Slippery Rock, American Samoa

I'm not sure who thought sliding on a big hard rock would be fun, but apparently, it's a popular place here in American Samoa.  Another family here (with older kids) invited us to go exploring with them on Saturday to this infamous "slippery rock."  After a long discussion with the bus driver and an even longer ride, he dropped us off by some water with a lot of rocks (very pretty water, very pretty rocks).  We had six kids and 5 adults and off we went in search of the slippery rock.  Well, they were all pretty slippery at first, seeing as it was raining and the tide was going out, but then we hit the mother load.  Every kid that stepped foot on it, fell.  Then the older kids got pretty good at running and sliding.  My worry wort of a self had stomach aches the entire time and lucky for me, my kid fell early and didn't think it was all that much fun.  We found a tide pool instead and eventually all the kids came to the tide pool to play.   They put on their masks and explored every crevice.  Rhett on s/v Solara found a few baby eels that occupied their time for a while.

That's Jake flat on his back on "Slippery Rock".  Looks fun, huh?
The big kids loved it, but I'm pretty sure this place would be
roped off in the States.

See the little guy jumping?  Imagine him
in that same pose  with a butcher knife.
Unfortunately, I missed the photo op.

There were some locals a ways away that were fishing and their kids were playing in a much smaller tide pool.  You could see them slowly inching their way closer, curious about our kids.  Eventually, they were right there and the kids invited them in to play.  At first it was kind of cool until we moms looked up and saw a little guy, about 4, on top of a big rock about to jump into the tide pool, that was all of 2 feet deep.  As if that wasn't enough to give us a heart attack, he was holding a foot long butcher knife!  No, I'm not making this up.  And away he went off about a 5-6 foot drop with all the gusto you would think a 4 year old would have, butcher knife and all.  I'm guessing he had the knife because his parents were fishing and someone was going to use it to clean the fish, but they had about 8 kids and apparently, it's easy to lose track of where the knife goes.  After a few jumps and hearing the crazy white people yelling "Knife!," the sister or mother or someone came over and took the knife away.  All was fun again and the kids played for another hour or so.  They jumped, they played 'Marco, Polo,' and basically had a great time.  Once the sun proved to get the best of us, we decided to head on back to Pago Pago for some ice cream.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I'm so thankful there are other kids here and other people who like to explore.  Today is Jake's actual birthday so after chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and time to play with his new toys, we're going to head into McDonald's for lunch and a nice swim in the local hotel pool (for $5/person they let you use the pool) with Dharma and Rhett.

Daddy and Jake putting together his new Hero Factory character this morning.

Jake with "Meltdown."

A few of the parts we had shipped in didn't quite work out for various reasons so we'll be here another week waiting on some mail.  I can think of far worse places to be :).

Andy's run in with the law

Andy has been going out to a reef about every day to do a dive and take some pictures.  This has gotten to be a routine that he does in most of our anchorages.  Jake and I do school in the morning while he goes and takes pictures.

Yesterday, he headed out to his little "nemo" spot and three policemen on jet skis decided to come chat him up.  At least that's what Andy thought...
"Where's your life jacket, sir?"
"Ummm....I have my full wetsuit on and was going to do a dive.  I don't have one."
"Where's your dive flag?"
Andy quickly saw where this was going... "I guess I don't have one of those either."
"Where's your buddy?"
Well, shoot.... "Ummm... I'm a ex Navy Diver and I, uh, well, I don't have one.  I know it's a good idea, definitely, but not totally necessary."
"Who do you work for?"
"No one, I'm just freelancing, taking some pictures."
"Where's your boat registration?"
This is never going to end, is it?  "Ummm... well it's registered under the big boat back in the anchorage."
"OK.  Do you have a radio?"
"Yeah!!  I have one of those!"
At this point, Andy is pretty sure he's going to get dragged to the pokey.  Then the guy says, "Well, be careful.  If you get in any trouble, call us on channel 16 or dial 911 and we'll come help you out.  Have fun!"
"uh...Thanks!"  And off he went.

