Postcards from Upolu: weird celestial shit

Dawn, Vaiala sea wall, Apia, Upolu, Samoa

It was that perfect tropical Saturday evening out on the front deck of the Amanaki Hotel on the Mulinu'u Peninsular in Apia. It had been a fairly humid day but the cloud had cleared and there was a most brilliant spectacle of the fullest of full moons that you will ever want to see.

As it happens, there had been an unusual astronomical phenomenon that day - the longest total eclipse of the moon in the 21st Century at 103 minutes. At 6:14 that morning the full moon sat just above the western horizon when it began eclipsing, and 33 minutes later the moon dipped entirely below the horizon and disappeared, and exactly one minute after that, the first ray of sun was to be seen on the eastern horizon. We had a view of neither; the moonset was obscured by the hills grading to mountains that surround Apia, and while sunrise certainly came into view, we had no direct line of sight with the eastern horizon. But that one minute switch back from west to east would have been fantastic to watch at sea on a clear night. Also, five planets were all be visible at one time or another in the night sky - for the first time in yonks - in a place that might as well have been a million miles from anywhere.

We'd dropped in for dinner, and the moon was front and centre having risen a couple of hours earlier and it threw a golden silvery light clean across Apia harbour, with millions of moonbeams reflecting on the ripples of small waves, and the only other lights visible were those of the container terminal in the distance. It was drop dead gorgeous. A rare moment.

The moon also had a stunning corona around it; a perfect circle of bright white light shaded in hues of purples and blues and greens and reds - simply spectacular. I casually said to Fran "isn't that corona around the moon an absolute corker?"
"What corona?" she replied.
"The corona around the moon, there it is".
"No, can't see it".
"What do you mean? The corona around the moon, see. I don't understand. You can't see it?".
"Yes, I know what a corona looks like, I've seen them before, and I'm here to tell you it's not there".

I hadn't been drinking, and here I was thinking I was having my long awaited bona fide Road to Damascus Experience, but now there was real doubt that it even existed - no question. Fran peered at the moon more intently, took her glasses off. No. Tried my glasses. Nothing. Tried another pair she'd found fishing around in her handbag, but again, no result. No corona. I was mildly shocked, but about what? That I could see something that wasn't there? Or that she couldn't see something that was?

I will swear black and blue that it was a most enchanting corona, and no matter which way you moved your head it would stay still, framing the moon perfectly. I didn't take a photograph and it never occurred to either of us that a simple solution was simply to ask someone, anyone in the busy local crowd at the bar whether they could see it or not. Somehow, in that time & place, it just didn't matter. The idea never arose, as there seemed little to no point in saying 'There! Told you so', on it being confirmed, which I was entirely sure would have been my smug reaction

We were happy enough to just let it slide and enjoy the view. It will remain 'one of life's little mysteries', but it was farkin' weird. Little wonder. There had been some crazy astronomicals going down, in one of the finest, and certainly most idyllic viewing spots on earth - can't get better than a remote island in the South Pacific - and luckily we knew about it so it didn't randomly come out of the blue to spook the living bejesus out of us. You know what they say about howling at full moons &.

On leaving the hotel, the security bloke who's main job appeared to be to try to sort out the jumble of cars in the car park caught us having a quiet chug on a ciggy and looking skyward. He pointed and said "Is that Mars?" "Yep, that's Mars, the Red Planet". "Oh, I thought so", he said with a broad smile. So I pointed too, and being a smart arse, added "and that one's Saturn almost straight overhead, and that bright one over the hills there is Jupiter".
As the days wore on, the moon rose later and later.

A few days after the "corona incident", I stumbled onto the Lepa village beach after communal dinner at Fao Fao and saw an awe inspiring Milky Way, the likes of which I have never seen before, not even in the crystal clear outback of South Australia. The night was so dark as the moon was yet to rise, pitch black, with barely a single light bulb to be seen anywhere.The Milk Way stretched out its stupendous canvas from horizon to horizon with staggering clarity revealing that unimaginably huge universe, yes, if you were ever in any doubt, there are billions and billions of stars in it. The galaxies from one of the most remote places on the planet wasn't lost on me. An hour or so later, looking out from the fale, the moon had risen and all the detail in the Milky Way had disappeared, almost entirely - flooded by moonlight.

While I was stone cold sober on that beach that night and entirely without the influence of any kind of brain-altering snakey substances, my mind drifted to kava, something I had never seen nor heard talked about in Samoa, where it is reserved strictly for ceremonial purposes unlike in Vanuatu where there are kava bars everywhere, but oh for a shell or two now! Made for it.

Weird celestial shit.

Morning high tide at the lagoon, Lepa, Upolu, Samoa

NOTES

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Money:
The currency of Samoa is the Tala [International Currency Code $WST] At the time of visiting, $A1 = approx $WST2.

Travel:
Samoa Airways. Direct flights Sydney KSA → Apia twice a week, Thursday and Saturday. Boeing 737-800. 5.5 hours out, 6.5 hours return.

Accommodations:

Vaiala Beach Cottages, Vaiala, Apia. Ph:

Fao Fao Beach Fales, Lepa, South Coast. Ph:

Samoan Outrigger Hotel, Moto'otua, Apia. Ph:

Attractions:

See 44 short 'reviews' on Google Maps of places we visited:

https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/118444355359555897233/reviews/@-13.8621929,-171.8129058,11z