American Samoa and a research cruise from Pago Pago to Honolulu Matafao Peak                                                 Rainmaker Mountain Pago Pago Tutuila March 17th, 2006 Pago Pago March 4th, 2006 I was lounging at a beachside bar with four other scientists, two alcohol-saturated crew members, a commercial fisherman, a lawyer who’d been self-marooned on the island for five years, and two ladies of questionable trade-- one of whom was deaf-mute, and one a notorious pickpocket who had some interesting dental issues.  The last rays of sun had bounced off the mountain called Rainmaker, the light faded on the entrance to Pago Pago harbor, and I recognized the scene around me from the lore of the South Pacific. It wasn’t the scene the travel guides would have directed me to, but, travel guides are boring. It probably also isn’t the image of American Samoa that the Chamber of Commerce would approve of, so let me qualify it with saying that the company you keep often alters your experience of a place. My American Samoan experience really began at the Honolulu airport, where a small line of perhaps 10 parties waited for the Hawaiian airlines employees to check our bags. While the line was short, it moved incredibly slowly. There several large Samoan men with tattoos and earrings, some sizeable Samoan women, some white men with crew cuts, and other white men with the government/scientist look about them. I was the only white female. After I’d been in line for about half an hour a new group joined the line and the woman leaned over the cord, gestured to me and said “Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you going to Pahngo-Pahngo?” (which is how Pago Pago is pronounced). “Yes I am” I replied with what I hope was a gracious smile. Satisfied, she turned her attention to a white guy a few people down who didn’t quite look like he belonged to the previously listed categories and asked “Sir, are you going to Pago Pago?” He also replied in the affirmative. At this point she must have been ridiculed by a fellow islander for she announced “I’m just trying to make sure no one is in the wrong line.” I’ve never had my destination questioned before; it wasn’t offensive, it was just very, very clear that unless you had business in American Samoa it was unusual to be heading there if you weren’t Samoan. The plane, which I had assumed would be half full, was packed. The DC-10 or some such large bird, which flew to American Samoa only twice a week, was packed to the walls with large people. My seat mate, a friendly young woman currently living in Los Angeles, arrived late, ending my dream of two seats to myself, and after sitting down with an Whompf, said “oh” and promptly lifted up the armrest separating our seats and now instead of two seats to myself I in fact had only ¾ of one seat. We chatted briefly about Samoa (correctly pronounced Saah-moa) and how in her opinion there was nothing to do there and it was too hot (an opinion shared by another young Samoan woman I spoke to in the airport). She was going home for a funeral. She hadn’t been home for 5 years, nor did her mother like to leave the island, so while a sad occasion, she was happy for the excuse to visit family. There were 14 members of her family on board the plane. Once in Pago Pago I bought a local paper and there was a full page ad taken out in memory of that relative. There was another full-page ad in that paper which caught my attention. It was for a beauty pageant in honor of the American troops in Iraq, but it wasn’t the focus of the pageant that caught my attention, it was the contestants. Now, Samoans are large, somewhat fierce looking people when they don’t smile, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful.  I had already seen some stunning women at the airport, but these beauty pageant contestants were some of the most unfortunate looking women I had ever laid eyes on. Almost all of them looked like men in drag. It turns out, that’s pretty much what they were. There’s a phenomenon in Samoa called the fa’afafine. Homosexuality is not accepted in Samoa, or even acknowledged, but there are men who like to dress and act like women, and are incorporated and appreciated in society, being seen as having special talents and attributes, but who are not interpreted as being gay. This beauty pageant, complete with a picture of some men in uniform (not the same men), was for fa’afafine. My friend Tamara asked the question “so I wonder if this falls under the military’s policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’”. Church and street in Pago Pago, Tutuila, American Samoa Tutuila The following day Tamara, Elliott and I decided to go on an adventure. Our goal was to take a bus to Vatia which would take us up over Rainmaker Pass and give us elevated views of the island. Since the bus system in American Samoa is anything but regular we decided that if we didn’t make it to Vatia we would just go somewhere else, hence the ‘adventure’ part. I never succeeded in getting into much trouble in Hawaii, so I should have known that a bonafide adventure might be equally hard to find in Samoa. Nevertheless, off we went, guidebook and maps in hand. We sat at the bus station in Pago Pago and looked for the make-shift bus (pick-up trucks with extended ‘bus seating’ built on top of them) with the homemade sign “Vatia”. Tamara and I being tourists.                                      