more fish

Life on the public dock in Pago Pago is pretty comfortable. Food stores, free internet, and buses to the rest of the island are a short walk away. The buses of American Samoa are worthy of their own blogpost. Fortunately, Neal has already done that. The fishermen working on the commercial long-line fishing boats are very friendly and generous. Yesterday the crew from another long-line fishing boat gave me a big hunk of Wahoo. They also offered me some swordfish, but I declined as I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the Wahoo. Half went into a fish soup (got the recipe from some Australian sailors in Suwarrow) while the other became sashimi.  Neal, Ruth, and Corie from Rutea helped me prepare and eat the fish. I'm not sure I've had raw Wahoo before, but it was tasty.

Since giving up on reaching South Africa by December, I've been contemplating sailing to New Zealand before Australia. Would be a shame to miss it, really. I guess that's why they call this the (coconut) milk run, but I haven't had what I would call rough seas since leaving San Diego. The weather reports I hear on Radio New Zealand do make me a little nervous about sailing in NZ waters, though.