I Want You to Sail, Regardless…Part 1 of Townsend Cromwell’s Last Journey to Pago Pago

While growing up, I read books and watched movies that dealt with the romance of the seas, especially the South Seas. Those movies include “Donovan’s Reef,” and “Mr. Roberts.” Books consisted of James Michener’s “Hawaii” and one I can relate to quite a bit “Rascals in Paradise.” I had thought I would never see places described in those books or I saw in the movies. When I read the final chapter of a book or saw words on the silver screen inscribed “The End” I knew to myself that it was the last I would see it. For several hours the silver screen took me away to some tropical reef or I sailed with sailors on pages of classic novels.

I was tasked to sail to Pago Pago, American Samoa in November of 2002. We had just finished transferring equipment from the now decommissioned Townsend Cromwell to the newly arrived, but former Navy ship, Oscar Elton Sette. I was part of the team that initially set up the electronics infrastructure on a ship I was to sail with ten years later! I was assigned to sail the Cromwell on her final journey to her new home. After issues I had in Seattle, my boss thought it would be a good idea to get a change of scenery and get back into groove of sailing again. I was sailing with a group of people that will likely never see each other after this trip. I was eager to go, as with everyone else and it would be the first trip to Samoa for many of us including me.

One of the places I wanted to go has finally become reality. I first heard of Pago Pago in 1968 when my father was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. He was assigned to a mobile communications outfit that provided communications for NASA’s Apollo project when they returned to earth and splashdown in the South Pacific. That was in addition to tours in Vietnam. He never made it to Pago Pago as officers and senior NCOs took up that assignment. Next time I heard about Pago Pago was reading messages sent via e-mail from the Cromwell every time they pulled into port when I first came to work for NOAA. When I read those ships movement messages, romanticist vision was coming back as I would imagine what any other four seasonal people would envision of a tropical island. Now instead of reading messages and recalling stories, I was on my way!

We left Snug Harbor on Sand Island in Honolulu around three in the afternoon after many delays.  There were just as many reasons to the delay including political campaigns by the American Samoa representatives to the usual of “out of money” routine. Regardless which explanation was believable, we were on our way. The Cromwell made a U-turn at Snug Harbor pier and we began our journey to the South Pacific. Passing by Aloha Towers, Coast Guard pier and then southward to the open sea. Standing at the fantail I glanced at Honolulu and several hours later as evening took over, I returned to the fantail and looked one more time at the gleaming lights of the city before it faded off into the dark horizon. It was nature’s notice that we were now sailing the open seas. My duties were of communications officer as well as to retrieve and ship back as much electronics equipment I can take off as possible after we reached Pago Pago. When darkness set it was time to retire to my rack and sleep my first night at sea in months.

I woke early to send and receive e-mail messages for the staff and crew. There were only 13 of us for the twelve-day journey. In that group were many “pollywogs,” sailors who never crossed the equator.  The ship was so buoyant that it didn’t take much for it to roll when there were hardly any swells. The bridge of the Cromwell was nostalgic. Instead of a small steel steering wheel found on modern ships, the Cromwell had a large wooden wheel with brass covering circling it. For a boat that spent its career in tropical waters, the pilothouse was not air-conditioned. A small stairwell leads to the deck consisting of officers and staff staterooms. On the same deck was the ET shop where I did my e-mail transfers with an archaic 2400-baud satellite system.  On the deck inside the ET shop was an old Sperry MK-37 analog gyrocompass that was probably as old as the boat. When I was done with e-mail transmissions, I stood watch on the bridge with one of the junior officers. He and I would discuss men’s favorite topics, women. He knew I was going through a divorce and suggested I explore younger women. No, not women that were a decade younger but much younger women, such as those in their 20’s.  Yeah right, young women would be interested in a newly divorced man in his mid 40’s (46 at the time) with a hairline heading north and a belly heading south!

When not on duty, we would pass the time by watching movies or in deep conversation with each other on the fantail sitting at an old wooden picnic table. The rhythmic thudding of the ship’s diesel engines provided background “music” and a crewmember play an instrumental on his guitar. Water would splash through the side-holes of as the ship rocked to the night sea. A couple of nights when full moons lit the ocean, each wave appeared to be smiling at you and the moonbeam illuminated the whitecaps in detail. Those same moonbeams struck the black sky obscuring stars and bringing tinted daylight to the open sea. On a dark moon, the stars from billions of years past would do the same with a lesser degree of light. Star gazing at sea would only fuel my imagination of space travel. The galaxies were like clouds that were so clear and seem so close that I could touch it by reaching for it! I know I would never set foot on any of the sun’s cousins in the universe. You could see meteors crash towards earth never reaching its target as the atmosphere extinguishes it like the hand of god protecting us from such galactic catastrophe. As the ship headed further towards the equator, we search the skies for the eminence of the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross.

We were steaming towards the equator. I was standing watch on the bridge with the junior officer watching captivatingly at the GPS receiver, waiting for the latitude to read 0.00 and change the hemisphere from north to south. This was the first time for me in crossing the equator. The day we crossed the line, the weather was sunny and the seas calm. As we approached the invisible black line of the equator, I kept an eye on the GPS that made our crossing official. Naturally there were no black line as shown on models of the globe and the same applied to the red International Date Line of which I would sail many times in the future on the Ka’imimoana. Nevertheless, for “pollywogs” like me, I was a reluctant participant in an old sailor’s tradition of initiation into the world of “Shellbacks.” The officer I stood watch with was a "Wog" as well. After crossing the equator he grabbed the intercom microphone and made an announcement to the crew that we had crossed the equator! He ended that announcement with "Quick Pollywogs, go run and hide!"

