TNS460 29/05/2016 Greetings once again family, friends and loyal blog followers from Forward
Starboard.

Today we are saying goodbye to Samoa after having departed yesterday
afternoon from Apia.

We arrived late Friday evening and typical of Polynesia everything closed by
lunch time on Saturday, but this did not deter the voyage crew who managed
to sample the natural delights of this lovely island.

Waterfalls, scenic viewpoints, an ocean trench (which was similar to a
Mexican cenote) for swimming, natural sliding rocks, where the brave slid
down into fresh pools of water.  Also on the tour trail was the home and
grave of Robert Louis Stevenson. Islay, who will be studying English later
this year at uni, has The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on her
reading list and purchased a copy of this from the museum.

Later this week it will be independence day and as part of the celebrations
there is an international 7s rugby tournament which some attended.  The
highlight of some of the vc’s day was the result of the Samoa vs Australia
game – Samoa slaughtered the Aussies 27 – 0.

High fashion was also in the minds of some.  Kyle will be rocking Chepstow
in his gabardine lavalava – let’s see if David Beckham adopts this look.

One of our statuesque watch members who was miffed at not finding a large
enough t-shirt in Tahiti, faired a little better in Samoa, however had us
flabber gasted when he discovered what size shirt he would need to purchase
– considering the size of the Polynesian men, the best fit is XXXXXL!!! Much
to the hilarity of the rest of the watch (especially Carol!).

Stretch & Maggie had smoko with some Aussies who they had earlier met in
Bora Bora, and spent Sunday afternoon with the bar owner from the night
before.

There were numerous churches along the front and on Sunday there was
beautiful singing coming from each of them.

So we have most sails set and racing along at 6.5+ knots towards our
destination of Fiji.

Islay and Francesca have been helping Rowan check the immersion suits today
– they look like large bright red teletubby onesies. You never know what job
will be thrown your way next when you are doing leadership at sea.

Later this afternoon we have a pin rail chase – and MVB has paired each Port
member with a Starboard counterpart to see if anyone has learnt anything in
the last 5 weeks or we have all been like sheep and just pulled what we have
been told – results tomorrow.

We’re off to crib up for the chase and prepare smoko and we will write our
final instalment later this week before we arrive in Suva.

TTFN
Fwd Stb:  Stretch, Karen, Islay, Bill, Francesca, Jane, Kyle, Maggie, Jon
and Carol.