They turned out to be very nice but it was a quick reminder that we are back in the land of the US with the laws to go with it.  Had that been the Coast Guard...well, we're just glad it wasn't.

It turned out to be a very successful dive with more strange critters.  Enjoy!

Andy found Nemo in American Samoa (and friends)

Andy has spent the last few days cussing at the clownfish.  I guess they're very quick and very sneaky and are not the easiest things to take a picture of.  But I think they turned out pretty good.  Here are a few...

He found this other little fish too...don't know what it is yet...our new Fish ID book is in the mail!

Hiking in Am Samoa

I spent a day catching up with Andy and Jake and then what do you know, I left them again.  Several ladies were planning a hike in the National Forest, up to the highest point here in American Samoa and I really wanted to go.  It's one of those hikes where we wouldn't get to do it together because it would be way too much for Jake.  It's 3 miles one way and then depending on which way you go when you get to the top, it can be even longer down (as we soon found out).

Seven of us met on the dock early in the morning and caught a bus to the head of the trail.  We had a nice time walking up the fairly well kept trail, chatting each other up like women do.  There were some steep hills and muddy patches but nothing we couldn't all do fairly easily.  When we got to the top, it was truly breathtaking.  A few of the women had brought the handheld radios and called down to the hubbies to tell  them we were waving.  By this time, we had been gone about 2 hours so we told them not to worry, we would be another couple of hours as we weren't going back the way we came, we were going to keep walking down the other side.

Karen on s/v "Gigi"

The trail down was considerably harder.  There were ladders with ropes and contrary to what we figured, it was not all downhill!  There were ladders to go up as well.  Some of them were sturdy, some were a bit wobbly, but none were really dangerous.  Of the 7 of us, I'm pretty sure I was the youngest and about half way through was quite a bit embarrassed as I realized how out of shape I actually am.  These women were kicking my butt!  One of the ladies I was with towards the back kept apologizing to me for lagging behind and I finally told her that I really didn't think this was easy for anyone!  After 4 hours, we were all tired!  About hour 5 we started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Or rather the ocean at the end of the trail.  We finished the hike on the other side of the island a full 5 1/2 hours after we started.  We had turned our two hour hike into a full day.

This was one of the longer ladders, and
the most shaky.

My friend Mary Lee, told us to wake her up when the bus came.

"Rehydrating"

After relaxing (and rehydrating) for a few minutes we caught a bus and headed back to the dock.  I kept telling Andy how much fun I had and I think it was because we rarely all get together like that as women. We're usually as couples or family or one or two of us get together to go grocery shopping or do laundry.  But this group was a lot of fun as everyone was laid back, no one was overbearing or a know it all (something I have a really hard time with), and through the whole day, no one complained....not one bit.  As a matter of fact, we were all pretty upbeat...happy to be off the boat after all the wind and rain and enjoying the day with each other.

We've got another week or so here waiting on packages to come in, so there's a bit more exploring we get to do.  Andy has been diving and getting some more pictures of Nemo so I'll post those soon.

Man time in American Samoa

After a nice relaxing two week break, I’m back on the boat with my two favorite men.  I came home to find a clean boat, clean laundry and happy smiling faces…so it looks like they did fine without me. 

They went snorkeling and even went on a hike.  Andy said they hiked up to a site where there are some guns left over from WWII.  They went with a few ladies from other boats and had quite a time.  On their way back, they stopped at a local restaurant to have a drink and relax.

