Apia Harbor Archive

"Imagine a semester of school where you sail around the world...and earn credits!" Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?

I was driving past the harbor this afternoon on the way to meet some friends for lunch and I saw that a massive 3-masted boat had pulled into harbor. Turns out it's the S.V. Concordia, the high school version of "Semester-at-Sea", which is a cruise ship that holds class for decadent college students while they cruise around the world.

Damn, I wish I was in high school again, and had $28,000 US, plus money for visas, insurance, and a little pocket money. Geez, where'd my sugar daddy go?

Class Afloat - Your Passport to Education, since 1984

Here's the Interinerary for the next year:

The harbor is chok full of sailboats at the moment. There's more than 20 now with more arriving every day. It is amazing to see. It sort of happens in slow motion, or maybe time lapse, since the harbor never changes really, just more and more yachts show up. One day there are none, the next day there are twenty.

Boats should continue to arrive in increasing numbers until the Teuila Festival in last August. Then they will disappear, just as slowly as they make their way towards safer anchorages to hunker down for cyclone season which kicks up about November.

At some point I'm going to get a ride on one of them, even if it's just over to Savai'i.

Another warship on the way back from service in the gulf has hit up Samoa for a little R&R. Can't really blame them, can you?

Unlike the other recently arrived frigate from Canada, this boat, the F730 Floreal has huge guns on its foredeck and there's no doubt what the thing was built for.

The French could probably take over this country with this rinky dinky boat. I'm sure they have thought of it. They'd probably like nothing more than to excercise their congenital urge to nuke every island in the South Pacific.

Because there are so many repeat visits from freighters making a circuit of the the Pacific, it's nice for me when a ship I've never seen before arrives in the harbor. Kyowa Hibiscus, part of the Greater Bali Hai shipping line, is one of the boats on a loop, but I've never seen it before. According to their website, it comes to Apia every month or so.

The harbor is looking great these days. There are ten yachts at anchor, including some fairly large vessels and a cool looking trimeran. One of these days I'm going to hop aboard one of these boats and sail away from this rock.

While I was waiting for my boss to return from a meeting, I went out to the seawall to check out the harbor and get some wind on my face.

Out in the distance, along the horizon I could see a boat coming into port under sail, something I'd never seen before. Since a few months back, there have been sailboats in the harbor, but when they come and go, I have no idea. They just seem to appear out of nowhere like apparitions and then disappear just as fast.

So on this perfect day, with cornflower blue skies and puffy white clouds, I was watching the sailboat ease into the harbor, sails luffing gently as the boat turned into the wind to slow down and make anchor.

there's a huge green freighter in port today that I've never seen before called the MV Polynesia out of Hamburg, Germany.

I find all the details about the boat from freighterworld.com:

Tom Wörden has introduced the vessel the MV Polynesia to join the Tausala Samoa on her 28 day run between Los Angeles, Tahiti, and the Samoas. Built in 1996 in Stralsund, Germany, the mv Polynesia is 14,665 DWT, about 515 feet in length (157.12 m), and about 77 feet wide (23.5 m).

The mv Polynesia offers 2 lovely double suites that contain 2 twin beds each, for couples or traveling companions. Singles may book as sole occupants of the double cabins. The Tausala Samoa is better suited to carry single passengers because she has only 1 bed (2" narrower than a double bed) in each cabin. Joycene visited the Polynesia and reports that she is a lovely ship and that passengers should enjoy their cabins and public areas.

What I don't understand is why these boats are so damn expensive. For a 28-30 day journey for two, you're going to pay about 7 grand. Now, I love traveling by boat. And I have no desire to take a cruise and have the same vacation as 1500 other people. So the mere fact that there are only a handful of cabins on board is appealing. Plus you can hang with the captain and crew and get a really good feel for life at sea. But 7 grand is damn steep. That's more than 2 years salary for a Peace Corps volunteer in Samoa. Something about this economy is way out of whack. Either this boat costs way too much, or I'm getting paid way too little.

There's a warship in port today. It's the Canadian "multi-role patrol" frigate, HMCS Regina on route back to Canada from the service in the Gulf.

The ship is something like 134 meters long, weighing more than 4000 tons and with a crew of over 200. I looked for guns or anything of an offensive nature, but I couldn't see anything from shore.

This all begs the questions, who knew Canada had a navy?

Today I was riding my bike down the hill from Moto'otua and I could see a masseive tanker pulling into Apia Harbor. We get some tankers in, like the Iver Explorer from the Marshall Islands and the Bro Arthur from France, but they are tiny compared to this bememouth.

You have to remember that Apia Harbor is more like a marina than a bustling port. It can only really take one ship at a time. So when a tanker like this comes in it's a huge deal.

I quickly put my groceries down in the Peace Corps office and rode back along the seawall to watch the ship come in and the sun go down.

I pulled up to the corner of the seawall closest to the port, put my bike down and starting taking pictures. As the tanker was rotating to turn its back towards the land and the pipeline, I could see the name on the back of the ship. The "Mikom Accord" all the way from Singapore. I took a seat and watching the massive ship slow rotate around with the help of both of the Apia Harbor tugs.

