Holiday Evan

So Cyclone Evan went out with a whimper, at least here in American Samoa. Independent Samoa, didn't fair so well.

Cyclone Evan, after devastating Samoa, was aimed straight at American Samoa. However the storm stalled, and turned away from American Samoa, managing to wreck further havoc on Samoa.

We didn't know this was how it was going to shake out. So we boarded up our house and prepared to hunker down through the storm. Once reports of possible 130 mph winds started to come from NOAA, Sara insisted that our house wouldn't survive a hit like that and checked us into the Tradewinds Hotel. Under protest I went along with this and we packed up a few days worth of good and drink to head over to the hotel.

We ended up holing up with a Lord of the Rings marathon. We didn't notice much wind from the confines of the hotel room and couldn't get updates on the weather as the internet at the hotel was frustratingly unwilling to connect to our laptop. After waking up the next morning, we learned the storm had turned away and spared our island any real damage. With no reason to stay in the hotel, we had breakfast, used their gym for awhile and headed home.

After cleaning up our cyclone preparations, we were left with a Thursday off from work on a sunny day. We opted to hang out with our friends and celebrate a holiday in honor of Cyclone Evan, which is the best possible way the storm could have gone.

The only damage we received was that we didn't get The Hobbit into our movie theatre on Friday. As a stout Tolkien nerd, this was some serious damage. I had to wait until Wednesday to see it. I guess you can't win them all.

Waiting for Cyclone Evan

All government offices and schools were off at noon today. So I'm back at the house waiting for Cyclone Evan to roll in. 

We buttoned our house down as well as we could last night and this morning. Weather stripping across the doors, all our outside furniture moved in, our beer resupplied, the garden moved into a corner under the deck. We're as ready as we're going to be. Winds for the storm are supposed to ramp up high, but the worst of it is supposed to hit our neighbor Samoa. 

My plan's to watch a Lord of the Rings marathon until we lose power. Then it's reading by headlamp and playing board games. Sara would prefer to decamp and hole up in the Trade Winds Hotel for the next two days. We're waiting on the 3pm weather update to decide. We'll keep you posted if the internet stays up.

Cyclone Season

Living on a small island near the Equator can be lovely. It can also be hot and humid. When those two things combine with a low pressure system it can form a tropical cyclone. It looks like we have our first one bearing down on our little island. Based on early reports, it supposed to be a Category 1 (winds 39-63 mph), about on par with a Tropical Storm in the U.S. National Hurricane Center Scale. Not a devastating storm, and it also looks like it is only going to be a glancing blow to our island. But it adds up to more extreme weather than a mild California kid like me is used. Should make for a couple of interesting days.

Dog Rescue

Let's start this off with a confession, I occasionally have idiot moments. For example, a few weeks ago, following a Halloween Party at our friend's house, Sara and I got a ride home with a sober driver. The next morning, I walked 6 miles along the ocean side of the airport fence back to the house we had the party at and picked up our car. The idiocy arises from the fact that the three street dogs (creatively named Blackie, Whitey and Oreo; Brownie disappeared over a year ago, but people still ask why Blackie is named that when he's mostly brown, it's because of precedent) we look after and feed followed me on my walk.

It's not unusual for them to walk with us the mile or two out to Airport Beach and hang out while we swim, snorkel and relax. However, this time, I passed right by the beach and kept walking along the sea wall past the airport radio tower and along to the next set of pools and to the point on the South end of the mouth of the Pala Lagoon. The dog kept coming along with me for the walk. This stretch of land is unique in American Samoa as it does not have any wild dogs. The 5 to 40 yard wide stretch of land that borders the airport fence doesn't have any residents for a four mile stretch, so with no one living there, there's no cast off food for wild dogs to sustain themselves. Therefore with no food, there's no packs of dogs.

As we crossed no competing dog pack's territory, there was nothing to discourage the dogs from following me. They followed me the four miles to Lions Park, which is some of the meanest turf for dog packs in American Samoa. Bravely our dogs followed me through, the casually walked through some of the toughest dogs turf. Whitey was the first to turn back, mostly due to getting cut off from the rest of the dogs by a pack in the Park. Oreo made it to the beginning of Tasi Street, where he ended up in a stand off with one of the local dogs and not proceeding any further.

