Cruising Notes – (Western) Samoa

Note that ‘Western" is in brackets. This is because the country is officially just called Samoa, and is different than American Samoa.

Books & Charts:

We have no cruising guides to Samoa, so we just used "Landfalls of Paradise", a poor excuse for a cruising guide, but was all we had.

We had DMA paper charts and used electronic charts for the harbour entrance at Apia, which were quite accurate.

The Harbour:

We were pleasantly surprised by Samoa and Apia. The harbour is easily approached, and fairly shallow (20 ft or so) and good holding. Very calm and not rolly. A breeze on most days to keep you cool – but HOT in town!

You are supposed to call on VHF 16 to the harbour master. We did, and he told us to tie alongside a large commercial dock really meant for big container ships. We set up to do this, but when we got a look at the dock, called back and asked pretty please if we could just anchor and come in by dinghy. He said OK, no problem.

The paperwork was not as much agony as American Samoa. Just filling out forms and stuff, the usual. The harbourmaster was ever so friendly. Since we had no local currency yet, he told us we could go to town and get change, and meanwhile get to Immigration for the requisite stamp on the passports. He even called a taxi for us.

Immigration done, we returned and paid our harbour fees of 75 ‘tala’ (about 25.00 US) and then visited Customs near the dock, filled out another form and got cleared.

Apia is the port of entry, and if you want to cruise to any other harbours, you have to apply to the Prime Ministers office and give then an itinerary. It is not as difficult or onerous as it sounds. I think they are trying to protect their heritage – the Samoans are very proud of the ‘faa Samoa’, or the Samoan way, and want to control outside influences (can’t blame them).

Weather:

It was just an overnight sail from American Samoa to Samoa, so we were not all that concerned about the weather, but we listened to ‘Des’ from New Zealand, and ran weather faxes, bulletins etc and had no problems.

The Samoas are in the SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) and are typically overcast and rainy. This is what we had for our sail, and some big swell from a front that had come through while we were at Pago Pago, maybe 12 or 15 ft. But not as bad as it sounds – the swells were long.

The Samoas are also affected by fronts passing south of here, causing periods of strong winds. So you do need to pay attention to the weather.

Goods & Services:

Samoa was a pleasant surprise and I hope it never changes. There are no cruise ships here and tourism is not well developed yet. The Samoan people are very friendly, honest and conservative (religious) – even the taxi drivers don’t try to rip you off because you are a ‘rich’ palangi (white person). We have not met a single nasty person here, or in fact, even a single person who has not bent over backwards to help us. Just stand in the street, looking lost, and holding a little street map in your hand, and someone will stop and ask if they can help you find something! What a welcome change from French Polynesia.

There are several Internet cafes here, very reasonably priced, and the owners of the places ask you how they can make their services better. There are also several Laundromats, and a Tourist Information bureau where you can get maps and all kinds of information on bus schedules, attractions etc.

Same for the restaurants – check and ask around, but most have good food at very reasonable prices and want to know how to do better. We found one called the Look Out, right on the waterfront, which has great food and a wonderful couple running it.

Diesel, gasoline and propane are all available.

There are 3 markets - a fish market with really good, nice fish (get there early for the freshest stuff), a flea market featuring handicrafts like tapa cloth, Kava bowls and other wood carvings, jewelry etc, a wonderful place. The third market is a fruit market, with, admittedly not a lot of fruit (mostly taro, coconuts and bananas) but lots of handicrafts and a fascinating mixture of household and food goods. This was a market truly for the locals, but the Samoans were very friendly to us and we were the only white faces there.

The town of Apia has several supermarkets, many many fabric stores, a 6-movie cinema and lots of hardware stores, so you can pretty much get everything you need here. We even got our laptop fixed here (screen dead)! There are no yacht chandleries here.