Post-Awful

The U.S. mail is consistently the only cheap, reliable way to get packages to American Samoa. That said, problems still crop up. Sara and I were expecting a few packages to arrive in time for Christmas. When some of them didn't, we rolled our eyes and brushed it off like anyone who's going to make it on this island needs to. That said, when we finally made it to the Post Office today and picked up a package from my grandmother, we managed to be stunned by the condition of the package that arrived. It was trashed on the exterior. The Postal Worker explained that sometimes the staff in Honolulu leaves the packages on the tarmac while waiting for the aircraft.

Lucky us, the contents survived intact and we're looking forward to good coffee and scones. Just take this as a lesson to insure your packages and keep the receipts (as you'll need that to collect on the insurance).

Christmas in the Tropics

It's been a little disconcerting to experience my first Southern Hemisphere Christmas. The weather's been hot and humid, with regular rainstorms giving way to the searing near-equatorial sun. Most weekends leading up to the holidays have either been too stormy to get out and do much or too hot to be out in the sun. So we've run to cover for the last few weeks.

Further social gatherings were fast and furious in the weeks leading up to the holidays. The Bar Association party was memorable as was the Legal Affairs office party (a special tip of the hat goes to Blake and his dancing...). However as the 25th approached more and more of our small palagi community began to catch the flights back to the mainland and home for the holidays.

About the time that Christmas Eve rolled around, our group of friends was severally reduced and we invited the crew we still had around over to spend the holiday at our house. Sara and I were happy to share one Sayles household family tradition with all of our friends, cioppino. For those of you who haven't experienced it, it's a traditional Italian fisherman's stew that has a long history in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the days leading up to Christmas Eve I was stunned to see good, cheap dungeness crab in a few of the markets here on island. While it was frozen, I wasn't going to let an opportunity like that pass us by. The rest of the shellfish was easy to find and swordfish stood as our whitefish. Then I was stewing the broth from the shells and trimmings in my brew pot on the stove. It was a full days worth of work to gather, prep and cook the ingredients, but once that tomato-y was ready, it all was worth it. Despite the fact that 90 degrees and rainy is not the normal temperature for hot soup, it helped make the holiday feel a little more like home in Northern California.

Pese Performance

Our big pese performance was last Friday. We had a midday practice (with last minute changes still being made to the songs we were going to be performing...grrr). At the end our rehearsal the AG told everyone to go home and relax for the rest of the afternoon. That sounded great, but with looming appeal deadline and motion deadlines, most of us attorneys were back in the office for the rest of the day. Once 4 o'clock rolled around we rallied up at Sadie's-by-the-Sea for some pre-performance libations and a bite of food. Our department was scheduled to be the second group to go on the third and last night of pese. After some grub and socializing it was time for us to get in uniform and head over to the field where we perform. I was worried about parking, as this was a big festival that I'd heard people discussing all year. Much to my surprise parking was easy and close and we were over and waiting as the first group of performers go on stage and started in with their singing.

Several large tents occupied the area in front of the stage. This played into the lack of crowds in front of the stage, most views outside of the VIP tent would be blocked. Most Samoans stay home and watch the performances on television. Only the VIPs who are invited by the governor are expected to be at the live performances. We gathered with the rest of the Department of Legal Affairs staff and watched the first group of performers take their turn in the spot light.

Eventually towards the end of the first performance we lined up in the back of the stage and prepared to go on-stage. We filed out, I ended up near the rear of the group (one of the advantages of being tall). Our performance started out with a speech by the Attorney General and the head of immigration, both in Samoan.

We then launched into our songs. We'd settled on an order and how they would be performed and it felt like a good performance. We received several compliments in the following days and people also told us they were impressed we were singing in Samoan. Looks like the broadcasts did focus in on us for our pese. We've also heard that there's video out there of us, we're working on getting a copy and will update accordingly.

