A view from the harbor in Fagatogo, today, as we watched the boat races.
April 17th is the 110th anniversary of American Samoa becoming a territory of the U.S.A.

There were nine boats and each boat had a large community of support.

In the picture below they are launching one of the long boats. The boats are 115 feet long, weight around 2 ton. There are 23 rowers per side, which makes 46 rowers with a captain running the rudder and yelling the commands. There were heats yesterday and one of the boats swamped, because of the rough water in the ocean and today, they won the race of the year. This is a long and much celebrated event, I would assume it has been going on for the all 110 years. It has never been canceled and they usually row in the rain, which they did today.

We went to two night of celebration of Flag Day. There was much music and local dancing. It rained both nights but there were tents to protect the crowd. Many of the groups were local schools presenting various traditional dances.