Do they take their Rugby serious or what? Go Manu!

But I get ahead of myself....  We arrived around 9:00am to Samoa and while it wasn't the smoothest entry (the port control was on a coffee break), we made it into our slip with no drama.  The cool thing here is that the officials come to your boat so you don't have to go all around town looking for everyone...or so we thought.  We had Agriculture come, the Health inspector and Customs came within a respectable amount of time.  Around 1:00, we headed out to find Immigration.  That proved to be harder than we thought but eventually, with the help of a local policeman and his kind offer to 'drop us off,' we arrived in style in the back of a green pickup truck.

Yesterday, we ventured to the Palolo Deep National Marine Reserve which is just a few hundred yards from the Marina.  It's supposed to be the best snorkeling around (since the tsunami wrecked everything a few years ago) so we paid our 4 Talas (about $1.50) each and spent the afternoon at the beach.  It was ok...very sad, if that's the best there is though.

My token tourist picture today...the clock
tower in the middle of town.

Today we set off to the Market...we got side tracked by a movie theater.  It's hotter than heck here - the worst since our summer in the Sea of Cortez - so we ducked in for some AC and saw The Zookeeper.  Pretty hilarious for Andy and I, a bit over Jake's head, but he like the talking animals.  We finally got to the market and I loved it.  We'll have to go back with Andy's camera.  It was a bit more like Mexican markets only it was full of coconuts and bok choy instead of prickly pear and avacados.  But there was a different vibe about it...more carribean style than latino.  The one thing we could not miss though was the number of people with Samoa flags painted on their cheeks, flags flying from trucks and a few guys painted head to waist with the Samoan flag.  Today is the day Samoa plays Fiji in the Rugby World Cup.  Yep....a big day.  When we got back to the boat, a couple of cruisers told us they were going to go up to one of the restaurants and watch the game.  Sure...that should be fun.  Nevermind my kid doesn't know the difference between Rugby and baseball (I know, I know... everyone who knows me from childhood can't believe that as they all sit at their kid's football game right now, but it's true.  And yes, my brother and father are appalled).

Wow, these people are extremely patriotic...they LOVE their team.  We had to politely ask our host (waiter) if he wouldn't mind if we got another beer (can you serve me) because they were so into the game.  They actually sat down and watched it with us.  The game baffles me as it looks like football without the pads or the rules, but I have to say, it's much more exciting.  The good news is (for Samoans at least) that Samoa kicked butt and won 27 to 7.  To say the streets are excited tonight would be my biggest understatement yet.  Horns are honking, girls are hanging out the windows (in tanktops, none the less...a big no no here), and "Go Manu!" is the chant of the evening.  Go Manu!

Our waiter.

I'm not sure if she worked there or not, but he was
definitely a waiter.  They were having a great time.

Holland America drops off plenty of tourists.

We haven't explored enough for me to give a proper opinion of the place yet, but I had an experience tonight that mirrored an experience in American Samoa and I still think it's funny.  Jake thought the restaurant was too loud so he went on the deck to play.  I went out to check on him and three girls were out smoking a cigarette (another common activity).  After talking for a bit, I asked them what should we do while we're here in Samoa (pronounced SA-moa)?

"What do you mean?"
"Well, what is fun?  What should we go see? do?"
LONG pause....  "Like what?"
"Well, like, what is there to see in Samoa?"
Keep in mind, Samoa is a big tourist destination for the Kiwis.  We've seen a lot of New Zealanders and a whole cruise ship pull up in here.
"ummm.... just enjoy yourself"
Always good advice, but um, we live on a sailboat and don't have jobs....enjoying ourselves is never a problem.
So another lady steps up and says.... "What do you mean?"
"Well, we're here.  What should we DO?"  I know, saying it louder doesn't make it anymore understood, but I didn't know what else to say.
Finally, one of the girls tells us we should go to a local beach.  Great.  Good idea.
We had that same experience in American Samoa.  They looked at us like we had horns growing out of our ears when we told them we liked their island.  You can imagine what they said when we told them we went hiking!

Anywhoo....enjoying our time so far.  The marina is ok/decent and we're still in the "getting a kick out of it" stage as opposed to "gotta go" stage...so all is well.  We'll try to take more pictures next week.  We're planning on renting a car and figuring it out ourselves.