Day 142 Provisioning

Cosco clone
Weather wise, this was a much better day with sun and calm winds. It appears that yesterday was not a good representative of the "dry" season here. In fact, we heard someone comment that they really needed the rain. Well, they got it.
The mission for today is to do the second major provisioning of the trip. The prices here appear to be the lowest we have seen since Mexico so Andy, Kurt and I jumped on a bus to Cost U Less, a Cosco type store about 45 minutes away. We filled four shopping carts with everything from apples to yoghurt (nothing beginning with Z) and everything in between. The three of us and our booty filled the SUV taxi that we hailed to take us back to the boat. It is a good thing we did not buy more as it filled all the available lockers on the boat. We are prepared to eat a lot of rice and pasta in case we continue to not catch any fish.
While we were gone, Mark did some additional errands and by the time we were all done, the day was gone so we went back to the yacht club where we met a couple who had sailed here 6 years ago and never left. There seem to be a lot of U.S. self imposed expats who find it easy to get a job here since this is the U.S. of A. and the same employment rules apply - with the exception that the pay is a lot less. This latter fact seems to be made up for by the fact that costs such as electricity, water, medical care and transportation are very low compared to mainland U.S. due to the subsidization.
American Samoa is an interesting fabric woven from the threads of Samoan and American cultures and rules. In Samoa, all the land is owned by ancient families or aiga (pronounced ah ing ah) that are ruled over by a chief. If you want to swim on a beach or surf on the reef, you must get permission from the family that owns that piece of land. Property is passed down through the generations by decisions approved by the chief. American Samoa and independent Samoa (once called Western Samoa) were the same nation until the second world war when their oversight was split between the US and Britain. The British part finally became their own nation in 1962 but the US part became an official territory of the USA. Most of the land in American Samoa still is regulated by the same Samoan rules as directed by the constitution of the territory. If you are an expat you can rent property and even get a long term lease but unless you marry a Samoan, you cannot own land. Native citizens of American Samoa are considered "U.S. Nationals" but are not U.S. citizens. They can enter the U.S. without immigration issues and even work in the U.S. but they cannot vote in U.S. national elections. Interesting.