Log of the Mahina - A Tale of the South Pacific by Neal John

Author:Neal, John [Neal, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781937196936
Published: 1994-12-01T08:00:00+00:00

Korean fishing ships, Pago Pago

Chapter 17

Samoa-Christmas Island

When I got back to the dock where I had tied the Avon, I found Tim and Ron waiting patiently with sea-bags in hand. After a few quick good-byes to Mike and Joanie and my friends on the Chamaru, we pulled up the anchor and headed out of the harbor. When we reached the entrance, I shut off the engine and Ron dove over and scrubbed the barnacles off the paddlewheel for the log and knotmeter. When he got back on board, he said that the bottom was covered with barnacles and grass. I hadn’t gone diving and scrubbed the bottom as I usually did every week because the water in Pago harbor was so terribly foul from fish guts dumped into the bay by the tuna canneries, making it a happy home for sharks.

6/3 1520 Log 9,051 Mahina is close-hauled and pounding some. I guess it will probably be like this for the next 3,000 miles or so. Ron and Tim both got seasick and are below asleep. I guess it will probably take them a while to get used to sailing when we are heeled over 20 to 25° all the time. There is a new moon out and lots of stars, making a beautiful sky overhead.

6/4 0600 Sunrise and the Manua Islands sighted.

0930 After a discussion, we decided to stop briefly at Ofu Island to scrub the growth off the bottom. It is to windward of us, so we started tacking.

1600 Every time we got close to Ofu and tacked to get in, the current carried us away. This light wind just isn’t enough to cope with the current. Engine on to help us get in before dark. Ron has been to Tau, the neighboring island to the west of Ofu, but not to Ofu. I heard from someone in Pago that a small boat harbor had been planned for Ofu, but wasn’t sure if it had ever been built. The Pilot mentions a large buoy that trading ships tie to, but I’d rather not spend the night scraping against that.

1645 In safely through a shallow, narrow opening blasted in the rock. They are in the process of building a breakwater and blasting and dredging to make this deep enough for the trading boats to come into, and it’s really a mess. We tied up alongside a 26 foot plywood sloop that a friend of Ron’s named Gary built in a garage in Pago. There are bulldozers and a dredging crane working, so this is a noisy, dusty place. Ron and Tim took off to see if they could find Gary, and I stayed and watched Mahina. A couple of Samoan men who work on the construction crew here came by and said hello. They were very friendly and wanted to know where we were headed.

When Ron and Tim came back from exploring, it was getting dark. We were all hungry, so the three of us working together came up with

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