Sharks

Yesterday I went diving at Fagaalu with a few of my dive buddies. It looked like it would be a pretty drab dive. The visibility was poor from the rain the night before. We decided to swim across the bay and drop in on a different part of the reef because the visibility is usually much better on that side. It was an excellent choice. The visibility probably went from 15 feet to around 100 feet. The coral was amazing and there was a lot of interesting sea life. We cruised around the reef farther than I had been before. About ten minutes into the dive I saw my friend Paul Brown motioning enthusiastically. I looked to my right and two Great Hammerhead sharks swam out about 7 to 10 feet over my head. One was around 6 feet long and the other around 7. They get up to 14 feet so these were younger sharks.

Hammerheads are an extremely rare site here so it was neat to see. What is funny though is that these are the first sharks that I have seen. The more common sharks have yet to be marked off on my checklist of sightings. We also saw a giant moray eel, longnose filefish, and some other interesting sea life. Suprisingly seeing my first sharks was not too scary. Maybe Paul's clapping in the background helped me feel a little safer. I mean sharks cant be dangerous if someone is clapping...right?

mosquito bites suck (ha ha ha)

I knew that mosquitos would be a problem when we moved here (we loaded up on enough permethrin and bug spray to prompt our REI cashier to say, "I don't ever want to go where you're going.") I just didn't realize that in spite of diligently dousing myself in chemicals, I would never experience a day without a mosquito bite while I'm on this island. For those curious people who are dying to know, my vote for the worst places to get mosquito bites are:

1- in between your fingers or toes. it's just not pleasant.

2- on your waist, exactly so the waist of your pants/skirt rubs against it all day long which makes it itch all day long.

3- in the arch of your foot. this seems to happen to me a lot and every time it pisses me off.

4- on your butt. this only makes the list because of how lame you look when you scratch it, other than that, it's not too bad.

5- on the back of your achilles tendon, which would be much worse if we lived anywhere that required normal shoes, but the flip flops make it tolerable

*photo stolen borrowed from the online encyclopedia brittanica

the best snorkeling in American Samoa

I know people are looking for it. I get searches on this topic all the time from curious people, so here is my opinion based on the limited number of beaches I've been to:

Blue Hole/Airport Lagoon are my favorite snorkeling spots so far. They are deep enough to get around (the main problem when you try to snorkel most places in AS) and there isn't much of a current. Two ways to get here - the garbage walk around the airport fence from Lion's Park or the blowhole walk from Maliu Mai (can you guess which one is more scenic?). If you get to either side of the radio tower on the southern edge of the runway, you're there. Blue Hole is on the east, Airport Lagoon is on the West.

Alega Beach (Tisa's) has amazing fish, but snorkeling can be tricky. If the sea is calm you can go in the 'ava to see big fish, but be careful or you'll get pulled out to sea. If you're new or visiting, be sure to check with Candyman before you try anything - he can tell you how safe it is on a particular day.

Vatia is another one of my favorites. It's fairly protected, but there is a bit of jostling from the waves at the edge of the reef where the fish are. Sometimes murky, but when you get a day with clear water, it's incredible.

Faga'alu is more polluted than most other places on this list, but it has easy access to pretty good snorkeling. It's very protected so currents and waves are almost nonexistent, which makes it a great place to explore for beginners.

Fagatele Bay is incredible for it's crystal clear water, but when I went the currents were much too strong to do anything but hold onto the reef and look out as far as I could see. Lots of fish and clear water make this place worth a try in spite of that.

oh, the technicalities

Clif: It's Thursday, right?
Simon: No, it's Thurs-night.

Poloa

Saturday we weren't aware of the cyclone near Fiji and Tonga so we hit the beach. It was cloudy, but didn't rain much. The waves were beautiful though!


I realized I never take pictures of the land part of this island. I'm always looking at the ocean. That probably has something to do with the fact that much of it looks like this:

Buried Septic Treasure!

Lately the kids have discovered they can climb our breadfruit tree. They are a little too short to get up without any assistance, but the seven foot long 1 x 4 the housing guys left in the yard has worked out well.

Anyway, they've been braving the swarms of mosquitos out back a lot lately and found treasure! There was a little hole in the ground so they started digging. They could see a square cement box and uncovered a cement slab lid. I was inside and could hear their excited comments, "it's a treasure chest!" and "oooh, mom's never gonna believe this!" They came running to show me when they had uncovered a huge cement slab lid on top of a cement box that had been under about 2 inches of dirt and grass.

They were incredibly excited and wanted to open the cement treasure chest. It turned out to be the septic system so... not really treasure. Quite the opposite, actually.

The best part is that I didn't realize it was the septic system. We pried it open and tried to look inside, but couldn't see (or smell) anything. So we went to a friend's house later that day where they found the same "treasure chest" and the friend's parent also opened it, but the friend's parent recognized a septic system when he saw one -which is a very good thing because Everett was convinced he saw tunnels in ours and he wanted to go exploring!

Masefau

Last weekend Everett & I went to Masefau, Simon had a little sore throat so he stayed home with Clif. Masefau is like a lot of villages in American Samoa - it's long and fairly narrow and follows the inside curve of a bay. This was the first one where I was able to get a great shot of the village and the bay from above.

When we were snorkeling I saw a ray and a white sea urchin. The ray would have been really cool if I could see it better, but it was so murky that I didn't get a great look.

New Years

We had a few people over on New Year's Eve. The kids were so excited to stay up until midnight, and they really enjoyed all the glow stuff that came in a Christmas package. Those things provided hours of entertainment -thanks, mom & dad!

In the morning, Everett actually slept in.

We spent the first day of the new year at the beach in Vatia. We went diving, snorkeling, and kayaking - it was a great way to start the new year.

Where were you in 1979?

I was at a family reunion. I'm the one in pink somewhere near the middle.

vacation days

Clif and I took a few days off after Christmas so we could hang out with the kids and explore the island a little bit. First we went to the museum.

Then we hiked to this old WWII gun on Blunt's Point.

Then we went to Amanave.

And then we hiked to Palagi Beach. The trail was washed out so we had to climb up a mudslide and once we got to it the trail was pretty bad anyway. We came back along the coastline, which is the route we'll take when we go back. And we'll definitely go back - it's the only beach we've been to with absolutely no garbage on it!

And then Everett accidentally stepped on a nail so we didn't get to do the rest of the things we had planned. I'm sure we'll get to it all though - we have plenty of time!

more Samoan Christmas decorations

After Deepa's party on Christmas night, we went to this group of houses where they had built the Golden Gate Bridge and Eiffel Tower out of Christmas lights. It was incredible! I wasn't able to get a good picture of the whole thing (this is just a small portion of it), but the path was lined with lights and there were random infaltable characters here and there - Santas, Snowmen, a Scooby Doo with a Christmas hat, snowglobes, etc. My personal favorite are the ships under the bridge on the tarp water, complete with their own spotlight so you don't miss them!