat, threw them a line, taking both boats in tow. By the time the cutter had started, dead slow, on a course over to Aunu'u the LCM supply boat, rolling along in its own accompanying cloud of diesel fumes, had passed by slowly with shouts of laughter and encouragement. As the entourage made its way back parallel to the Tutuila shoreline we could see quite a few people standing along the road, on beaches, and by their stopped cars, all watching the spectacle. In a place where life usually moves at an unhurried, seldom changing pace, our fa'alavelave, our disturbance of the serenity, was great entertainment!
     The Coast Guard cast off the towline less than a hundred yards from the Aunu'u landing, and waving cheerful good-byes to our shouted words of thanks, roared off again at top speed toward the harbor at Pago Pago.
     We scrambled out of our little boat on the shore as the men from the longboat leaped out into the shallow water, calling to the children watching from the beach, "Aumai se lago!" Bring the short logs that we use to slide the longboat up above the high tide line! We all gave a hand pulling the heavy longboat up out of the water onto the dry sand,helped prop it up with sticks on each side so that it would remain upright, and shook hands all around, expressing our gratitude for the rescue.
     The two teenage boys that had been with us disconnected the culprit outboard, and went strutting like conquering heroes back toward Gaosa's fale, accompanied by a swarm of younger children all shouting questions at them.
     As Kay, her mother and I headed down the path toward the house at the school Kay's mother turned to me and said, "You know, I think that's the most fun I've ever had in my whole life!"

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 se malaga i Olohenga

o se malaga i Olohenga - A trip to Swains Island

     Swains Island, a doughnut shaped low coral atoll that is geologically part of the Tokelau Islands, has been privately owned by the Jennings family since 1856. In the 1960’s it had a total population of about 30 people from Tokelau, who call their island “Olohenga”. Although the Samoan islands are 200 miles south, Swains Island has been under the administration of the Government of American Samoa since 1925. A boat is chartered by the Jennings family once or twice a year to deliver a few supplies and to pick up the dried coconut copra that is the only source of external income.
     My only trip to Swains Island was in 1968, the year I taught Level III Science on television for third and fourth graders and Level V Oral English television lessons for high school students in American Samoa. Paul Pedro, a science curriculum supervisor for the department of education had family there, and invited me to go along.

     The 60 foot covered wooden motor launch MV Lady Elizabeth slogged its way through heavy seas and strong winds as we chugged out of Pago Pago harbor, around Cape Matatula, cleared the island of Tutuila, and headed north.
     I spent a sleepless night on top of the three-foot high hatch-cover. Occasional waves came surging over the bow and sluicing down the decks. It had cleared and calmed by the next morning, and Paul told me not to be too disappointed if we didn't FIND the island!
     Remember, this was the 1960's....there were no such things as Global Positioning Satellites that could pinpoint your location, anywhere in the world to an accuracy of 6 feet!
     He said that on more than one occasion they had steered the compass course from Tutuila to Swains for the estimated travel time of 24 hours, spent two days steaming back and forth, looking for any hint of the tops of green coconut trees protruding above the horizon, and then giving up and heading back for Tutuila. In those days before GPS navigation if you were more than 5 miles off course, Swains would remain hidden, and the captain had no knowledge of anything as sophisticated as a sextant!

     There is no break in the coral reef that makes up Swains Island. This means that visiting boats have to drop anchor in medium deep water beyond the breakers at the only village of Taulaga, and the men on the island come out through the surf to offload supplies and load copra to take back to Pago Pago. The village itself consists of a few thatch roofed open houses, a one room school, and a church.
     Dried copra is stored in a large shed whose tin roof captures precious fresh rainwater and channels it into a large cistern. This is the only source of drinking water on the island. The porous coral limestone allows the salty seawater to seep in from the ocean all the way to the brackish lake in the middle of the island.

     Wally Jennings, the owner, greeted us warmly, and took us in his jeep, the only vehicle on the island, on the single dirt track that circles the atoll. A drive almost halfway around, a distance of about three quarters of a mile, brought us to a run down house that looked like it might have been transplanted from New England. Wally told us that his grandfather had built the house, and named it “Etena” after the Garden of Eden. Wally, fresh out of an enlistment in the Marine Corps, had brought his new wife to live in Etena. When the marriage ended Wally moved into a small thatched fale in the village of Taulaga.
     We watched the few boys and men play a cruel island version of soccer on the village green as the sun set, using a live trussed chicken in place of a soccer ball. We sat on laufala mats in Wally’s house for a delicious chicken dinner. Later that evening I was sitting next to the captain of the MV Lady Elizabeth on the beach, watching the moonlight on the breaking waves. Suddenly he turned to me and said, apropos of nothing, "What's the reciprocal of three hundred and fifty?"
     My confused response was, "What do you mean?"
     He said, "You know, if I came up here on a compass heading of 350 degrees, and wanted to turn around and go back the other direction, what would be the compass heading?"
     And I was thinking, “Uh-oh! We're in trouble! This is the CAPTAIN!”  I did a quick subtraction of 180 degrees and came up with a hundred and seventy.
     The captain said, "Are you sure?", and I responded, "Yes". He thanked me and the conversation moved on to something else now forgotten.
     The following morning we started back toward Pago Pago, expecting to cover the 225 or so miles in about 24 hours. The seas were moderately rough, and sometime during the course of the following night a frontal passage brought the clouds down low, dumping rain at that rate only experienced in the tropics.
     The rain was still pouring down at the first light of dawn, and the deluge continued, uninterrupted as the morning wore on. We were all wet and tired, and eager to see land. Ten o'clock came and went, as did eleven. By noon everyone was a little anxious as we scanned the mostly obscured horizon to the front and sides of the boat. By two in the afternoon the rain had slacked off some, but the clouds and mist continued to hover close to the heaving ocean. The tension among the passengers was electric.
     The captain announced, "I think we've missed Tutuila. I'm going to turn around and go back."
     How could we have missed an island seventeen miles long with mountain peaks over 2,000 feet high? My concerns were split between two thoughts: "What if we run out of fuel?", and "I hope he can figure out the reciprocal!"
     At that precise moment from the back of the boat a voice cried out, "Land!" We all rushed toward the stern, and sure enough, off in the distance some miles away we could see a green headland, mostly hidden in the clouds, with steep black cliffs plunging into the sea.
     The boat changed course almost a hundred and eighty degrees (no need to calculate reciprocals now!), and headed for the island. We were almost home. We thought!
     After almost an hour of heaving and pitching in that direction the clouds began to lift somewhat, and with dismay we discovered that the island we were approaching was not Tutuila at all. As more of its shape was revealed we all realized that we were looking at the outline of Ta'u, and in 30 hours the boat had somehow managed to get off course by more than 70 miles!
     Maybe the captain had added a little too much "windage", or maybe had not been paying attention, or maybe he had just forgotten the reciprocal!
     It would be another ten hours before we finally staggered into the harbor at Pago Pago and tied up safely at the dock.

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.