There were few times during the rest of our stay when we had occasion to eat on board, for the hospitality of Rarotonga was overwhelming. As a family, we had little contact with the native Cook Islanders (whom the government is careful to refer to as “Maori”), but Nick, Mickey, and Moto saw a great deal of them. This disparity was quite against our own inclinations. We simply had no invitations to native dances or gatherings and were quite envious of the reports brought back by the Three M’s, who had their choice of both worlds—and frequently chose the more colorful!
From Rarotonga we again headed north, bound for American Samoa. We set our course to sight Aitutaki, then headed northwest. It was good sailing—a broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon, and a seven-knot breeze. Two days out I noted in the log: “Just informed today is Labor Day. Well, not working too hard, anyway.”
At dusk on the seventh day out, we sighted the mass of Tau Island, looming out of the mist, and jibed to the west for the night, turning northwest again at dawn. At 0735 we picked up Tutuila, dead ahead, and worked our way into the entrance of Pago Pago harbor, one of the best protected in all the South Pacific.
By midafternoon we had been met and escorted to the docks and all was secure. The weekly mail, we were informed, was due to leave within the hour, so our first official act was to scribble hasty notes of reassurance to family and friends. Our next—and one that gave us great pleasure—was to accept the invitation of Phil Mosher, the representative of Governor Lowe, to go with him to his house for hot baths and cold drinks—an unbeatable combination for those who have just come in from the sea.
We expected to spend about a week in Pago Pago; we stayed over a month and hated to leave. A great many factors combined to extend our visit, including the possibility that we might be able to haul out at a government dock if we could stay two or three weeks until they could fit us into the schedule. Also, we were offered a two-bedroom house (at the cost of $1 a day), which gave Barbara that chance to move ashore which she still seemed to crave. Jessica went off each day to the dependent school, and both she and Ted were given placement tests to see if they had lost ground in the course of their rather haphazard program of home study. (They hadn’t. In fact, Ted was issued a certificate equivalent to a high school diploma on the basis of the tests developed by the Army.)
Almost before she had been given a chance to adjust to the rather frightening mob of thirty students—three of whom were in her own seventh-grade class—Jessica was asked to give a talk to the entire school about our travels. The prospect was so terrifying that she was unable to eat breakfast, but when she returned at the end of the day she was both relaxed and triumphant.
“Now I know how to do it,” she explained, when we asked about her speech. “It’s easy.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Anything they wanted to know. I just showed them a map of the world and pointed out where we’d been. Then I said, ‘Any questions?’”
Our stay in Pago Pago was a round of constant activity, but this time, in addition to many enjoyable evenings with local officialdom, we were able to see something of Samoan life as well. Our entree was through the school system.