The Great Movie Crisis of 2011

Living on a remote island results in shortages and lack of variety of products and services available. After being here for 7 months, I'd thought I'd gotten used to the rhythms and beats of this isolated market place. Buy the shipped-in fresh vegetables when they're in the grocery store and mostly green. Go with the canned, pickled, frozen or limited supply of local when it's been awhile since the last container ship has called on Pago Pago Harbor. These are the trials of living in paradise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It was the entertainment shortage that I wasn't prepared to handle. It all started on Friday, November 18 when Happy Feet 2 and Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 were released at the Nu'uli Place Cinema, the only movie theater on island. These two films replaced Tower Heist and Puss in Boots, another two movies that had little draw to Sara or myself, but had put a few butts in seats at the theater. Not having an interest in the animated animals or teenage heart throbs, I was happy to avoid the theaters for November.

When Happy Feet and Breaking Dawn held down the movie theater for a second week, I held out hope the next week would bring new cinematic entertainment to us here in American Samoa. Another week passed, yet new movies did not materialize in our theater.

Instead of bringing us The Muppets, Young Adult or Hugo they continued to run out night after night and show after show freaking Happy Feet 2 and The Freaky Vampire Abstinence Movie. Once the fourth week rolled around and still new movies didn't arrive, one of my friends openly called for a riot with pitch forks and torches (I suggested the more readily available machetes and coconuts). The movie viewing public didn't have the fervor of the Occupy movement, but we bided our time.

Finally, last Friday saw relief to our crisis. We were greeted by the marquee that read: Happy Feet 2 and Sherlock Holmes 2. We welcomed the end of our entertainment drought. Sunday evening we attended a packed showing of Sherlock. It was enough to stave off the turmoil of another week with the same two god-damned movies.

To our surprise we also were blessed with a midweek replacement for Happy Feet, on Tuesday it was replaced with Mission Impossible 4. We could go to sleep knowing that we had survived the Great Movie Crisis of 2011 and were able to get out of the house and be entertained.

We even managed a double date tonight to see Mission Impossible tonight. It was awesome. Now starts the wait until the next new movie comes to us...

Case in the News

One of my cases has been making the news in this otherwise quiet territory. It's even been catching some media attention in New Zealand and other places. Looks like resolution is close, at least on the American Samoa side of the matter, so it'll be back to the day in and day out of litigation here again.

Only in Samoa...

Sara and I took a quick coffee run to the McDonald's Drive-Thru (ironically one of the only places you can get a decent cup of joe on the island) this morning. In the line for ordering saw one of the odder moments that has happened tin front of us here. Someone was ordering their meal from the back of an ATV. This had us both laughing out loud.

Transportation on the island is pretty laissez-faire. It's frequent to see 5 or 6 people riding in the back of a pickup truck and aiga buses are colorful and loud substitutes for public transportation that often fill up to the point that new riders need to sit on the laps of people with seats. That said the sight of a four-wheeled dirt-bike grabbing a bite at McDonald's was new on us. Just another reminder that even though we've been here for 7 months this island will still find ways to surprise you.

Pese is in full swing

On my way back from High Court this morning, after arguing an interesting case, I was greeted with quite a set of sights and sounds in the atrium to the Executive Office Building. One of the government departments was in full rehearsal mode doing choir practice. It made for a livelier walk than usual back up to the office.

With the first night of pese scheduled to start tonight the American Samoa Government departments are doubling up on their practice time. This whole week there has been music echoing through the office building as well as long practices for our office every afternoon. Even at Court this morning the witnesses I had were bragging about last years' performances and talking up their shows for this year. Should be quite a festival over the next three evenings.

Sara and I were among the members of our office to help pick out the pese uniforms for the Department of Legal Affairs. This meant that we got to go to the fabric store pick the fabric that all the members of the Department would use to make their uniforms and then had sample designs knocked up by one of the local sewing shops for the men's and women's uniforms to show the rest of the office how to have their's made. It was classic group decision making, with several opinions pulling the print and design their own direction, but we were happy with the end product and are looking forward to seeing it on display at our televised performance on Friday.

