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.

Whales

Right now is whale season here in American Samoa. The Southern Humpbacks migrate here to birth their offspring and nurse them up, during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Sara and I's biologist friends have had multiple sightings of the Southern Humpback Whales and Pygmy Killer Whales, sometimes of up to 16 different individual whales in a day.

Us simple office drones haven't had the opportunity to see even a single whale spout. That was until yesterday, when on the way to work we had possibly the most disappointing whale sighting, ever. As we hit the coast road on our commute into work, at the same spot where a fishing boat washed onto the reef a few months ago, we saw a large grey mass sitting on the fringe reef. It was beat up and looked as if it had just washed up. People were just starting to pull over and stare.

As we drove by, I speculated that it was a dead whale. Turns out I was right, it was a sperm whale that washed up on the reef. It died weeks before it beached itself here, but still not the whale sighting Sara and I had hoped for. We'll need to dedicate some weekend time to seeing some living marine mammals.

PS: We'll also post about our trips to California and Samoa and Spencer and Britt's visit, but needed to get the current news up first.