Samoan bus. (check out the guys behind us) A friendly Samoan man with a Raiders shirt, lavalava and cell phone informed us that we wouldn’t find an actual bus for Vatia and should take a bus to Aua instead and transfer there to the bus to Vatia. It was then 2:00pm. A bright blue bus pulled up with a sign for “Aua” and our friendly guide got on board, said some words to the driver and motioned for us to follow. He got off at an earlier stop and waved as we pulled away. We rounded Pago Pago harbor, passed one of many churches and dozens of fales (pronounced fah-lay- a roofed area for people to sleep), and turned down a side street. At an intersection at the bottom of Rainmaker Mountain the bus stopped and the driver motioned for us to get off. We tossed our quarters on to the cloth-covered dashboard (a 75-cent fare) and went to sit on a low, stone wall to wait for the next bus. It was then 2:30 pm. Now, in the event that you haven’t guessed it already, American Samoa is hot. Very, very hot. It never rained while we were there, but it was quite hot and humid. The previous day Tamara, Elliott, Grace and I had taken a similar bus down to a bar called Tisa’s Barefoot Bar. Owned by an Australian couple this bar is situated on a prime piece of real estate, right on the beach of a curving bay, waves breaking at the distance and Samoan rain forest curving off the left. There was even an obliging island in the distance to complete the effect. After downing most of a cold Samoan bottle of beer each, we headed, with snorkel gear, to the beach. Candyman, for that is what the male proprietor of Tisa’s likes to call himself, had pointed out a channel we could follow through the coral and beyond the surf break to get to the best snorkeling. Fresh water flowing into the bay from somewhere inland made the water slick-looking through our masks, and it was initially hard to focus, like looking through the air that rises off a sun-baked landscape. As we made our way out of the channel and behind the waves though the visibility cleared and we could for at least 50 feet. View from Tisa's                                  Elliott and I 'roughin it' at Tisa's I haven’t been in the water for almost a year now and my ears were definitely not used to free diving any more. I heard that alcohol doesn’t help your ability to dive at all and I was close to being buzzed, so maybe that was it. But it was wonderful to be in the water again. We’d talked about wearing board shorts and t-shirts over our swim suits because local custom doesn’t seem to look kindly upon women baring much skin, but there were only westerners around so I opted out of the swim shorts and snorkeled in my swimsuit. The water was incredibly warm and there were a bunch of fish I’d never seen before, but mostly variations of fish I know from Hawaii. There were tangs, and butterfly fish, trigger fish, wrasses and parrot fish. Achilles Tang, raccoon butterfly fish and lei trigger fish were some old friends, and brilliantly blue-colored Chromis were more abundant than I’d ever seen them. My favorite thing to do was look half underwater at the turquoise world and half out at the green sprouting cliffs and sunshine beyond. I have not been closer to that celebrated tropical paradise, especially knowing that a cold beer awaited me on my return to land.   The return bus trip that evening to Pago Pago was a riot. Two buses had passed us and flashed their lights but not stopped. Both were taking workers to the tuna canneries for the shift change. The third bus stopped and there were only two other people on board. We think the driver was already lit for the evening and he careened around corners and picked up more and more people who were already celebrating the end of the week. Our fellow passengers wanted to talk, especially one man who we initially thought was speaking Samoan, but it turned out he was just slurring his speech. He sat next to me but with his back to me because he was much more interested in talking to, or at, Grace who was sitting behind me. She couldn’t make out what he was saying so her seat companion was acting as semi-interpreter. A man sitting in front of me told us that we shouldn’t listen to the drunk man; we should “Just say No, No, No” at which point the whole bus erupted laughing. The woman sitting next to Elliott was also trying to interpret and excuse her companions, while laughing, and the man sitting next to Tamara alternated between hitting on her and ignoring her. Overall it was one big happy experience and we decided that they were more outgoing because we were in a group and therefore approachable (i.e. could handle good-natured harassment). But this all had happened the day before, and now we were sitting, still, on the stone wall, waiting for a bus to Vatia. It was 2:35. Tamara and Elliott tried holding quarters in their ears because this was a local practice when riding the bus. That took up 2 minutes. I took photos of nearby roosters for my dad, who likes roosters; that took another 2 minutes. We watched as another bus passed us. People waved, looked a little confused, we smiled, and waved back. And that took another three minutes. It was then 2: 41. The pace of island life began to sink in a bit. There was no bus schedule, of course, and only a vague promise from the guide book that a bus to Vatia ran “several” times a day. Rainmaker loomed above us, with very few clouds to threaten our afternoon. The street sign on the road we hoped to soon be riding up was the “downhill ahead” traffic warning sign for trucks, but had been turned so that instead of the truck being pictured going down a moderate hill, the truck was instead climbing up a severe incline. Another bus came by and dropped some people off. They looked at us, and walked home. The bus left, but wasn’t going to Vatia. It was then 3:10pm. We began to re-evaluate our plan. Maybe we wouldn’t make it all the way to Vatia. Maybe we should just ride the bus over the mountain, never get off, and just ride the same bus back so that we were sure of getting back that day. All we really were after was the view anyway. Our ship was due to leave the following morning at 10am. A large black truck pulled up and out piled at least eight people. Most of them sat down on the wall a little ways away. “Phew!” at least that meant that someone else thought there was a bus going to Vatia.  