a rainy day at the beach

We went to $2 beach on one of the rainiest days we've had in weeks. When Clif handed the lady the money to use the beach, she looked up at the sky, looked at us, and shook her head. I'm sure she was thinking we were crazy palagis.

But it had been raining since Ruth got here and we figured we'd be wet anyway. We just needed to find a beach with fales to keep the towels dry. So we went to $2. It's a nice little beach on the East side of the island, just past Alega (Tisa's). There's a great little snorkel spot to the right of the little island that always has needlefish somewhere nearby. When I first headed out, I was surrounded by a circle of them that moved as I moved. I love how they stay close by, but are always just out of reach - there's nothing else like it. We also saw a bunch of cornetfish, which was especially fun since some of them were huge!

As an added bonus, we were able to get some pictures of Clif's favorite type of dog on the island. There are tons of dogs here, most are mangy and malnourished. It's pretty appalling. There are really just a few different patterns on the dogs here, and most tend to be similar in size and shape (small gene pool on a small island, go figure). There's a lot more I could say about the dog situation here, but I'll leave it at that for now -actually, I won't. I'll leave it to the Court to explain. Go to asbar.org, click legal resources, and search for Savage v. ASG, 1 ASR2d 102. It paints a pretty accurate picture of the dog problem here.

Anyway, Clif's favorite look on these island dogs, and probably my favorite too, are these that are white with brindled spots - pretty cool, huh?

beaching

The weekend after all our stuff was stolen we went to Sailele. It was beautiful! Sailele is on the other side of the island. It has almost no garbage on the beach, which is a novelty here, and we avoided rain on the other side of the island. The kids had great fun exploring a little tunnel in the rock where there was beautiful coral and even some colorful fish. Then last weekend we went bowling in a sauna - well, technically we just went bowling in a bowling alley with no A/C, but that's not what it felt like!

We spent Columbus Day at $2 beach. It's called $2 beach because it costs $2 per person to swim there. I know some people here don't think the $2 is worth it, but we liked having a small fale to keep us out of the small bouts of rain that came through. And it was a great place for snorkeling, especially for Everett. There is a small little deep spot away from the waves and current where tons of fish hang out. Our exciting creature views were sea urchins, juvenile emperor angelfish and juvenile rock mover wrasse, which I find really interesting since it looks like a bit of plant matter floating in the water until you look closely, and then when it grows, up it looks like this. We saw a few more pipefish and many juvenile parrotfish too, plus, of course, all the many fish that we weren't able to identify!