We pull into the harbour in Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango) at 7:27 a.m. on Wednesday, October 7th. To get here we've travelled 4,885 nautical miles. Initial thoughts from the balcony are that it’s pretty mountainous with one main road that seems to skirt the edges between ocean and hills. Pago Pago is the territorial capital of American Samoa. In 2010, its population was 3,656 inhabitants. The city is served by Pago Pago International Airport, tourism, entertainment, food, and tuna canning are its main industries.

From 1878 to 1951, the area was the site of a coaling and repair station for the U.S. Navy, known then as the United States Naval Station Tutuila.

In January 1942 Pago Pago harbour was shelled by a Japanese submarine but this remained the only battle action on the islands during World War II. On September 29, 2009, an earthquake struck in the South Pacific, near Samoa and, American Samoa sending a tsunami into Pago Pago and surrounding areas. The tsunami caused moderate to severe damage to villages, buildings and vehicles and caused an unknown number of deaths.

The village is located in Pago Pago Harbor, on the island of Tutuila. Pago Pago is one of the many villages in Pago Pago along the shore of Pago Pago harbour, located at the very eastern part. The area includes a number of villages, among them Fagatogo, the legislative and judicial area, and Utulei, the executive area.

The lack of any type of acceptable Wi-Fi continues to be a problem here in the SP. Pago Pago is definitely not an exception. We tried at the local McDonalds, no luck – we paid our $5.00 access at PP Café but again no luck whatsoever. Maybe we’ll have some luck when we get to Suva as the population there is about 600,000 inhabitants. A statue of Starkist’s tuna mascot Charlie the Tuna is at the company’s cannery located in Atu'u, Pago Pago, American Samoa. Everybody here speaks excellent English, no accent whatsoever – it’s like we were in New York – but they speak a language of their own when speaking to each other. We ended up taking a long walk on the harbour road, going as far as the Starkist Canning plant to the north. Given that we had walked about three or four miles, we decided to take one of the local transit buses back to the ship – at a cost of $2US each, we traveled back with the locals on their wooden benches in a converted Econoline van. We had to stock up on our bottled water at one of the local cafe’ and headed back to the ship where we departed on schedule at 5:00 p.m. and are now headed for the International Date Line, on our way to Suva, Fiji on October 10th. So we’ll miss Thursday, October 8th and shoot right ahead into Friday, October 09th – moving our clocks ahead 24 hours. And I thought that I’d miss my birthday – no such luck.

Today is my birthday. The question is where are we though. We’re in the South Pacific Ocean at 15 degrees 44.54S and 178 degrees 37.45W – we seem to be passing one of the many uninhabited islands as we make our way to Suva, Fiji. It’s a "sea day" all day today so the activities are somewhat limited. We have planned for a nice dinner tonight at the Pinnacle Grill, I can’t wait to get back to those Volkswagen sized shrimp that they always have on the menu for appetizers. I can’t think of anything better than spending my 22,630th day here on this beautiful planet heading towards Australia.


Thank you Sweetie !