Sorry for the long wait between posts. We were on an island in Samoa with only <gulp> dial up. Samoa is like Hawaii but there's no dry side of the islands, only green everywhere with lots of waterfalls. The villages have nicely painted houses and fales in all shades of the rainbow. The grass is kept trimmed and bordered by decorative plants and flowers. There's very little trash around compared to Fiji. But... we just miss the big Fijian "Bula!" Don't get me wrong, Samoans are nice and if we hadn't been to Fiji first we probably would think that they [View Full Entry]

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Slumbering, bedding down, bunking, catnapping, zoning out, catching forty winks, and hitting the hay. Normal people call it sleeping: a state of inactivity or unconsciousness. Somewhere between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., individuals all over the world are sleeping and recharging their bodies and restless minds. Lucky them. I haven't completely slept through a night in several months for we sailors choose to spend our night time hours doing something totally different - welcome to the phenomenon of night watches. Yes, night watch. During the black, silent, night time hours when we ought to be lying in a [View Full Entry]

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We had exceptionally high hopes for Samoa thanks to our poor weather in Fiji we arrived very late into the night to the end of a rain storm!!!! By the time we got a taxi from the airport to our hostel it was gone 1am in the morning. As we went to check in it became evident there was a problem we had actually got our dates wrong and were not booked until the following day. This is all due to crossing the international date line and we could not believe after our endless date workings that we had still managed [View Full Entry]

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This was our second trip overseas and our first anniversary. We decided to see another Pacific Island, since we got married in Fiji the year before. We booked everything on the internet from home and organised a 14 day trip taking us around Upolu and Savaii. The trip was with Green Turtle Tours and they took us everywhere. We were taken to different Fales for a couple of nights at a time and met some wonderful people. Samoans are very hospitable and can't do enough for you. The views were stunning and the relaxed friendly people made me want to stay [View Full Entry]

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We spent four days in Samoa, staying at the Aggie Gray resort. The flight from NZ took 4 hrs and we arrived early (5:20am local time, 4:20am NZ time) Friday morning so we were tired when we got in. Aggie Grays Resort is very nice. The water is blue and warm and there is a lovely pool (with a bar :-)), the foods good, its well maintained and the staff are very friendly. On Friday night there was a cultural show which was surprisingly good, for about an hour they do dances from Polynesian islands including NZ. It was kinda weird [View Full Entry]

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Samoa - my last stop. I arrived on a Monday night which weirdly became Sunday night due to passing through the timeline just before landing. Having spent most of the original Monday on buses and planes, it was good to have another Monday to do something more exciting and mosey around Apia (the capital) finding my bearings and seeing the sights. Went to see the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived and worked and had his being before dying of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 44 in the middle of writing a story. He went there (with his wife [View Full Entry]

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......it's goodmorning to all in Tongan, Hi guys, thanks for still have a vested interest in the little going's on the Witherspoon's little epic journey. The latest entry reaches your laptop from the bedroom of our cosy b&b in Nuku'alofa (big smoke), Tonga. Arrived here yesterday from the emerald islses of Samoa, an hours flight but much to our confusion a 24 hour jump forward through the date line (I'm a day closer to 30 in just the space of one hour!). We arrived just in time for Valentines day, a thought that only occured to oursleves during our bumpy dirt [View Full Entry]

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Hello, Julia here - and a very belated Happy New Year to all! I recently joined a local soccer team, having been invited by a colleague who plays with a bunch of his former workmates from a previous job. It’s 11 a side with a minimum of five girls on field at any time, and we get to play on the fields from the South Pacific Games so the set up is pretty good. I’m the only palagi (foreigner) on the team, and everyone speaks in Samoan so I’ve spent a bit of time nodding along to the pre-game pep talks [View Full Entry]

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Hi Guys......thanks for still being this interested. Since our last entry we have been on our whale watching tour. What a waste of money that was. It was quite possibly the worst boat trip ever due to the waves being at least 10ft high - no joke! There were so many people being sick that this one dork passed out and the US coast guard and paramedics had to come and meet us. Ayyy, stupid dork meant we missed an hour of the trip while she got saved. Anyway we didn't see any whales, well we saw five blows of water [View Full Entry]

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Papeete, Tahiti We spent a pleasant day in Tahiti visiting James Norman Hall’s home, Point Venus which is the site where Capt. Cook recorded the passage of Venus across the face of the sun in 1769, a local market, and later, watched people congregating near the ship where vendors set up stands selling all kinds of food. James Norman Hall wrote the Mutiny on the Bounty series. We learned that not only was he a writer, but also quite an army pilot, serving in three armies - French, Spanish, and American (with Eddie Rickenbacker). There is a room full of medals [View Full Entry]

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