Blackie braved on until the end of Tasi Street, where he fled after getting surrounded by a pack, as I made my final turn into Off-of-Tasi Street. I got in our car and proceeded to start driving back. Oreo was still standing where I left him at the beginning of Tasi Street. Recognizing our car he started to chase it along the Lions Park Road. Once I could see he had made it back to the place where the path back started I sped up. One to discourage him from trying to follow me along the road back and two, to keep from holding up the traffic I had following me as a result of driving 10 mph so that a dog could follow me. I pulled away and the dog didn't see me turn away, so I figured he made it back to the starting point for the trail back. I then proceeded to drive home and fall over for the rest of the day from heat exhaustion.

That evening, none of our dogs had made it back to the house. Sara and I drove to Lion's Park to look for them, but after an hour of hunting around, we didn't see any signs of them.

By the end of the work day on Monday, Whitie and Blackie had filtered back to our house. Both were a little shell shocked and humbled by seeing how the meaner dogs on the island live. However, Oreo, our current favorite didn't make it back. For the next two and a half weeks, we didn't see him. Both Sara and I gave up hope that he'd make it back. Best case, he'd take up with a pack where ever he ended up. Worst case, he was already dead.

It was a bit of a surprise early in the morning when driving home from the gym. Sara was driving and I was staring off into the fenced in grassland that surrounds the airport runway. All of a sudden I saw Oreo standing along the airport fence, only he was on the wrong side of the fence. He was locked in on the runway side. I pointed him out to Sara and we pulled over.

Oreo was a whining, skin and bones version of himself, but it was certainly him. He also had made friends and had another young dog with him. I walked along my side of the fence with the two dogs following along the inside, while Sara drove back to our house to get her phone and the number for the airport. I walked all the way to the gate at the end of the runway and waited. Sara managed to talk to someone at the airport and they said security was on its way to open the gate. Sara also brought some biscuits for the dogs. Which we fed to them through the fence.

Eventually a SUV from Airport Security made it out to the gate and immediately to dogs ran off. In talking with the security officers, we learned that they had been trying to catch Oreo for the last two weeks. Once we asked them to back away, Oreo snuck through the gate. We thanked the guards and then needed to get home and get on with our morning. I walked Oreo back to our house, not wanting to take any more chances that he was going to get lost. Twice he tried to take wrong turns, turns out he's really bad with finding his way home. He made it back OK and so our dog pack is back up to three. Oreo's also been filling out a bit since then and all of the dogs have seemed to recover from their ordeal. Also, I'm an idiot and not allowed to take the dogs on walks anymore.

Government Housing

Contract workers who come to American Samoa usually end up living in housing provided by the American Samoa Government. Out of that group, most end up residing in Lion's Park, the large complex of housing near the Pala Lagoon. This plot of land was created by draining a marsh meaning that there were no Samoan villages there. Thus it was easy for the federal government, followed by the Territorial government, to build housing there for the off-islanders that were working here.

It's putting it mildly to say most of the houses there are in bad shape. Less than half the houses are habitable due to damage from cyclones, fires, mold, rot and termites. There is no Samoan word for maintenance and the American Samoa Government often finds other priorities for its funds than taking care of the property and structures it owns, especially those inhabited by us palagi.


All of the houses that are inhabited in Lion's Park are also in various stages of decay. Most people's houses have termites that will come out at a certain time and fly around the house for 15 or 20 minutes each evening. This being the tropics, all houses have some amount of termites, mold and rot. Wood houses fair poorly in the heat and humidity. The climate also rusts and corrodes  the nails and other metal pieces holding it all together, a water clip left in the open will rust away in a few months.

Needless to stay whether occupied or left empty these houses are under constant assault from the climate and pests. If you're lucky you get a house that relatively few issues (like Sara and I). If not, you're waging constant war against the environment that trying to reduce your residence to rubble to line  the jungle floor.

