Day 56, 2.12.2018 , Apia, Samoa
We took a taxi to explore this steamy island.
First stop was Robert Louis Stevenson’s former home just outside Apia at Vailima. He lived here for the last four years of his life. An interesting tour. H liked the gift shop and bought me paperbacks of Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and a Samoan shirt. The writer’s grave is on a hilltop about an hour’s walk away but we didn’t have time to go there. His poem Requiem is inscribed on it.
UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
We then drove over the hilly central part of the island which is overpoweringly rich with flowering trees and plants of all colours. Samoans seem to live their lives mostly in houses with big roofs, no walls, and just a short stroll to the nearest church. The missionaries have done their evil work here all too well and this being Sunday it was very quiet in the villages. I’m not sure if it is an entirely Christian thing or not but many houses have elaborate graves in the front garden which is something we have seen before on the nearby islands of Tonga and Nuie.
Next stop was the To Sua Ocean Trench, which is a saltwater swimming hole reached by climbing down a 30m ladder. Then on to Lalomanu Beach in the southeast of the island for a bit more swimming. A perfect tropical beach. We were going to eat there but ran out of time as H needed to get back to the ship to stoke the boilers for an 18:00 departure for Fiji.
Day 57, 3.12.2018 , South Pacific Ocean
Sea day.
My daily classes in English for Seafarers paid off this evening with good grades in an official test.
