29 January 1951
Arrive Pago Pago 8.18am
…pronounced Pango Pango…story-book Eden of the Samoan Islands where the American flag flies over azure lagoons surrounded by lush tropic hibiscus, frangipani and bougainvillea …attractive Polynesians paddle native canoes in the surf of sun-washed beaches.
Log Abstract…
At: 8.18am (LT) Pago Pago arrival
Passage: 4 days, 14 hours, 36 mins.
Voyage Distance: 2,266 miles
Average Speed: 20.49 knots
At: 7.36pm - Depart Pago Pago for Vava'u
Arrival Time
THE CARONIA will enter Pago Pago harbour at about 9am. Ship's launches will be used for the transfer ashore, commencing at 9.30am. Consult ship's bulletin boards for full schedule of tender service to be operated during the day.
Departure Time
7pm sharp. The last tender will leave the landing place for the 15-minute transfer to the ship at 6.15pm.
Photo: Caronia - Peter Stevens Collection
Passengers’ Mail
It is possible to mail letters and post cards from Pago Page, but if speed is desired, passengers are advised to post such mail at Suva, which is on direct international mail routes, as mail posted at Page Pago must be taken by small local boat to Apia in Western Samoa and thence to Suva.
Samoa and the Natives
The Natives are highly literate and are Christians of different denominations. They are a high type of the Polynesian race, and it is generally believed that the Samoan Islands were the cradle of much of the early Polynesian culture.
All the land in American Samoa is privately owned by the natives, and law prohibits foreigners from buying it. There are public schools with more than 2,000 students, also several private schools.
The Harbour of Pago Pago, one of the best in the South Pacific Islands, was ceded to the United States in 1872 as a Naval and coaling station. Six years later America was granted freedom of trade and extra-territorial jurisdiction in Samoa.
In 1889 the Samoan Islands were proclaimed neutral territory through a tripartite treaty between the United States, Great Britain and Germany.
Photo: Peter Stevens Collection
Ten years later a further treaty gave Eastern Samoa to the United States and Western Samoa to Germany. After the first World War New Zealand received a mandate for Western Samoa. For the past 50 years the United States Navy has had the job of administering the government of American Samoa.
However, within the next few months the control is expected to pass into the hands of the Department of the Interior and thus come under civil administration.
The Play “Rain” by Somerset Maugham
The principal scenes of the play take place in the store-hotel of one Joe Horn at Page Pago. The island has also had its share in the films, with many scenes of the “Hurricane” having been filmed there, to the great publicity of the sarong.
Robert Louis Stevenson…
Described Pago Pago as follows…
“in the peep of the day the mass is outlined dimly; as the east fires, the sharpness of the
silhouette grows definite and through all the chinks of the high wood the red looks like coals through a grate.
From the other end of the harbour at the extreme end of the bay, when the sun is down and night beginning, and colours and shapes at the sea level are already confounded in the greyness of the dusk, the same peak retains for some time a tinge of a Phantom Rose.”