NOAA Station

Following a wonderful umu meal at our friend Visa's house and a short side trip to feed our "take away" breadfruit to some stream fish, Sara and I decided to explore the NOAA observatory and weather station out on the Eastern tip of the island. A few of our friends had visited the facility a few weeks before and reported back that it was worth the trip. It had been a few months since we'd been out to the east end of the island, so we thought it would be worth the trip. The drive out there is full of interesting sights and well worth it.

This is only the second time I've been out to the Eastern tip of the island. It's a beautiful drive out there and I love how once you get past the canneries in the harbor, the island quickly transitions to small quiet villages that are dotted along the lonely single lane road.

The NOAA weather station that sits out on the Eastern Tip of the island is one of the few permanent presences of the federal government here in American Samoa. It has the unique distinction of being the spot with the cleanest air in the world. Or at least the place that NOAA uses air samples from to determine what the "clean-air" baseline is. I find this a little odd, since the people of American Samoa burn their trash and waste on a daily basis and a healthy majority of the vehicles on island do not have any pollution controls, but I guess when the wind is blowing in the from east, the air there has come from a thousand miles of open ocean to reach there.

The turn off to the Observatory is unmarked, but it's pretty obvious which of the dirt tracks runs to the top of the hill at Cape Matalua, the NE tip of Tutuila. We followed the road up past a few homes and came to the gate of the NOAA facility. The plateau of the mountain was filled with the observatory proper and a number of instruments scattered around the grassy area. Sara and I spent some time trying to determine what each's purpose was.

Once we had explored all the sciency things at the Observatory we came across one last highlight, the stairway down to the cape. It is a long wooden staircase, containing over 200 stairs at a 45 degree slope down the mountainside. The thoughtful designers even placed several benches in to make sure there'd be places to rest.

The climb down wasn't bad, but knowing we'd have to go back up was a tickling in the back of our heads as we headed down.

The Cape at the base was beautiful. It's a peninsula that was bare rocks covered in moss and grass with the crashing Pacific on all sides.

We hung out for a bit and just appreciated the remoteness and ruggedness of our little island. Well worth the trip out.

All that was left was our hike back up. Thankfully we've been doing enough hiking that it wasn't too much of a challenge.

Thankfully, all that was left to cap off this Sunday was a stop at Tisa's on the way back to our side of the island.

Pese Practice has Begun

A unique Samoan cultural event has started to happen this week in our office. For an hour each afternoon, the whole office shuts down. All the employees filter out of their desks and head down to the lobby for Immigration. We then sit on benches and chairs pulled in from the Immigration Office. In the center of the room is a Casio keyboard. We then start practicing Christmas songs for an hour. In a few weeks our department (and all other government departments over the course of three evenings) will perform at the stage across the street from the legislature in front of the governor and the performance will be broadcast on TV. The name of this who deal is Pese.

As a person of limited musical talent, this is a bizarre use of my work hours. All but one of the songs we are working on are in Samoan, a language that has me struggling to say the name of the village I live in. Singing in it adds a whole other layer of difficulty. Not mention being asked to memorize lyrics has me wondering what I signed up for. Oh yeah and the lyric sheets we were handed out had several lines that we aren't singing. No one's bothered to explain this to us first-timers. We need to figure it out as we got or get yelled at in Samoan when the song leader takes umbrage with our signing. Worst of all, apparently the television cameras inevitably focus in on the palagi faces in the crowd. I'm sort of dreading this recital.

One fun component of all this is Sara and a few of our friends were tasked with choosing the fabric and design of the matching uniforms everyone from our department will wear for the performance. This meant that we went to the fabric store picked out a fabric that had a large enough amount to make shirts for the men and pulatasis for the ladies. The four people on the uniform committee had to debate and compromise their way to one fabric and design they could settle on. To ensure the printed fabric wouldn't run out, the rolls of it were placed on reserve. Our next task was to take the fabric to a sewing shot across the street and started having them knock up the samples that we can show the rest of the office the design. We were measured and the design was described, we'll be modelling the designs on Monday for the office.

I never thought I'd be using my law degree to entertain quite in this way. We'll hopefully be able to get some video of the performance to post...

