Catching up

07/13/2025 – Beach Bums, and then – WHAT???

Well, without a car, there is only so much to do.  We decided to just meander around Honolulu and Waikiki Beach, rather than trying to find a tour or using one of those apps to borrow a local’s private car.  We bummed around the beaches and watched people playing beach volleyball and pickle ball.  We also added a couple of new birds to our life list, including Kathy’s favorite – the red-crested cardinal.  After getting our desired steps, we looked for a nice place to eat lunch, then we went back to the hotel to rest up a bit.  After another walk, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  There are a lot of Japanese restaurants and many things are written in Japanese.  We also hear a lot of people speaking Japanese.  We think Hawaii is a very popular vacation spot for the people of Japan.

Soooo, Kathy went to check us in online for our flight tomorrow to American Samoa.  Yes, AMERICAN Samoa.  Yet, Hawaiian Airlines wanted us to upload photos of our passports.  Why would US Citizens need to upload passports to enter American Samoa, a US territory???  We did not think we needed to bring our passports on this trip and so we had opted to keep them safe at home.  After a moment of haze, we started looking online into whether US citizens need to show passports to enter American Samoa.  Most sites said they do, but there was an exception where you only needed to show a certified birth certificate.  Like, we carry those around like spare change.  The Department of Legal Affairs website for American Samoa also said that we could show “A valid U.S. passport, travel document, or a certified birth certificate with ID.”  What, exactly, is a travel document according to them was the question. Dave quickly sent an email to the DLA to ask.  It was too late in the day to get an answer, but our flight did not leave until 4:30 pm tomorrow.  Let’s just get a good night’s sleep and worry about it tomorrow.  Yeah, right!

07/14/25 – Let us in!

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then started calling the American Samoa Office in Honolulu.  Their website said they opened at 8:30 am.  Called at 8:30 am; no answer.  Called at 8:45 am; no answer, left a message.  Called at 9 am, 9:15 am, 9:30 am.  No answer, no returned calls, no returned emails.  We looked at many options:  1) cancel our flights, hotel, and rental car in American Samoa and stay in Hawaii a few more days, 2) cancel everything in Samoa and fly back home early, 3) fly somewhere else, 4) have someone back home overnight our passports to us in Honolulu, 5) go down to the American Samoa Office in Honolulu in person and throw ourselves at their mercy.  Option 5 it was, and Dave was chosen as the sacrificial lamb.  Kathy stayed behind to gather our belongings and check out if necessary, or book another few nights if that was what we wanted to do.  She was certain at that point that we were never going to get to the National Park of American Samoa.  This would have been twice in the last 5 years that we have been at an airport with tickets to the island, only to be denied entry.

At 9:30, Dave booked a Lyft ride.  The Lyft driver dropped him off 3 miles from the Office, in a rundown area of town.  Dave asked where the Office was located.  The Lyft driver said he did not know, that he just drove to the location entered in his system, and that he had to leave for another fare.  Dave was stunned because he did not input an address, but inputted the “American Samoa Office in Honolulu” and the app entered the address.  Grrr.  Dave tried to get another Lyft ride.  The app would not accept the payment method he used earlier.  He tried correcting it multiple times.  Tick, tick, tick went the clock heading towards 4:30.  Dave tried using Uber.  No luck.  Dave finally got the Lyft app to accept the payment.  Yea!  The Lyft driver went to the wrong pickup location and left after 3 minutes.  Boo!  Tick, tick, tick…  Dave tried again and, finally! Success.  The Lyft driver dropped him off at the correct building (about an hour after he was supposed to arrive with the first Lyft driver.)

He entered the building and found the right office on the 10^th floor.  He went inside, and found no one there.  He heard voices inside an office and stood near the window.  Finally, the people inside noticed Dave and stopped yakking.  Dave explained the situation, and they went about rectifying the situation.  Dave needed to show them both New York Driver’s licenses, both Global Entry Cards, and send them photos of both passports, as wellas our flight information.  One hundred dollars later, Dave had emails that both applications for an “OK To Board” had been received!  Woo hoo!!  Dave booked a Lyft for Kathy to get to the airport and started walking the one mile there himself.  Dave was partway there, when he received a call from the DLA stating that they had just received our “OK To Board” forms and he needed to return to pick them up.  He finally met up with Kathy at the airport with hours to spare and the forms needed.  Phew!

We arrived in America Samoa at 9:10 pm local time, got through immigration and customs, and picked up our rental car by 10:10 pm.  Great!  But there were some more problems to overcome!  Our cell phones, from which we can text and access the internet free in over 220 countries, are useless in AMERICAN Samoa!!  Well, okay, not useless, but we cannot receive data and each text is 50 cents.  No worries, that’s why we bring a Garmin GPS with us.  What?  Our GPS does not work in AMERICAN Samoa either??  Arggh!  We had seen a driver for our hotel at the airport, so we drove back to the airport to ask him where the hotel was located.  Of course, he was gone by the time we arrived back at the airport.  In fact, the airport was pretty empty except for a cop who was talking with someone in a vehicle ahead of us.  Dave stopped and tried to figure out how to get to the hotel from a map he had picked up at the airport.  Gee whiz, you would think that a country that has such poor cell service and no GPS service would have better maps.  The cop told Dave to keep moving.  Kathy asked her how to get to our hotel.  She started giving us directions, then finally said, “Pull up in front of that vehicle and wait for me.  You can follow me to your hotel.”  Wow!  The people of American Samoa are some of the nicest and most helpful people we have seen.  This has held true throughout our entire visit.

07/15/2025 – Ah, paradise!

Today, we had three missions:  1) Get our CI’s (Certificate of Identifications) from the Attorney General’s Office so that we can get back on the plane ride home, 2) mail birthday cards to Dave’s sister-in-law Judy and his brother Jim (postmarked from Pago Pago!), and 3) find the visitor center for the National Park of American Samoa.  We found the AG’s Office with only a little difficulty.  However, they said we had to go back to the other end of town and get our CI’s from the Executive Office Building.  We were close to the US Post Office, so we mailed the cards before turning around and finding the EOB.  We found the EOB, filled out the application and paid the $200 fee.  But, they said, we had to go back to the other end of town to get photos for our CI’s.  Back in the vehicle, we found Tedy’s and paid the 14 bucks to get the photos.  Then, back to the other end of town to get the finalized CI’s.  Success!  We have now ticked off two of our three missions!  And, most importantly, we will be able to leave the island on Thursday as scheduled.  While doing all of our walking around town, we saw something fly overhead.  We recognized it as a fruit bat!  They are really cool bats and are so large, we expect Bela Lugosi to appear any moment!  The national park visitor center was, of course, at the other end of town.  We headed there and found a nice little VC with a very friendly and helpful person who gave us great advice on what to do in the park.  Kathy noticed that that they sold many gifts featuring fruit bats.  The lady explained to us that the preservation of fruit bats was the impetus for establishing the National Park of American Samoa.  Apparently, they were being hunted to extinction prior to the establishment (apparently, for food!)

Finally time to relax and just enjoy some of the area attractions. This included taking a nice hike in the park where we saw many birds and several bats.  The hike had some beautiful views of the rocky coastline.  We then drove a bit more along the park and found a tree with several bats roosting in it.  That was a treat!  After a while, it was time to retreat to our hotel room and rest up before dinner.