January 23rd South Pacific Sea, Packer Monday

Papapapatitou Falls in Samoa

Lunch at Return to Paradise Beach Resort. Chicken, Lamb, potato salad, fish, etc.

Return to Paradise Beach

Local Samoan Beer.

S17 Degrees 38.621' W 173 Degrees 00.331' making 14.5 knots 207 degrees SW It was 90 degrees at 8:00am today but has cooled some with the effect of wind now the Packer game is done. Sad game on the ipad in Bill's room. We decided to have a beer on their first touchdown. The game started this Monday at 10:05am for us but no such luck and beer had to wait replaced by iced tea with Pizza.

We were in Samoa, in Apia yesterday. Had a very interesting entrance to the harbor. Bill and I were up on deck 10 looking down on the Captain bringing the ship in to harbor. He needed to do a 180 to turn the ship around to dock so it was facing out. Wind calm, no waves with the stabilizers retracted. He jacked the bow and stern thrusters to max and this caused the boat to start rocking back and forth at an alarming rate! We walked back to the pool area and had to walk sideways to make it. Just as we got to the railing above the pool the motion increased and the pool area was a flood of about 12" of water violently sloshing back and forth with the hot tubs mostly empty and the jets shooting up in the air. All the deck chairs were going from side to side and stuff was flying. We commented that it was a good thing nobody was on that deck or they would have been injured. Later found Mary K. from Canada on the pool deck hanging on to the railing for dear life. Harry and Peggy were in their room in bed and Harry tried to save something from falling and tried to get up out of bed. He was launched into the air and fell against the balcony door in a heap. Peggy went to help and was launched on top of Harry. Harry's new hip came out a OK and nobody injured. Dawn survived the rocking session in bed with no issues.

Apia was nice but we missed our tour bus by 10 minutes. Local Beatrice was nice enough to give us a ride in her Jeep to the downtown Catholic Church to meet up with the tour group. Beautiful old church open air. We were not allowed inside any Church where service was active per local customs. They take their religion very seriously in Samoa and attend church in both the morning and afternoon on Sunday's followed by a family meeting and lunch. On the way to Return to Paradise Beach resort (famous for being the site of the only movie ever filmed in Samoa) we stopped at a water falls and the Bahia faith temple on top of the mountain. It is one of 8 Bahia main temples in the world. The beach resort was ok but not great. Small beach with black volcanic rock. Just down the coast from this beach 200 Samoan's perished in the great Tsunami of 2009. It was South Pacific HOT as in just barely being able to stand it with no wind. The ocean swims were the perfect soothing balm to the heat. Dawn went snorkeling around the rocks and we had a great lunch. Later as we left Samoa on the Whisper we were treated to a sunset that lasted for well over an hour. South Pacific sunsets just get started after the sun sets. The clouds get lit up for an hour after setting with the most brilliant colors imaginable. Glorious from the deck with an Expresso Martini in hand! The rest of the day at sea and Tonga tomorrow. Our sorrow over the Packers loss is muted by the pool and pool Volleyball coming soon.