Soccer

American Samoa takes its sports seriously. The sports most people focus on are football, volleyball, rugby and cricket. So it was big news when AmSam's "National" soccer team won their first game this week: http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/Worst-ranked-American-Samoa-win-first-ever-FIFA-?urn=sow-wp6950

We'll see if the sport takes off here.

James "Jim" Allen Sayles

I got the worst of news this evening. My grandfather, James Allen Sayles passed away this evening. For nine decades, Jim exemplified everything I hoped to be as a person. He was independent, an explorer, his own man, successful, the person who drove me to improve as a person and my namesake. You truly were one of the great influences of my life. You will be sorely missed.

Sara and I were both glad to have had a couple of opportunities to

visit my "Grampa" and my grandmother while we were home for Spencer and Britt's wedding. We managed to celebrate my Great Aunt Janet's birthday together and you let your "old school" guard down long enough to allow Sara and I to bring lunch to your place in Kensington, from Tacubaya. The problem with a trip as short as that was we did not get to spend more time with the people we love the most.

Grampa, you will be sorely missed. You were the man who held me to higher standard and taught me that good enough was not good enough. Even your surly attitude infused me with a patience and sympathy that will be a part of me for my entire life. Grampa, your sense of adventure and outdoors spirit were a major influence on my life and who I am today. You taught me to shoot a gun at 5, to fish at 4, to hike and explore my entire life. You always brought the perspective of an engineer to every problem in life and gave me a logical framework for dealing with every trial in life. These are skills that I relish and continue to expand on to this day, your influence will not end with you. It's hard for me to imagine going on without you, but sad as it may be, I will have to.

I will never be able to drink a glass of "pinch bottle" scotch without thinking of you. We are all proud that you were able to leave this world under your own terms and with you people you hold most dear. You may be gone, but you will not be forgotten. Even from American Samoa, you memory will live on, you old sailor. I only wish I was able to see you through until then end...

Cold Day in the Tropics

It's been raining the past few weeks. It's understandable with the start of the wet season. The weather's now either raining and cloudy; or cloudless, windless and blazing hot. Today squarely falls into the category of rainy. We've already had several huge deluges where the clouds unleash an avalanche of water today. The conditions have been heavily overcast with near constant rain. As a result, it's relatively cold. How, relatively cold you may ask? 78 degrees Fahrenheit. After living in Tahoe and the Pacific Northwest for several winter, that's not a temperature that I would have ever considered labelling as cold. Probably just a sign that I've been living in the tropics for almost 6 months and my body temperature regulation has gone to shit. Better go get a hot chocolate to help me tough it out.

Halloween Pictures

Here are some context free photos from the Halloween Party our co-workers and friends Sarah and Joey hosted out at Lion's Park. A thanks also goes out to Meg and Sean, who decorated the party and out did themselves in a party reminiscent to a Lair-type gathering.

Halloween and Melbourne Cup

Monday started out a little different from a usual week. Sara and I were walking up the stairs toour office when we saw the Commissioner of the Workmen's Compensation Commission and one a member of her staff. They were carrying several large tin trays of food up to their office. After engaging in a little conversation, we were invited to come by their office at 11 for lunch. I said I would come if my trial that was scheduled for that morning didn't go.

Turns out the attorney for the plaintiff couldn't reach his client and therefore got the trial taken off calendar. This was the third trial date set in this case, sigh. Litigating in Samoa can be a little frustrating, but with my morning freed up, I was able to get back to the office much earlier than I anticipated. After using the rest the morning drafting discovery responses, I chatted Sara and suggested we go over to the Workmen's Comp Commission Office in the Executive Office Building.

We walked down the stairs and over to the WCC and came in and said hello to the staffer at the front desk. She welcomed us in and had the Commissioner come out and greet us. The Commissioner's husband was also there (who also happens to be the judge I was in front of earlier that morning).

Together we walked over to another department and were greeted to a number of government employees in costume starting to set up some 6 huge tables for food. We were introduced to the crowd, many of whom were in costume (and a large percentage of those were dressed as doctors or nurses, a statement on how the scariest thing in AmSam is the hospital), and were welcomed to their lunch. After a few pictures and fielding some requests for me to take pictures with the young ladies who work in that office, we were ready for the meal. Each person there had brought a large tray of meat or platter of dishes. There were several portions of pig, corned beef, pizzas, chicken, fish and chow mien. Sara and I were whisked to the front of the line as "guests."

