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.

Aunu'u, Finally

Determined to finally make it out to Aunu'u, Sara and I headed out there on the 4th of July. American Samoa doesn't have much in the way of organized celebrations for Independence Day. They spend most of their national pride on Flag Day in April. It's more of a "dependence day" celebration, since it's celebrating the anniversary of when American Samoa joined the US as a territory at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Instead of sitting around and barbecuing, we opted to use the holiday to explore and make the trip which had been denied to us before. we drove out to the East side of Tutuila to the wharf that serves as the access point for catching boats over to Aunu'u.

Aunu'u is a small island about a mile from Tutuila. About 400 people live on the island and there's a constant ferry of boats going back forth between the wharf on Tutuila and the little harbor on Aunu'u. We caught one of the ferries, along with a few locals and some boxes of supplies. It cost a dollar and took about 15 minutes to navigate the waves and the channel between the islands. Supposedly if it gets too rough the shuttles stop running. That would make life on the island quite interesting.

Once we de-boated on Aunu'u we were greeted by two boys, Cruise and "Raiders." They offered to be our guides on the island. Not one to turn down help, we took them up on their offer.

We started by taking the road which circles the island. It's a coral track that runs along the beach. The first sight they showed us was a bee hive in the middle of a mango tree. This picture is as close as we dared get, but if you see into the hollowed trunk, it's a mass of honeycomb and bees. It was a pretty cool sight. It was also one that we never would have seen without our guides.

We next stopped off in the wetlands which make up much of the middle of Aunu'u. The wetlands are mostly used as taro fields and tilapia ranches. This area is supposed to be quicksand, but we didn't see anything sink in, so we'll need to take our guides' word on that.

We next hiked up to the rim of the crater. Much of Aunu'u is the remains of a extinct volcanic cone. This is the view from the rim looking South towards the other end of the crater. Much of the slopes of the crater are farmed for bananas. We saw a few of the farmers along the hike out.

At the far end of the crater, there are some spectacular rock formations. Cruise told us a local legend that the one pictured here used to be a woman, her lover is the other rock that is across the small bay from her. We were also sternly warned not to go swimming here, but that fishing was supposed to be good and there were some tidal pools that are nice to hang out in at low tide. Seeing as we were here at high tide and wanted to catch the boat home before they stopped running at 5pm, we didn't linger too long.

We also didn't linger because our guides informed us that the place was haunted by spirits. A few times on the way out we were hushed and told to walk closely together. Not seeking to be visited by ghosts, we acquiesced to our guides' instructions. However, a surreptitiously thrown rock into a nearby tree spooked the kids and helped affirm their belief that several long stretches of the trail were haunted.

The hill we hiked to make our way of the crater was what I would term a short and shallow graded hike. Our guides were winded after a short ascent, so we were instructed to stop and wait at a few different spots. Living on a small island and a Samoan diet was not doing these kids any fitness favors.

We finished our hike back at the little village we started. We'd done a little figure 8 around the two wetland/lakes on the island and saw it all in less than 4 hours. I'm sure we'll head back on a day when we have more time to stop and enjoy the swimming holes.