Several of the women were looking curiously our way. They asked where we were going. More curiosity about the dumb white folks sitting on a rock wall in the middle of nowhere. Their looks said “they must be lost.” It was two families who had been visiting. One family lived in Vatia and would be taking the bus over the mountain, the other family lived on a different side of the island and would be driving back. This was the drop-off point. After waiting for another half-hour, (it was then 3:40) the family in the black truck drove away. The woman who lived in Vatia was a kindergarten teacher. She taught at Rainmaker School, just yards behind us, but lived over in Vatia. She had a son in Iraq and a daughter living on the US mainland and she got over to the mainland once a year or so. A big silver truck paused and she spoke Samoan with the passenger. There were some sidelong looks at us by the passengers, more conversation and then the truck pulled away, going up the hill we wanted to travel up. Tamara and I suspected that they’d offered the teacher a ride but she felt she had to look after us. The teacher’s son had a ukelele and was strumming it. Her younger daughter sat on the other side of us, perhaps 10 yards away, and was talking with some other kids who had gathered near the wall. Fifteen minutes later (it was then 4:25) a maroon truck pulled up. Another conversation in Samoan. This time the daughter climbed into the back of the truck, joining four other people, and the truck made its way up the hill. The kindergarten teacher explained to us that there was supposed to be a bus at 3:30 and her daughter was missing a Sunday school class she was to attend at 4pm, which is why she gave her daughter the place in the truck. We still suspected that she stayed behind to keep us company. We began to question our plan again. “Will the bus be coming back this way tonight?” we asked. “Oh yes” she said, “I’ll tell him to come back.” So that seemed settled. But when was the sun going to set? Finally the bus did round the corner, the word “Vatia” printed on the handwritten sign. Our friendly companion got on the bus, followed by Elliott, and as Tamara and I were boarding we asked if the bus was coming back to this side. “No” the driver said, shaking his head. It was then 5:00pm. With apologetic looks to the friendly teacher, we got back off the bus, and walked back into Aua. Looking up at Rainmaker we felt a little slighted, but that we’d had a lesson in island life, and island timing. As I’ve mentioned, it was hot. The road to Pago Pago borders the harbor so we decided to stop for a cold drink and snacks and then sit on the beach a bit before catching a bus back to the ship. We entered a cool store and walked around, trying to find the most exotic looking beverage. After each finding a can with lettering on it we couldn’t read, Tamara found a local snack, coconut flavored short-bread- or Samoan crackers. A young Samoan came into the store, took one look at Elliott and said “Hi White Boy”. I burst out laughing. Apparently he’d also greeted Tamara with “Hi White Girl” and then stood grinning with the look that he knew what he’d said was mildly offensive but was driven more by the desire to do something daring rather than to truly offend. We told the store owner our plight about wanting to drive up the road towards Vatia and she told us that if her husband came back in time that she would have him drive us up the hill. We thanked her but said it wasn’t necessary, and as we were leaving decided to ask about the taro root that was sitting in aluminum foil. The taro had been baked and we asked if we could buy one. She gave us two and insisted that we not pay, so we sat and tested our first ever baked taro- kind of like a potato. Afterwards we crossed the road and sat on the beach; the store owner had told us that the canoe teams would be practicing for Flag Day and that we should watch. Soon about two dozen young men emerged from further down the beach carrying long oars. They stopped at a tree just in front of us and began to stand around. We felt very conspicuous and considered moving slightly further away. More men arrived and we lost courage and retreated to what appeared to be a covered bus stop where some boys were hanging around. All three of us took pictures as the handsome team began to organize and get into a long blue canoe. The name Paepaeulupo’o was painted in a white, dripping font on the front of the canoe. The appearance of the name makes me wonder if it means ghost, or a spirit of some sort. The coach/coxswain got into the boat and they left the beach, oars dipping in unison, a well-practiced team. Team Paepaeulupo’o The sun was dipping behind the mountains across the harbor and we contemplated trying to catch a bus back when the next team of men started emerging with oars. This appeared to be a more rag-tag team headed for the green boat; we made our way across the road to flag down a bus. Some of the men turned and watched us. One called out “aren’t you going to take our picture?” Tamara and I weighed the insult we were giving by leaving before the second team, obviously less polished, had assembled and departed. We had been feeling overly self-conscious about being the tourists with cameras, but then realized that we’d possibly played a pivotal motivational role for the male teams as the two young women with cameras. We re-crossed the street and I took out my camera again. The coach appeared to motion towards us and then address his team with more vigor. There was a delay in attaching the rudder, but eventually the green team left the shore, oars not quite in unison, with the coach raising his arms as if he was summoning the great spirit of the deep. Both teams thus given a great tourist