[password] pilot25041
[position] 13 49.75s 171 45.76w
[status] Friday 7th September late afternoon and very soon beer o'clock ........ welcome to all our readers from the bureaucratic hell of Apia!

So we left Matautu Bay on Savai'i after lunch on Wednesday and sailed further up the north coast and went into Asau, a difficult entry through the pass as we missed the small marker posts for the deeper channel in amongst the breaking waves, but with spotters on the bow, google maps indicating our position as the chart plotter was showing us traversing the 'green' stuff, we safely negotiated the rocky bottom and safely anchored in a most beautiful bay, we even saw another turtle during our pass entrance.

After a quiet night we ventured ashore for a walk, there are still significant signs of the devastation caused to this island from the cyclone in 1991, but there are a lot of new buildings that have received funding assistance from: NZ, USA & Australia to name a few! The people here obviously care about their properties and their grounds. After some fresh supplies from a local shop, back to the boat for a swim, had some lunch and recce the pass in the dinghy, using a hand held gps to mark the deep water exit. Allan then decided we should move further around the island to another anchorage to make today's trip back to Apia easier ........ this turned out to be further than expected and when we rounded the NW point of Savai'i with wind and current/waves against us, it was a bridge too far. The identified anchorage close to us had breaking waves and Asau we couldn't return to as it would be dark when we got there, so the only option was an overnight sail back to Apia, so we w
ere again anchored around 11am today in Apia harbour.

So we then ventured ashore for the formalities, so we can leave tomorrow for Tonga ..... Port Authority wanted 100US$ for nothing, just allowing us to anchor it seems, then to immigration, more paperwork and passport clearances to get a letter for customs, customs had more forms to complete, identical to the entry forms, needing 2copies, and listing ships stores again, copies of passports again and Ron's outbound ticket that Barry had already emailed to them on Sunday ....... after paying 54Talal and waiting considerable time we got the passports back but no clearance certificate ....... you have to leave immediately it is issued and as we said we're departing at 7am tomorrow, they will only issue it at 06.30hrs, so we'll have to go ashore and collect it then! So all in all a fairly wasted afternoon, dealing with a bureaucratic job creation scheme!
You may well get the impression that we are not impressed ...... you will be correct!!

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