Being the finicky-diet-people that we are, Sara and I had to work hard to put together a full plate of food we could eat. Selective picking at the chow mien and macaroni and cheese we were able to serve up our plates. We then sat down at a counter that usually handles HR issues for the American Samoa Government employees and had our lunch. I had to bite my tongue a little, since I ended up sitting next to the judge that I'd appeared in front of that morning, no ex parte communications can sneak into the conversation. We enjoyed our meal and managed to slip out before we were piled high with take-out trays filled with more food. It was an unexpected Halloween surprise and let us put off eating our left overs until the next day.

Later that day, our Aussie friends invited us over to their house. They told us to be there at 4:30 sharp. The timeliness was necessary since we were gathering to witness the running of the Melbourne Cup. We headed out of the office at four and drove out to Coconut Point for the event. There was a $5 buy-in for the race. With 24 horses scheduled to run, each of us there got to pick two horses out of a cap with the winning horse paying out $25, 2nd place $15, 3rd place $5 and last place $5. We drew lots and settled in for the race. With such a large field, it made for some relatively entertaining 3 minutes of racing.

It came down to a photo finish, by the tip of its lip Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup. This netted me 1st prize, as I'd drawn that horse as one of my two horses from the pot. This gave me another win in my streak. Not bad, I'll take it, hopefully some of this luck will carry through to the trials I've been having.

For the rest of the evening we were treated to some Samoan Halloween celebration. We've heard horror stories about bus loads of kids from all over the island being trucked into the government housing for contract workers. There are also incidents of teens pushing their way into people's houses to get candy. Out at Coconut Point it was pretty mellow and most of the kids' costumes were adorable. Plus they all sang "trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good to eat, au mai si, o'u lole fa'amolemole, Happy Halloween." It made for a nice evening out on our Australian friends' porch.

Outrigger Regatta

After being off paddling for a few weeks for our trip back to the mainland, it was nice to get back into the routine of outrigger canoe again. Last weekend Sara and I were able to put some of that experience to work at the Moso'oi Festival Outrigger Regatta.

It was a large group of paddlers that came out for the canoe race. Between adult and youth paddlers there were easily over one-hundred participants. After registering and getting our gift bags we were randomly assigned to teams.

The weather was off and on raining, so some of the paddles were wet and some were sunny, luck of the draw. Each race consisted of four boats per heat. It was actually two races going on at once, the 2 heavier boats were facing off against each other and the two lighter boats doing the same. So in theory you could come in 3rd place out of four and still potentially win your race.

The actual racing for Sara and I was not that interesting. Neither of our teams preformed well, my team was eliminated after two rounds (of double elimination). Sara made it one round further, but were losing when one of the boats they were not racing against flipped. I hadn't yet seen a boat flip and was surprised how quickly it happened. Once the ama started lifting, the momentum quickly spun the boat over. Before you blinked the boat was over and the competitors and their paddles started bobbing to the surface around the boat. Sara's boat turned around and assisted the flipped canoe with flipping it back over and bailing the body of the canoe. The post flip mop up process took about fifteen minutes, which slowed the pace of the regatta.

With several heats still to go, Sara and I decided not to stick around until the end. We passed our raffle ticket off to a friend who was spectating and headed home and called it an afternoon. We weren't sure what to make the next day when there was a picture posted on Facebook with us tagged, talking about our new stove. Apparently the ticket we passed along won the grand prize for the raffle, a propane stove. Having a perfectly good electric range, we're not sure what we're going to do with our race day prize. My vote is having the best car camping kitchen on island.

Samoa Weekend

The weekend immediately following our mainland trip we had another off-island excursion planned to (Western) Samoa. Our Australian friends need to leave the Territory of American Samoa every 60 days for visa reasons, so they are regular travelers to independent Samoa. We figured they would be perfect tour guides for our first trip over to the closest major island to Tutuila.

