Day 4 (March 9, 2025): Off to a very soggy start

We have just two words for today, our first full day in Samoa: POURING RAIN.  Yes, those two words pretty well sum it up.  And they pretty well limited what we were able to do.  Whether or not it was all a leftover from the cyclone system that whacked eastern Australia over there last couple of days, we are not certain.

I got up just before 4 AM this morning as, with the 17 hour time change, I could no longer sleep. There was some lightning and incredibly heavy rain in those early hours. But by the time we went for our lovely buffet breakfast at 7:30 AM, things had dried off, and the sun had actually peaked through for a little bit. We did a little walk around the pool area, and shortly after we got back to the room, the skies opened. And let me be clear: when I say the skies open here in Samoa, I mean the rain comes down as it must have when Noah entered the ark.  Brutal!

We hung out on our balcony until noon, as it provided shelter from the rain. Then we actually went to the hotel pool, encouraged by a short pause in the rain. We sat under a huge umbrella and managed to eke out an hour and a quarter there. But the rain became so torrential, we had to retreat. So we took an opportunity to get a pizza lunch.  Another break in the rain encouraged us to go for a walk. But 15 minutes into that, the tap turned on again and we were drenched yet again. 

That’s the kind of day it was: on, off, on, off. It’s not like the rain here starts gradually and builds to a gradual crescendo. When it starts to rain, it just pours immediately.

At 3:30, we borrowed a Monopoly game from the hotel and played it our room for two and a half hours. I went bankrupt and Pam cleaned up, adding hotels to all her properties.

We had a lovely steak dinner at the hotel, and called it a night by 8:30 PM.Tomorrow we are renting a car to drive around the island, and we are eternally hopeful that the weather will cooperate.

A post-breakfast pause in the rain and an occasional peak-through of the sun, offered a short window to grab some photos around the pool

This lava rock peer provides a nice jut-out into the Apolima Strait, which separates Upolu from Savai’i. 

That is the island of Savi’i in the distance to the right. In the middle is the small island of Apolima, which the Strait between Samoa’s two main islands is named for. To the left is the island of Manono, which is inhabited.

This is Pam, trying to decide which of two dresses to purchase. They were made by a local Samoan designer. She ended up getting the one on the right.

Although it certainly wasn’t as nice as sitting by a pool in the sun, when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade. And our ‘lemonade’ consisted

of chilling out on our second floor patio during the morning rains. 

At noon, we got bold and sat out under an umbrella on the hotel pool deck.

This is the moment a category two struck. No, not a hurricane, but rather an umbrella under an umbrella, which we describe as a ‘Burton category two’.

As we were doing our walk, we were walking near this huge old tree. A few feet in front of us, a huge branch - destabilized by the heavy rain - came crashing down out of the tree and smashed on the ground. It was a scarily close call!

Have you ever tried to take a picture of torrential rain? It never really turns out. But sometimes, rain is so torrential, you just want to try to capture it.

The 2 1/2 hour Monopoly game started out quite positively. But for me, it ended in bankruptcy, whereas for Pam, she amassed more hotels than the Hilton chain.

Dinner was New Zealand steak. And it was really delicious.