We had a moment a week ago that typifies the confluence of all these factors in the government housing living situation. We were hanging out at another attorney couple's house in Lion's Park. During our third game of cribbage the husband got up to demonstrate one of our doctor friend's aggressive golf swings and lost his balance. This sent his shoulder into the plywood wall behind him that had some extensive termite damage. The force of the impact shattered the wall and sent shards of the papery plywood through into the kitchen. As it wasn't a structural wall there wasn't any real damage to the house. In cleaning up the pieces of wood that came from the wall we quickly figured out that the wall was toast. Using a few tools we quickly commenced an impromptu remodel and pulled down the rest of the paper remains of the wall. The end result was some unfinished cabinet ends, but otherwise an improved kitchen and dinning room, as the lack of the wall opened up both spaces. That's not something I would attempt in the real world, but living under the extremes of the tropics sometimes leads to odd situations like that.

Miss You, Tucker

Tucker Swimming on the Eagle Falls Trail in the Columbia River Gorge

After a rough few weeks, the end has come for my dog, Tucker. He was put down on Monday afternoon after not being able to eat for the past several weeks. My parents have been caring for him for the past few years, but he's been my constant companion since law school when I got him from the Chesapeake Bay Retriever Rescue.

When I first got Tucks, he was a five year old dog that had major weight issues. He was 125 pounds, I often referred to him as a keg with legs. He didn't know how to fetch and desperately needed regular walks. But other than that he came to me a happy and well behaved dog.

Waiting for the Next Throw in Tahoe

Tucker took a little training to learn to fetch, but once he figured it out he found his calling. Soon he spent daily session chasing the ball on the blacktop at the local elementary school or the grass at Burlingame Park.  It wasn't until we spent a summer of living up at Lake Tahoe that he managed to swim off all the excess weight.

The gravel covered Homewood Beach will always be the place where Tucker was at his best. He's chase sticks and tennis balls out into the water for hours. If you tired of throwing things for him to chase he'd start picking rocks off the bottom of the Lake. Every trip up to the Sayles cabin didn't really begin until Tucker had his swim in the Lake, whether it was summer or there was six feet of snow on the ground.

Even in his last weeks when he couldn't eat and barely walk, he still found some reserves of energy when my parents would take him to the water and throw a ball for him. We know the end was here when on his last day he could only muster a single retrieval from the Bay.

Giving Elbow Steam Baths on a Road Trip

It's hard to say good-bye to your daily companion, especially since he'd been there through many of my recent life phases. I adopted T-Fab before I started dating Sara. I'd often walk him over to her house when we after we started dating each other in law school.

He moved with me from Portland to Tahoe, back to Portland and eventually down to California. He was with me through three years of law school and the years starting to work as an attorney.

What I'll miss about the big guy was his enthusiasm, his non-subtle pleas for attention and his stoic patience.

It's going to be tough to go on without that dumb dog. Thanks for the memories and the years of companionship.

Nothing Could Keep Tucker Out of the Water

Two of my Favorites

Happy Dog

Tastes Like...

Tastes Like Wahoo (Tuna with Chili in Oil)

One of the interesting things about living here is seeing products on the shelves you don't see on the mainland. Canned wahoo is one of those products. Wahoo are normally a sport fish, not frequently commerically caught as they don't school frequently like yellow fin tuna due. They're usually solitary hunters that occasionally end up as by-catch in purse seine nets or on long lines. Thus American Samoa is one of the few places in the world where you can get canned wahoo which they use the by-catch to produce when there's enough around. Canned wahoo is very popular, more popular than demand so that's what causes things like can pictured above.

One of my observant friends picked up a can of this. It has the same color and layout of normal canned wahoo, only with the words "tastes like" sneaked in above "wahoo." There's also the yellow star that says "TUNA with Chili in oil." Very stealthy, Talofa, but we're on to you and your seasoned tuna impersonating wahoo.

Pirate Party

Our boat, under construction in Nick's front yard.

