Ray's sea adventures

  Vailoa, Samoa Western
Thursday, October 25, 2007

The following stories were written for the PC Samoa newsletter, the Faitala (this means gossip) so please ignore any criptic Peace Corps references.

Finally, after much trouble and expense, I have a Samoan dugout canoe. The villagers here are very superstitious about a palagi having a boat. I was not able to purchase a second-hand boat under any circumstances, even though there are a number of them lying about unused. Finally, the master boat builder of the district agreed to build me a new one, but he demanded a hefty bribe over and above the value of the boat.

Where's the boat

There's the boat

Even so, it is not quite a traditional Samoan paopao though useful enough for my purposes. Then, after I had sailed it a few times, the Tu'ua Sili insisted it be put away in a fale 'to protect it.' It took four men to do this, as the boat is quite heavy-one of the ways in which it differs from a traditional canoe-and the help to get it out again was not readily forthcoming. It was finally spirited out by a large gang of small boys sympathetic to my predicament so I have the use of it again, at least for the time being until the boss returns from the Malua conference.

Having the boat built new was better than buying a used one in any case, because I was able to observe the entire boatbuilding the process, from selecting a suitable tree in the forest to the final finishing, while the master, Pulasui, directed the work of his sons. After the tree was felled, the boat was roughed to shape on the spot and then moved to his workshop for completion.

The Taugata

My intention was to resurrect the sailing canoe, unseen in Samoa for many years.

Paddling

Canoes are paddle-driven for fishing in lagoons. For work outside the reef or for ocean travel where sailing canoes were once used one sees now only aluminum catamarans powered by outboard motors. The Samoan heritage people at the university tell me that there is no documentation of the technical details of the Samoan sailing canoe. They advised me to get a canoe and put any kind of a sail on it at all, to see if any old men would come out of the woods to tell me why it was wrong. This sounded like a good idea, but from the amount of ridicule and perplexity I have attracted with my efforts I would have to say that traditional Samoan sailing technology is lost forever. Still, the thing is fun to sail about in. I named it Taugata. ( Samoan for very expensive)


Maritime Tragedy Averted
Amateur Yachtsman Braves Terrible Storm
On Friday last I was cruising in Vailoa bay with Taugata when a fierce squall blew up. Rain came down in torrents and the wind picked up sharp. There was a certain amount of water in the boat, causing her to trim down by the stern and making it impossible to come up into the wind sufficiently to make it back to port. I determined to run across the wind instead, to the shelter of a nearby river. I was involved in this maneuver when it also occurred to me in passing that there was by then rather more water in the boat than could reasonably be accounted for by the rain. The next thing I knew, the boat went under. We'd sprung a leak and foundered! I hurriedly lowered the sail and was standing next to the boat attempting to straighten out the resulting tangle of spars and cordage when a local fisherman happened by who got out of his canoe and helped me bail out my waterlogged craft. The storm having somewhat abated, I was able to paddle to safety and beached my boat inside the mouth of the river before it filled up with water again. The Taugata is now in drydock awaiting repairs. Fortunately, I was wearing my lifejacket, so serious loss of life was prevented.

NB, Having been informed by Kevini that he uses too much military jargon, the author of this dispatch has decided to switch to using too much nautical jargon instead, as being more appropriate to the subject matter and to confuse Kevini even further.