With our itinerary in place we packed ourselves onto an 18 person flight. Seats were assigned based on weight. Sara and I were lucky enough to get seats together in the back of the plane. When they closed the door, there was a noticeable gap the whole way around the door. This was definitely not a mainland commercial flight. The flight was less than an hour by propeller plane, we didn't quite reach 5000 feet in elevation and also got some excellent views of both Tutuila when we were taking off and of Savai'i when we landed.

We were greeted on the ground by the slackest customs I have ever had the pleasure of being ushered through and were soon out in the sprawling metropolis of Apia, Samoa. Two of our party who had headed out earlier in the afternoon met us with a rented 16 passenger van and we were soon perched in our room at the Amanake Hotel. After a little time to relax and settle in we were off by taxi to enjoy the fine dining options of Apia.

We did dinner at an Italian food restaurant named Paddles. Dinner was some pasta on a lovely deck overlooking the harbor. The eight of us on the trip settled down to a lovely dinner of wonderfully prepared food, that looked more like a dish that you would get at a restaurant back home on the mainland than the usual level of service and food prep we have come to expect in American Samoa. Overall, a lovely evening spent out on the town.

Once the restaurant was given over to the night club we caught a cab back to our hotel and managed to catch the end portion of the France vs. England match of the Rugby World Cup in the hotel bar. We then managed to drink for too much on a patio and called it a night.

The next morning we piled into the van and headed out for some breakfast at the Sydney Cafe. Downtown Apia was packed with people doing their holiday shopping for White Sunday, as a result our driver, Aussie Ben, had to resort to dropping us off on a corner and driving around for 25 minutes to find a place to park, more like San Francisco than Samoa.

We had a nice breakfast on the patio with the constant bustle of people doing their holiday shopping. Afterwards we went and explored the traditional crafts market in Apia. Sara and I ran into two people that we had connections to at the market. The first was a woman who was selling beautifully carved and stained 'ava bowls. When we mentioned that we were living in American Samoa she told us about her tall pregnant friend who lives in American Samoa. When we asked if she was named Nikki, the lady responded with a resounding yes, turns out she was talking about the civil division chief in Sara and I's office. The other person we ran into was one of the Customs Officers that Sara and I have scheduled as a witness in a tax case. Even 5,000 miles from home you can run into all sorts of unexpected people you know.

We then headed to the store to stock up on supplies of beer and food for heading out to the far side of the island. We then took the road across the middle of the island. Along the way we stopped at the first of several waterfalls. I'm not about to try and pronounce the name, but anything spelled Papapapaitai deserves to be shared. The waterfalls were down to a trickle. Turns out that Western Samoa was experiencing the same drought that had been plaguing American Samoa for the past few months.

The next waterfall we stopped off at was even more of a disappointment. After a short hike in

we did not even get a trickle. The waterfall was completely dry. Instead all we got a drying out pond and the empty watercourse of a waterfall and river. It was an amusing stop and provided plenty of ammunition to rib our tour guide. So far for the day we were 0 for 2 in the tourist spots. It had to go up from here, and it did.

The next destination on our schedule was the Sua Trench. Not having done any research, I didn't have high expectations for a "trench." Thankfully I was way off. The Sua Trench is a volcanic sink hole that is fed by ocean water. The hole is about 100 feet from the rim to the water, but only about 5 to 10 feet deep in the water. It made for a cool and unique swimming hole, once you made the long climb down a steep ladder.

There were also caves that connected the sink hole with the ladder to a neighboring sink hole. It was an easy swim over to other sink hole. The water in the sink holes also were subject to quite a bit of tidal and wave influence. Our guide had even considered bringing a dive tank to attempt to explore the narrow underwater passage that led back out into the ocean, but opted to try that on another trip when he wouldn't be carting his gear around in a van full of people and luggage.

We spent a few hours lounging on the deck attached to the ladder in, exploring the sink holes and caves and swimming around the Sua Trench. It was a beautiful spot and I'm eager to go visit it again. Alas, we did have more destinations to see on that Saturday, so we braved the climb out, dried off and piled back into the van to continue our journey.

