The school on Ofu

Ann with some of the school kids

One of the two teachers at the school

We ran across some women weaving floormats. Some of them can get quite large

More mat weaving

Here's a picture of the floormat we bought. On top of it is a tapa that they also gave us. Basically paper made from tree bark that they then paint a design onto.

What a day! We just got back to Charisma from a lovely dinner at Gato Go. And we just got back in time as it’s now pouring down rain (again).

OK, rewind the day a bit to yesterday, which is OK because it’s actually yesterday here where you read this (?).

Now that we have that straight-yesterday, we were sitting in the boat around 1600 and it shook for about five seconds or so. We’re somewhat used to that because all kinds of things cause that-sails flapping, wind in the rigging, etc, etc. But, there wasn’t a lot of wind and the sails weren’t up. Then about a minute later someone came up on the radio and said, “Did you feel the earthquake?” Why yes, we did thank you. And thank you also for explaining this unusual sensation. Very weird to feel an earthquake through the water on your boat.

OK, on to today, which is still yesterday where you are, but that’s another story altogether. Today, it’s been raining like a monsoon and we got stuck in it while going between islands. It became a little sketchy when it hit because we were in the middle of a tricky pass. Very narrow with jagged coral reefs on both sides and NO channel markers. How did we do? I’ll explain in a minute.

First, I have to say that before we were dumb enough to move to a new anchorage with the threat of heavy rain we decided to go ashore on the island where we were anchored. And we’re so glad we did. The people there were delightful. There’re only a dozen or so families that live on this particular island (Ofu. Ha – wondered what that meant in the headline?!) We walked past the school where we met the two teachers who are teaching 21 kids in multi-grade setting. The kids were so fun, they all streamed out of the class to say hi to the Palangis (white people). The teachers were fine with it since it was a “cultural experience”. We took pictures of Ann with the kids. They all squealed with joy when they saw their digital images on the camera and all wanted to see themselves. We had so much fun we went back to the boat later and brought back a box of pens we had bought for just such an occasion. Then we continued our walk. No road, no cars, just a path. All the houses were built along the beach and there was a path along just in front of them. This island has a subsistence economy. They fish, make some crafts that they usually sell in the market on the main island and they have chickens and pigs roaming everywhere until they are needed for a feast. Then, well, let’s not talk about that.

Anyway, on our walk people would wave from inside their houses and say “hi” and we would say hi back. In several cases, we noticed it was women inside weaving something and we’d walk over and see what they were doing. Two or three would be sitting on the ground weaving Pandanus leaves into very intricate and beautiful mats and clothes (they wear these wrapped around their waist). It often takes one person several weeks to make one and they are handed down from family to family over generations. We have admired their mats and wondered out loud whether anyone on the island might sell one and to our surprise we were pointed down the path to a small hut. We walked down and found (surprise) three ladies and one of their daughters weaving mats. One thing led to another and you guessed it, we are now the proud owners of a 12 foot by 6 foot floor mat. It is gorgeous and as we told the ladies, we will treasure it since it is not only exquisite, but we also know who made it and where it came from. We have pictures and hope to be able to post them in a week or so.

OK, the monsoon. We decided to move to another anchorage as Gato Go called us on the radio and offered an inducement-chicken curry dinner on their boat-if we would come over to their anchorage on Kenutu. It was actually not very far from where we were, but there was a very tricky pass that winds through the reef that we had to traverse to get there. We decided to give it a shot as we had some GPS coordinates to help us through the reef. On a sunny day when you can see the colors of the water, this is not too bad, but today was grey and rainy. Thus the water was grey. Hard to see the shallow spots unless the waves were actually breaking-which they were in numerous places. Anyway, we were game and things looked OK, if not great (how often do you really get “great” anyway?). So, we plunged into the pass, so to speak. Things were going well and we were progressing nicely until the sky started to go from grey to very grey and then very dark grey. Uh oh. It had been raining all day, but mostly sprinkles that you get used to out here-but this wasn’t looking good. We were about ½ mile, maybe a little more, from exiting the pass and making it to the anchorage when the skies just opened up. And I mean opened up. It was raining so hard the visibility went down to 100 yards of so. We completely lost our view of anything. This is not good when you have coral reefs all over just waiting to tear a hole in your boat. The good news is it wasn’t too windy so when the visibility went to nothing I choose the just drop anchor right where we were in the middle of the pass. We were over sand, so the holding was good. It was the safest thing to do. So, anchor down. It held. I put out a “Securite” call on the radio telling anyone who might have been behind us that we were now anchored and blocking the pass. And we sat. Well, I sat. Ann took the opportunity of having tons of water pouring down to take a shower. We had buckets sitting out catching water so a shower wouldn’t lower our supply. And that’s where we sat for the next two hours while it rained, and rained and rained. I was starting to think we might have to spend the night anchored right in the open when the storm broke long enough for to us to jump up, haul the anchor (not too hard as we were just in 25 feet of water) and make the last ½ mile into the island. Once we got there it was abundantly clear that we made the right decision as there were very shallow reefs all over that we would not have seen in the rain.

So, earthquake, monsoon and Ofu-all in a day in paradise.