farewell, we caught the last bus back to Pago Pago. Invoking the gods. March 17th, 2006 Saint Patrick’s Day without beer. I’m in a sound bubble. We stand up on the flying bridge and look out at ten miles of ocean; sometimes we see dolphins and try to catch up to them to identify what species they belong to. Sea birds loop by, the wind comes and goes, and flying fish shoot out of the water and skim just over the surface, but all I hear is the motor hum, whir, and rumble of the ship’s engines. We shout or talk loudly over the hum, and play loud music when moving through long stretches of whale-less water; the ship rolls up, over, and into the ocean swells, but as observers, we are deaf to nature. Clouds- the only distance reference out there Ironically we have a window into the sounds below the surface. Like a long whip-like tail, the ship tows a cable containing an array of hydrophones. Shannon, our acoustician, spends endless hours listening to the hydrophones which will pick up the whistles and clicks of odontocetes, the whales and dolphins with teeth. These animals vocalize at a higher sound frequency than the larger baleen whales and Shannon’s hydrophones are calibrated to pick up these voices. If we miss seeing a group that Shannon can hear, she’ll radio up to the flying bridge and give us an approximate location of the group. At that point all attention will be focused on that area. With any luck, we’ll see them, and turn the ship to get closer for identification purposes. If they’re an approachable species (i.e. they don’t run away) that are important to the cruise objectives, we’ll launch a small boat (from the ‘mother ship’) with a driver, photographer and biopsier, and try to get closer to obtain better photos and biopsy samples. Flying bridge ------------------------------------------------------ This morning I woke up at 5:15am to help Shannon launch some sonobuoys. No longer needed by the US Navy for detecting submarines, these long metal tubes are dumped overboard and as they plummet towards the bottom wires with hydrophones and transmitters spool out. As long as the ship remains approximately one mile from the sonobuoys (not too close, not too far) Shannon can pick up what they are hearing. We are using them to listen for the baleen whales who vocalize at a lower frequency that would be covered up by ship noise if the hydrophone was too close to us. In order to localize where a sound is coming from Shannon needs to have at least two sonobuoys in the water. So yesterday I helped dump two overboard and we spent the next hour listening to minke whales. Minkes are the smallest baleen whale, measuring about 30-35 feet in length (there is a dwarf minke that is a little smaller, but is not fully recognized as a separate species yet). Not much is known about the minkes and their vocalizations have only recently been described. Those in the North Pacific make what is referred to as a “boing.”  Yes, a  boing. No one can ever claim that whale scientists are a stuffy lot. So yesterday we listened to “boings” and tonight after we arrive at Johnston I’m hoping to help Shannon deploy a few more sonobuoys in the hopes of recording humpback whale song.  --------------------------------------------------------------------- I was up late last night organizing the photos from the day’s sightings. Earlier in the evening I’d given a talk about the SPLASH project to orient the scientists to the additional data collection requirements and to give some of the crew an insight into what we were up to. I was tired, but content, and as I wandered into my room my bed seemed to lean back away from me. I had to wait for it to move back towards me with the swell before ducking into my bunk.  In any other life, I reflected, the moving bed would be an illusion brought about by exhaustion or alcohol, but no, my bed actually swayed back and forth. As long as I don’t have to worry about actually being tossed out of my bed, I like to think of it as being rocked to sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Swains Island, and Swains through the Big eye (25x) binoculars- flat ain't it? Sensory deprivation   Like the first smell of the earth after a long winter, smelling land after an extended period at sea is like waking up after a long sleep. I talked earlier of only hearing ship noises and not the sound of the waves or birds. We also only smell ship smells. Oil, exhaust, sunscreen- no salt air, and definitely, no land. I sat at breakfast this morning with two crew-members, Kenji, the Chief Bos’n from the Kapahulu neighborhood of Honolulu, and Jonathan, originally from Chatham Massachusetts. I asked them what they felt about not seeing land for long periods of time. Neither seemed to care, it was more about not being at home. They have 240 sea days each year and then still have to work when they are in port. I asked Jonathan what brought him into the ocean business and he said that where he grew up there were two choices (then he qualified that by saying that really there were more, but basically there were two) you went into fishing or in the tourist business. He went into fishing. Then a friend of his was a NMFS fisheries observer and connected him with someone in Woods Hole. He went down and applied for a job and got employed with NOAA. Eventually he was transferred to Honolulu, which he said he was happy with. He’s very much the type of guy who was raised in the north, and once finds tropical paradise is very loathe to leave. Though Jonathan has little good to say about the Northwest Hawaiian islands. Full of bird shit and pathogens, so he says. ----------------------------------- More photos from the cruise Tamara recording False killer whale- (obtained under PIFSC federal permit) Manu'a group Elliott with his coffee at the Big-Eyes Spy-hopping pilot whales- the mutual curiosity was impressive