So on Friday, we all arrived safely in Pago Pago, American Samoan with our luggage! It was honestly the most nerve-racking trip because there were so many things that could go wrong that could mess up our entire trip. However, end of the story is that we made it. From the airport we took this funky wooden bus with cool lights and music to the ship. On the way there we rode along the coastline and started getting a glimpse of the place we were in. Once we got to the harbor, we soon saw our ship! Although it was late, we got to meet some of our staff (that was awake) and got our assignments. I'm in a top bunk with 3 others in a "room" like space. More like a stuffy corner.
Ok and note this post has taken me like a week to complete so right now it's October 2nd and I'll try and catch you up on everything.
The first couple days in American Samoa were filled with orientation things and it was a lot of information, but necessary. Still trying to learn everything now! We have like a dozen crew members including the captain, scientists, deckhands, engineers and our steward-- all with lots of info.
The second day in Pago Pago we got to check out the Hokulea which was docked next to us and then we went to the NOAA Natiional marine reserve American Samoa headquarters (I think that's what the name basically was). It was the same thing as one we have in Santa Cruz for the Monterey Bay sanctuary, but obviously this was for American Samoa. The people there were super nice and it was clear a lot of there work was just getting the community interested in their environment and oceans. That afternoon we went to a local market/festival type thing where the first thing I saw was three teenage boys dancing on the stage. They were a hip hop group and I talked to them a little after, found out they mainly learned from videos on the Internet. It was a bit awkward but glad I did it. Cool to see dance is so universal ❤️
On Sunday we had more orientation and also safety drills including fire, man overboard and abandon ship stuff. The biggest take away was that the immersion (gumby) suit is one of the worst things to get into in this heat.
Speaking of this heat, it was intense until the past day. Going to sleep drenched in sweat. Basically sleeping in nothing and under no sheets or blankets. Getting out of the shower, you were just instantly sweaty. Ugh it's been gross. We all are gross, but a week in-- it's kind of just a part of life.
So Sunday afternoon we took off and headed for Samoa. It was awesome to see the beautiful American Samoa from sea. It was all great and my stomach was fine :) later that night we had our watches and I'm in A watch and for that night we had the 11-3am shift. One other person and myself were in the lab for our watch preparing chlorophyll A samples and taking hourly readings of information like depth and water temperature that the ship automatically picks up. The samples were from science stops we made while leaving Pago Pago harbor earlier that day. Anyway by this point I had kind of been thinking about how everyone was getting sick and how everyone took medication but I had been fine..... Until I was stuck in a lab completely sealed off from the world and my stomach was questionable. Soooo I went out on deck and got meds and was fine-- just in time (;
The next morning we got to Samoa, but we lost a day and it was now Tuesday. Funny thing, one of our crew member's birthday was Monday.... So she missed it! we ended up having to wait a while for customs but eventually got to go check out the town, including this amazing new church.
The town of Apia is where we are, and it's interesting... Definitely the biggest city around but kinda like walking around a flea market.
Yesterday we got free time to go around town and collect research for our projects . Mine are on waste management and my other is on surf tourism. So I went with one of our visiting faculty from New Zealand (but she's Samoan) and we went in an adventure trying to find the landfill. Definitely wouldn't have got there without here but we couldn't go in... Which I figured might happen. But we got to go to this really cool gallery near there that she wanted to go to, and it was great.
Today we as a class went to SPREP which is the secretariat of the pacific regional environmental program. And it's an amazing organization that had a lot of good information for waste management. Afterwards some of us students embarked on a journey to this watering hole I'd seen in so many pictures of, but it was across the island. Long story short, it was crazy getting there and back but it was absolutely gorgeous. And here is a semi decent iPhone photo of it: 
Anyway I need to get back to the ship, sorry this was rushed and probably terribly misspelt. We leave for Wallis in Saturday!
~LTK
Dance, the universal language.
ReplyDeleteWish I could have plunged into that watering hole with you!