This morning I was walking back from MD's Big Fresh, one of the better supermarkets in Samoa and I met one of the Yachties, a woman named Beverly from Vancouver.

Anyway, she was walking along the seawall whistling to get her husband's attention out on the sailboat so that he would bring the dinghy and pick her up.

I want to start meeting these folks because I'm planning on leaving Samoa by boat when I finish my Peace Corps assignment, so I chatted her up.

The Pacific Princess pulled into Apia Harbor yesterday. Because the boats arrive in the middle of the night or really early in the morning. I've never actually seen a cruise ship arrive. There are just there. One day, I look down from the heights of Fagali'i, and the harbor is empty. The next day, there's a massive white ship the size of building sitting at the dock, and scores of poor-dressed octogenarians shuffling through downtown Apia.

Winter is around the corner, the weather is starting to improve and the yachties are coming into town. The first yacht of the season pulled into Apia Harbor today. The return of the yachts is like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano. It signals the change in the seasons. The cyclone season is over. The seas again are safe for small craft. Mostly importanly, the weather is starting to improve dramatically.

We caught the tail end of the yacht season last year and there some seriously impressive boats in Apia. I'm mostly interested because I'm hoping to leave Samoa by boat when I finish my service here.

I was out in the harbor taking pictures at sunset. It was a really beautiful day and the sunset almost looked like the ones I used to see in Los Angeles with orange and brown bands in the sky made by the smog, except there is no smog here.

The gigantic cruise ship Tahitian Princess has called into Apia Harbor this morning. It's always amazing to see gleaming white ships bigger than the biggest building in Samoa sitting at dock in the harbor.

The boat disgorged hundreds of Palagi tourists who are now wandering around in Apia and headed for sightseeing trips around the island.

The Tahitian Princess is headed for Pago Pago in American Samoa tonight at 6pm. You can check out all information about the ship on the official Princess Cruises site.

The boat from Tokelau is back in the harbor. It comes around every few weeks or so. It makes supply trips from Samoa to Tokelau bringing along the occasional tourist willing to suffer the 36 journey in less than forgiving seas to a "country" where there's no capital city, no airport, no harbor, no cars, no banks, no guns and no tourism. Sounds like paradise to me. Here are the specs:

Full country name: Tokelau
Area: 12 sq km (4.7 sq mi)
Population: 1500 (growth rate -0.89%)
Capital city: none
People: Polynesian
Language: Tokelauan, English
Religion: 70% Congregational Church, 28% Roman Catholic
Government: Non-selfgoverning territory under NZ administration
Administrator: Lindsay Watt
Head of State: Queen Elizabeth II of the UK
Head of Tokelau (Ulu o Tokelau): Alika Faipule Falimateao
GDP: US$630,000
GDP per head: US$420
Major industries: Philately, copra, handicrafts, fishing licences
Major trading partner: New Zealand

There's another new cruise ship in town today: Crystal Symphony.

The thing is massive. It looks so out of place in the liliputian Apia Harbor.

Kris and I walked into the port past the disinterested workers to the dock where a sprawling souvenier stand was set up to sell grossly overpriced Samoan knick-knacks to tourists too lazy to walk 20 minutes out of the port to the market.

A group of 20 or so Filipino crew had set up a basketball hoop on one of the dock and were trying to play "21" in the stiff Apia breeze. It was all very comical.

Peace Boat makes one-day call

by Gerard P Williams
02 March 2003

The arrival of Russian tourist ship, Peace Boat, in Apia Harbour yesterday saw the town crawling with Japanese tourists. This is the second cruise liner to visit Apia over the week.

Shipping manager for Betham Brothers Enterprises Limited who are the boat's local agents, Aleni Penina, said good benefits were being derived from these cruise ships.

The government not only gets a cut on port charges which for Peace Boat would be between $18,000 and $20,000, but foreign exchange from tourists as well.

"These visits are always a plus for the economy because tourists always spend foreign currency," he explained.

Some 600 tourists came on Peace Boat which has a predominantly Ukrainian crew working out of Tokyo. This was the ship's fourth trip to Samoa under the command of the Russian captain, Sergey Ztepanov.

Although the passengers were of all ages, Mr Penina said the majority were young adults.

Passengers yesterday were given two sight-seeing options. They could walk through Apia or take a cross-island excursion with Island Hopper Vacations.

One of the features of the tourists coming ashore was that they wanted to taste Samoa's world acclaimed brew, Vailima.

Mr Penina said it was common for tourists to come ashore just to sit at a local watering hole to taste-test a few bottles of Vailma rather than go sightseeing or shopping.

As agents, their main function was to provide the ship with services it might request such as fresh water supplies, local banking services and so forth.

Arrived at 5:00am, the Peace Boat was scheduled to leave at 8:00pm.

Mr Penina could not confirm whether the Peace Boat would be making another trip to Samoa.

He did say, however, that BBE was expecting another cruise liner later this month.

Crystal Symphony is expected to arrive on 13 March from the United States for a one-day visit.