0

0

GPS: 13 49.613S 171 45.842W

Run: 48.3nm (87.4km)

Sunday 30th June. Arrived back in Apia Friday afternoon. Dropped off some laundry to be done then some supermarket shopping. We went for a relaxing dinner at the seafood restaurant across the road from the marina (mostly frequented by locals). Had a great dinner, sat back and enjoyed the breeze. Stella tried the local delicacy Oka which is raw fish marinated in coconut cream and onions. Tony chowed down on a seafood chowder, Sue had seafood platter and Andrew had lobster mornay (a very late birthday present from Sue!!). There is an icecream shop next door which also happens to be part of the restaurant. They have a wide range of icecream and a good selection of cheesecakes but we were too full to have any dessert that night.

Saturday we headed off to the markets early to try to beat the heat. We came across the bus station with the wonderful local buses. After the markets we headed back to the boat to get away from the heat. Tony stayed out for a bit longer to check out the stadium for the Pacific Games which start next week. That evening Sue and Andrew headed back to shore in the rain to check out the icecream shop whilst Tony and Stella stayed on board to watch a movie. Saturday evening the rain started and hasn’t stopped since. During the night there was high winds, thunder and lightning.

Today, Sunday is lazy day with everyone trying to catch up on photos, emails etc with a slight interruption when we looked out the window and found a big red tugboat almost coming to join us for morning tea! The red tugboat was anchored with a large barge next to us. The tugboat communicated with the boat anchored on our port side suggesting it moved as the barge had dragged an anchor. After a while the boat came back and advised they had to wait for captain and crew to get to the boat before they could move! We were watching as the barge came closer to that boat and Andrew decided we should probably look at moving and giving the tug and barge more room to manoeuvre. Two hours later we re-anchored only a short time later to hear the tug advising it had to go out again as something had jammed their prop and only one of their engines were working. They have now re-anchored and we are back to finish off today’s blog.

Tomorrow we are looking at leaving Apia, weather dependent, for the Isle of Wallis which is about 3 days sail away.