Our next destination was the beach fales we'd be staying at that evening. They were along a beautiful stretch of white sandy beach (something we don't have quite enough of in American Samoa).

The beach fales epitomize the traditional notion of what life on a small island in the South Pacific is like. They are a quiet little cluster of open huts sprawled out on a lonely stretch of beach. The bathrooms are across the street, but traffic isn't much of an issue, we only saw a handful of cars crawl by in our two days at the fales. The things to do there were, hang out on the beach, hang out in the communal fale or take a walk. It was ideal, relaxing weekend away. We made the most of the time there with some cocktails and reading at a table in the main fale. We also hit it off with a couple living in New Zealand, she was a German and he was of Indian descent, through London. They were living in London and we were able to relax and talk about all the pressing issues presented by rooting for squads in the Rugby World Cup.

One of the highlights of the night spent at the beach spent at the beach fales was the fia fia dance show the staff of the fales put on after a large communal dinner. If our camera hadn't been low on batteries, I would have some great photos to share. The dancing involves some traditional Samoan elements and some that are an invention of the 20th Century. The most dramatic part is the fire knife dance, in which one of the performers lights a blade on fire and spins it around. Like I said, quite photogenic...

We had another communal breakfast and spent a portion of the morning relaxing and reading and then it was off to Virgin Cove. The Virgin Cove beach fales are on a remote stretch of coast. The next beach over is where the two seasons of Survivor were shot in Samoa. They'd wrapped up shooting the last season there a few months before our arrival. I know if the shoot had still been going on my mother would be despondent that we didn't try and sneak over and get ourselves on the air. Instead we relaxed on the beach, enjoyed the sandy beach and read in our fales.

The fales at Virgin Cove were much nicer than the ones at the first beach fales. In place of tarps these had mats woven out of palm fronds. Instead of the huts being stacked close together on a beach, the lodgings were spread out amongst a sandy thick of trees and brush. Crab trails arced across the stretches of sand not designated as trails. It really was a beautiful spot to spend an evening. The dinner was under an awning and we had a menu to order off of. Overall a delightful evening, but much mellower than the fia fia show and party atmosphere of the beach fales.

Once we checked out the next day we did a long lunch stop at a resort that was built on a pier in front of a fancy beach resort. As it had been for the whole trip, the food was excellent and we were all eager to get cocktails, which is generally a hell-ish experience involving syrupy sweet recipes and often none of the right ingredients in American Samoa.

The highlight of the lunch was jumping off the end of the pier once lunch and drinks were completed. The pier ends near a freshwater up welling in the reef. The surrounding reef is shallow, but the hole that the freshwater is pouring out of is deep and jumping distnce of the end of the pier's decking.

We spent the first part of our last afternoon in Samoa diving into a little hole in the ocean. Not a bad way to spend our first weekend back on the island...

Spencer's Wedding

I can't believe that Sara and I have been in American Samoa for over 5 months. It does not seem like we've been on this little island for anywhere close to that long. But the end of September meant that it was time to head back to the mainland for my brother, Spencer's wedding to, the ever lovely, Britt. Time for us to have a brief reintroduction to mainland life.

Since we're captive to the two flights a week to Honolulu from Pago Pago (departing Monday and Thursday nights), we worked most of the week and hopped on the Thursday flight, a little more than a week before the October 1st wedding. It was a long, cold flight (Hawaiian Air keeps the AC cranked up high on the AmSam flights). The early morning landing in Honolulu was the start of our mini Hawaiian vacation.

We luckily knew a few people taking the flight back with us. As we exited the airport we made plans to meet up for brunch at the Sheraton on Waikiki beach. After so much island living and eating we eager to soak up the comforts of a real tourist resort. We were joined by our French friend who's living in London and the mother and daughter who joined us for a coast hike a few weeks before (one-armed Dad had to work). We all backed in the multitude of fruits, vegetables and service we just don't get in Tutuila. The fact that it was all available in a buffet next to the beach was the cherry on top.