 Last week an email came through the Dissociates mailing list saying that Saturday was a special occasion. In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, a Pirate Party was going to be held out on Coconut Point. This wasn't going to be a stand around and drink in costume affair, it's one where you were expected to show up and build a boat to sail around Coconut point to an island in the neighboring lagoon and back. Not to be denied the opportunity to build a watercraft and paddle it around, I showed up at my friend Nick's house early and we began constructing our vessel. We bagged two of the Coast Guard kayaks and lashed them together, we built platforms for sitting on out of surf boards and an old shipping pallet and soon were ready to roll. We hoped to have time to build a mast for a sail or a coconut launcher for boarding actions, but ran out of nails prior to either of those ideas coming to life. We did manage to construct a solid raft that eliminated the play that I worried would doom any on the water momentum.

The crew getting ready to undertake our voyage.

Next we recruited a crew. Picking up two able-bodied men, Jorge and Zach to man the paddles. With our compliment of sailors in place we set about getting our boat in the water. Carrying the boat down to the launch point we were still a little concerned about the stability, but we tightened up our lashings and got the SS Sea Bitch on the water and provisioned ourselves for the voyage. Jorge had the foresight to bring a large patio umbrella to the party. We skeptically added that to the boat's supplies. With as brezzy it was that afternoon, I didn't believe that we'd be able to open it or hold on to it when open, but we had the room, so what the hell.

Jorge paddling.

Our first leg of the voyage we were moving perpendicular to the wind heading eastward along the shore of Coconut point. The current was with us and we made good time and even managed to enjoy a beer while we made our way to the end of the Point and our turn northwards into the Pala Lagoon. The boat paddled smoothly and we ended up passing a few of the kayakers who showed up to witness the spectacle. Once we got the boat turned to the north, we decided it was time to try and use the umbrella as a sail. I stowed my paddled and pulled out the massive wooden umbrella and set about opening it up.

Our umbrella sail in action. 

With the sail unferruled we quickly caught the wind and plunged towards our next destination, Coconut Island in the Pala Lagoon. It's a tiny clump of dirt in the middle of stagnant lagoon. It's defining feature is a single palm tree that is struggling to hold onto one edge of the island. Sara's previously kayaked out to it, but made the mistake of going at low tide, so the approach to the island was through knee deep mud, dragging the kayak behind. Thankfully, this voyage was at high tide and it was smooth sailing the whole way in. Turns out our home-made catamaran was an excellent downwind sailing ship. We flew towards the island with little more than a some rudder work by Jorge in the rear of the boat.

Party on Coconut Island. 

 Once we reach out destination it was time to tie up and enjoy some grog in true pirate fashion. We passed around beers from our cooler and relaxed on the tiny piece of land in the middle of the Pala. We waited for the fleet of kayakers and aspiring pirates to float their way in to the island. Slowly, the armada started pulling up to the island and tying onto our boat. Which may not have been the best idea, as we were only tied onto an inch in diameter branch on a dessicated little shrub.

Having some refreshment on the deck of our boat.

The other pirates paddle their way in.

Nick enjoying a Corona.

The after party.

Eventually most of the other people on the water made their way to the little island. As land to stand on started to be at a premium, some of us resorted to hanging out and watching the sunset from our boats. The sun started to dip its way past the horizon, but we still had a few stragglers left to make it to the island.

The last boat in was optimistically built out of a solar panel with an electric motor attached. The cloud cover and the lateness in the day conspired to force them to paddle the whole way. They made it to the Island with the pirate flag flying and half a bottle of rum. Excellent work on their part.


















The next leg in the journey was to get back to Coconut point. We launched from Coconut Island and tried out our umbrella sail, this time running east, perpendicular to the wind. Turns out our little catamaran tracks well without a dagger board. We were able to catch the wind and track true going across the wind. This made our trip back to Coconut point an easy stroll compared to the rest of the fleet that was stuck paddling their way back through the early evening light.

Once we were back to land, we broke down our boats and carried them back to the yards we got the parts from. To finish off the evening we had Tutuila's most popular cover band, Three Leg Dog playing on a balcony and enjoyed some beers at Kelly and Alden's place at Coconut Point. Piracy won this event.

Ellen + Kevin = Ofu

So I'd written about 4,000 words on our trip to Ofu and it all got lost. I'm a little frustrated with the BlogSpot layout and I'll just post the pictures, until I can overcome my frustration.