It wasn’t all fun and games though…there was a little excitement the second week I was gone.  The winds picked up to a consistent 25-30 knots.  I believe one time it even got up to 38 knots.  Boats were dragging everywhere and evidently, it was nothing but chaos.  We stayed still (don’t know if that was due to fabulous anchoring techniques or because our boat is probably stuck in a tank somewhere on the bottom…probably the latter) but it sounded like we were the only one.  At one point, Andy was going to bed and looked out the window to see a boat coming right by us about 10 feet away.  He got on the radio and woke the guys up and they got their engine turned on just before hitting another boat.  Andy said the chaos went on all week as the winds never died down.  To be fair to the boats who drug, this bottom is awful and even on a good day it can take 4 or 5 tries to get your anchor to hold, so I don’t think all of them had to do with poor anchoring abilities.  Throughout the week many people never left their boats for fear of dragging again.  When I got home, the winds had died a bit but were still around 20 knots.  It looks like missed the brunt of it as yesterday it all calmed down and now we’re only dealing with intermittent rain showers. 

So now it’s back to the old routine.  The boys have to give up their cigars and lounging around in their underwear and get some order back in their life…Mama’s home!

Kids always surprise you

See the missing tooth?

We were joking the other day about putting Jake in school here since we're going to be in American Samoa for at least a month.  The more we talked about it, the better the idea sounded to me.  He could get to play with other kids, learn about the culture, and I would get an idea of where he was educationally (We're doing what I call first grade stuff, but is that what first graders are really doing?).

Andy thought it was a good idea so we actually started googling schools and really discussing the validity of it.  So I asked Jake about it and he immediately said no.  I asked him why.
"I want to be with you all day"
Oh, isn't that sweet?  But still...it's a good idea.  "Just think about it," I said.
"OK, I'll think about it."

Later that evening I decided to give it a go again.

"Jake, have you thought about going to school?"
"I don't want to go."
"Why not?  It would be fun."
"I don't want to go."
So I thought I would try another tactic.  "Don't you want to meet other little kids and have someone to play with all day?  You always ask for someone to play with you...you would have someone all day!"
"But then I would make friends and we would leave and then I would miss them very much.  I don't want to go."

Wow, I didn't see that coming.  He's totally right, I just wasn't aware that he cared that much.  We've always been the ones to leave, even before we started sailing.  He left his good friends Arlie and Jett in Norfolk, along with all of his preschool teachers.  Then we left all of his friends in CA, not to mention his grandparents.   When we left La Cruz, there were at least 5 little friends he had grown close to.  I had always focused on the fact that he rarely had anyone to play with, not necessarily taking into account the relationships he makes with the few kids he meets.  While I still think we're doing him good in the long run, it really does make you stop and consider things again.  We get a good bit of criticism about the isolation, but when people meet Jake they're always surprised at how smart he is and what a great little personality he has (I have no idea why they're surprised, look at his parents! :) ).  Not to mention how well he communicates with others and how content he is to play by himself.  He's just a go with the flow kind of kid.  I could second guess myself forever and never come up with the right answer.  I think what this little engagement taught me was to not assume that I know what the little guy is thinking and feeling.  Kids are amazing little observers and it would be unfair of me not to acknowledge and appreciate that.

Is that what I think it is?

Tuna boats rafted up three boats deep here in Pago, Pago

I think we ate our first pig knuckle today.  I was on my way back from the laundry mat carrying my very heavy bag of laundry when I was bombarded with requests to buy bar-b-que.  It sounded like a good idea to me, so I called Andy on the radio and told him to meet me with some money.

"This is real Samoan food,"  the man told me.  "Next week, we'll have rice too."

We bought two plates and took them back to the boat.  On the way to the dinghy, we noticed everyone had a plate so we decided it must be good.

Well, I can say we tried it (and incidentally, Andy loved it), but it probably won't be a Saturday ritual.  There was a chicken leg and another random piece of meat covered in Ketchup.  Then there was some grilled breadfruit.  Had this been warm, it probably would've been pretty tasty.  There was some chinese noodle thing with carrots and cabbage, and then there was a loaf like thing.  After tasting everything, we determined the random piece of meat was a pig knuckle and the loaf like thing was "mechanically separated turkey," just like it says on the can at the store (Andy did point out that it looked a lot - and tasted a lot - like the vegetarian turkey loaf my parents eat).  Now, I'm waiting and hoping there are no side effects, if you know what I mean.