After brunch we took a stroll down the beach. All the tourists were stirring by this point and starting to make their way out onto the sand. We watched a few jaded guides taking crews of sunburnt tourists out for outrigger paddles to the begging of the surf breaks to ride the waves back in. The "veteran" paddler in me was appalled that none of them were keeping time with the one seat paddler. I guess that's what you get when the paddlers are paying to be there.

At the end of the beach we turned around and headed back along Kalakaua Ave. After not having any retail options for months Sara and I started madly shopping the the items we knew we need for island living. The list included sunglasses, new flip-flops and swimsuits. This was certainly the place to find all these items that just aren't imported to American Samoa. After half a day in paradise, we got dropped off at the airport and caught our plane to San Francisco.

We were greeted in the City by my parents. They met us late Friday

night with Zachary's Pizza in hand and chauffeured us back to Lafayette. Sara and I haven't had it this good in a long time, we were starting to wonder if we should leave more often...

Sara and I used our first weekend to hang out int he Bay Area.

We got a few trips into San Francisco, celebrated my Great Aunt Janet's birthday by going out for a Chinese food lunch and even got to have a skype conversation with Matt in Denmark. Another highlight was taking Tucker and Delta for a few walks. It was great to get outside in the oak chaparral. After months of hiking and exploring tropical forests, the dried out landscape was a stark contrast.

During the middle of the week we headed up to Sacramento to visit our friends and family of our most recent mainland residence. We were hosted by some of our always lovely and fun friends. They pulled out a few wonderful evenings of dinner on the patio with plenty of the Central Valley summer bounty of fruits and vegetables. The kind of the stuff we've been sorely lacking in our isolated tropical island.

The quality of produce and products was a little overwhelming on the mainland. Sara and I walked into a Whole Foods and had a bit of a melt down. After piling our cart full of the items we had been lacking since we left for American Samoa, we forced ourselves to stop evaluate and put most of it back. We were buying food for only a few days and we'd piled enough stuff into our basket to feed us for weeks. We did still buy enough varieties of micro-brew to carry us through several nights and several seasonings that aren't available on island.

Sara also had a minor dental crisis and had to get a root canal on our last day in Sac. Without health or dental insurance (we have socialized medicine in American Samoa) this was a little scary. She triumphed through her procedure and got an expensive but necessary work done. Plus with the level of health care available on the island, it was worth the out of pocket expenses.

Thursday we headed down to the Bay Area for a dinner with my parents and in-laws in Los Gatos in an effort to get as much family time as possible before the wedding. We had a lovely evening in the Silicon Valley and were able to double up on our time with our families. After dinner we headed back to the East Bay

Friday, we headed down to Santa Cruz for the wedding. In lieu of a rehearsal dinner, Spencer and Britt requested a repeat of the wine party that Sara and I had at our wedding. The basic concept is that each guest brings two bottles of wine, one for the party and one to give to the bride and groom. There are metallic markers for labeling your gift bottle and plenty of wine for the group. It's a great opportunity to get everyone together prior to the wedding. The crew of neighbors and friends from my youth in Oakland showed up in force. I also enjoyed meeting the friends and family of Britt, who made it to the party.

Spencer and Britt's wedding was held at Britt's parent's house. It was at a beautiful spot at the

top of a hill above Aptos. They have several acres up there many of which are given over to pinot noir vineyard. They had a lovely ceremony and Spencer got probably the most sappy I've ever seen. We also learned how Britt appreciates Spencer's cooking and hard work. The festivities were a compete success.

Sara and I used Sunday to do some shopping in Santa Cruz and then headed back up to San Francisco. We got one last dinner out for Thai food and then had a quiet evening in the hotel with Sara's parents. Early Monday morning we caught our flight back to Hawaii and island living.

In Hawaii we attempted to use the bus to go into town on our layover, but managed to get pointed in the wrong direction and had to backtrack, my bad. We did manage to get to downtown Honolulu and do some walking around, but too soon in we had to head back to the Airport to catch our evening flight back to American Samoa. It was good bye to nice restaurants and abundant retail opportunities, but that's the price we pay to live in the South Pacific.