Half the crew was shellbacks and six of us out of thirteen were “pollywogs.” In an introduction meeting I was assigned the name of “Mr. Clean Wog” due to my shaved head. At that time I sported a mustache/goatee combination and had shaved my head daily for two years, after I retired from the Naval Reserves. I was to wear my black shorts inside out but I forgot what I was to do whenever I met a Shellback. The ceremony lasted for three days and mild compared to what my counterparts went through in the Navy or other NOAA ships. However, we were on the Cromwell and wanted to keep the ship clean for the turnover to the American Samoan Government once we reached Pago Pago. Finally the day came when I was to go to the “Royal Court” and King Neptune would finally award me the title of “Shellback.” It was a special initiation as it would be the last one for the Cromwell. I still have the certificate adorning my wall at the house and wallet card in my locker on board the Sette.

With the Shellback initiation over it was time to get back to normal routine and take the ship into American Samoa. We were more than halfway to our destination and five more days of transit. The deck crew painted the ship in what seems like a continuous task. Recall being on the bridge and ahead of us was dark clouds of tropical rainsqualls. The deck crew swiftly painted the deck to get ahead of the upcoming rains. The weather was hot enough for the paint to dry quickly before we were covered in warm thrashing rain. The area that needed the most maintenance in painting was the deck below the jack staff on the bow of the ship. Birds love to sit on the jack staff to enjoy the breeze and hitch a free ride. For long distance booby birds it was a chance to rest their weary wings and gain some mileage before using their strength and continue again. Of course the “souvenirs” they left on the deck was something we didn’t appreciate. It dirtied up the ship and we were determined to hand the Cromwell over clean, very clean. In attempts to chase off the booby’s perching on masts, some of the guys would take a long stick to try and shoo them off! No success as they sassed back with a deep squawk and looking at them if they were simpletons.

Sunday morning, November 24, 2002 we saw the mountains of Upolu, the main island in the American Samoa chain. As we approached closer, we could see what looked like to me “Jitneys,” Filipino taxis based on WWII Jeep frames converted to what would could be considered open air SUVs. It was local buses on their Sunday run. The buses were built on extended frames of Ford or Toyota pick up trucks. There were smoke rising from different villages. First thought would be that fires were not being responded to. I would learn later and be a participant in the Samoan tradition of Sunday morning Umu, akin to Imu in Hawaii. I noticed houses did not have walls and there were churches, many churches but the architecture wasn’t the gaudy style you would find in western countries. The white sandy beaches were clean and unoccupied. I finally got my first look of Polynesia in the South Pacific. It was Polynesian village without the touristy atmosphere found in Hawaii. I went to the bridge from the weather deck and heard the ship’s master raise concern as to when the pilot would show up. Sunday is literally a day of rest in Samoa and we were wondering if we had to wait another day before going ashore.

A small boat approached our ship and in it was the pilot who was to take us in Pago Pago Harbor. We finally docked and met by American Samoan government officials from immigration, customs and the engineering crew who was to take over the reins of the Cromwell from us. On the pier stood large men dressed in lava lava, Samoan kilts. One of the first items that were to produce legs and walk off the ship was Cromwell t-shirts commemorating its last voyage as well as t-shirts sold in the ships store. I grabbed the bag of what was left and kept one each for me, and the remaining set for the Congressman who got the boat for American Samoa.

After we cleared customs and immigration we were cleared to go ashore. There was hardly any activity and I never saw such idleness since Blue Laws were in place at most states on the mainland. A local fisherman approached me and several other crewmembers and asked us if we needed a ride to wherever we were going. It was obvious to him that we were not familiar with Pago Pago. We were looking for someplace to go for a drink not realizing that liquor was not sold on Sundays until later in the day. He gave us the tour of renowned and notorious nightclubs in Pago Pago, all closed for the day of course and to open later. The fisherman pointed out to us one of the most notorious places in Pago Pago at which would be significant to me several days later. He dropped us off at an abandon building that was once a pub. Noticing that there was nothing going on we hailed a cab to take us back to the wharf and our ship. 

After twelve days and nights at sea we were finally at our destination in a tropical isle in the South Pacific. The fluttering leaves of coconut trees and vegetation covered rocks called “flower pots” dotted the coastline of Upolu. It was just the way described in books and backdrops of movies. Brown-toned young Polynesian girls like described in novels except they were fully clothed whereupon missionaries had brainwashed the locals to be ashamed of their bodies unlike pre-Christian Polynesia of Michener or Melville novels.

That night we ventured towards the canneries and hit the bars that were infamous to describe it best. The first place we had our drinks was at a bar that predominantly catered to Korean fisherman. Its claim to fame was a place for Karaoke singing. One of the crewmembers dropped a hint to the mamasan that the girls were going in the backroom doing more than just serving drinks and singing. She responded in an irate voice and angrily yelled at the deckhand that she wasn’t running that type of business. Interesting that the young beautiful Korean women were singing to the clients wearing short micro-miniskirts that presented their long legs quite well while exposing their slim midriffs. I was single again but not having a physical appearance and tone of a ladies man, I knew that these ladies would never approach me. We closed the bar that night and returned to the ship. Some of the crewmembers were flying out the next night but the remaining was not sure of our status. Nevertheless, I was ready to enjoy the new environment I was placed in and explore the island more. I had no idea that same week an event would occur that was to change my life.

In Two Weeks Part 2: One Week in Pago Pago