I'm hoping to get my homebodies off the boat today and go to the museum or the library.  After spending all morning at the laundry mat (I think Andy was afraid I was going to leave it for him to do while I'm gone), I'm ready to do something fun.  Tomorrow is Sunday and the place shuts down so we need to get out today.

I haven't had the opportunity to take too many pictures so hopefully while I'm gone, Andy will be clicking away.  I would love to say that he will keep the blog up while I'm gone, but I'm afraid that probably isn't the case.  So the next few posts will be a little more generic than usual as I'm writing them now and scheduling them out, but hopefully interesting all the same.

At first glance...

I forgot to tell everyone that we caught our first Wahoo on the
way into American Samoa...delicious!

We've only been here three days and at first glance, we think American Samoa is a great place.  But before I get into that, there is one major drawback that took us two days to finally experience.  There is a Starkist Tuna Cannery right here in the bay.  We had heard the stench could get unbearable but the first few days we didn't smell anything.  Then the night before last, Andy was woken up by a horrible smell.  He actually tried to blame my breath on his discomfort...but it wasn't me.  Charlie the tuna was hard at work.  Imagine opening a tuna can and leaving it in your garbage for about 3 days.  Then put it in front of a fan and blow it in your face at a constant pace for about 20 minutes.  It happens on and off throughout the day (and night) with no apparent schedule.  All of that said, it doesn't hold a candle to the raw sewage we smelled in Santa Rosalia last year in 90 degree heat with no wind.

This is a rather conservative bus, but you get the idea.

Aside from the smell, the island is beautiful and we haven't really gotten to the "pretty" part yet.  The people here are some of the nicest we've come across yet.  They're eager to help out any way they can, with the buses even going out of their way to deliver people right to the front door of their destination.  For $1-$2, you can go anywhere the roads will take you on the rather unique bus system.  They make these buses here on the island and I think they're a trip.  They start with flatbed trucks and build them up from there.  The result is a funny looking school bus type thing painted in radical colors and decorated with anything from fabric to feather boas.  The driver is sitting down rather low as they've built the floor to the bus about shoulder height from the driver.  They play loud music and sometimes show videos.  But they drive well and give friendly little horn honks to their fellow drivers and friends.  We try to get on a bus at least once a day.

The grocery prices are comparable to the U.S....a little more expensive than the mainland, but not as much as Hawaii (and there's no sales tax).  The Cost U Less here is similar to the Cost & Co. in Tahiti in that it sells Costco stuff, but it is much bigger.  Almost as big as a regular Costco.  The veggies are still slim pickings but we have plenty of choices of bok choy, green beans, eggplant and bananas.  We've only eaten out at the fast food joints so far as we took a vote and that was the family decision...so, I can tell you the Carl's Jr. is fantastic (better than the States) and the McDonalds did not disappoint either.  The cool thing is that they actually serve you in both of these places and if you want a drink refill or more ketchup, they'll bring it right to you.

Our check in here was a little lengthy due to the number of offices you have to go to, but painless none the less.  You have to go to the Harbor Master in the boat yard as well as Agriculture and Customs (in the same building).  Then you have to walk a 1/2 mile or so to Immigration.  All in all, it probably took us 2 hours...not bad.  And you don't have to pay until you leave.  Although this one leaves us baffled as we're American and it seems pretty sketchy to have to pay, but it's an island and those are their rules and well, frankly, I don't care...they have to make their money somehow.

Today I ventured out to the laundry mat and finally washed our sheets.  They had 36 machines and 42 dryers.  I washed 2 loads for $5.  I was in heaven.  And it's all within walking distance of landing our dinghy.

Jake and a local boy, playing on the dance floor of the Mexican
Restaurant.

Tonight we went to a local Mexican restaurant...I know, I know....but it wasn't that bad.  Evalina's....  Jake made a friend and about 4 boats enjoyed some good company and food, if not a very quick meal.

Not sure what is on the agenda for tomorrow, but a lot of boats have pulled in the last few days so I anticipate something social going on soon.