We arrived in Apia at 1100 local time this morning. Samoa is in UTC+13 time zone so we had crossed the date line. Changing from UTC-11 meant the time was unchanged but it was suddenly tomorrow. Weird but fun!
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| Samoa Ho! |
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| Approaching Apia |
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| Entering the harbour |
Yesterday afternoon and overnight the E wind held in nicely. We had occasional rain showers but they brought little extra wind. By morning the showers had cleared and we had a great sail to Apia.
Entering Apia harbour was simple. We called Port Control on VHF16 and they gave us permission to enter the harbour and anchor. With that done we called Port Control again and they advised us to stay aboard and wait for officials to come and clear us in. We advised them our dinghy was very small so they came out in a small barge.
The clearing in process took about 2 hours. The Biosecurity folks visited first and that was just a case of filling in one form. We could then take down our Q flag. We were then asked us to dinghy in to the marina for customs and immigration but our electric outboard didn't want to play. The officials then agreed to come out to us. There were about half a dozen forms to complete, with a lot of repetition, but they were all simple. One big deal was having a Zarpe showing our next port being Samoa - very important.
The officials were all very friendly and asked only for cool drinks since they were sitting in the cockpit in the sun. They also enjoyed a specially prepared chocolate cake, with one officer requesting the recipe! Another officer conducted a search of the boat which finished when they found a bag of chips which they asked if they could eat. Overall it was a simple and good humoured process.
Here are some views from the anchorage....
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| View to W |
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| View to SW |
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| View to SE with marina in background |
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| View to NE with commercial harbour |
Tomorrow we hope to post a passage summary. But first a couple of beers with sv Southern Wind and sv Traveller IV, then a good night's sleep.
Trust all's well where you are!
Lovely post. Look forward to your impressions of Samoa.
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