A Day of Choices

Saturday was a day of choices, some considered and some spontaneous. None were of eternal import, but it was interesting (at least to me) to see how they affected my day.

Choice 1. I had two options for starting my day – (a) go to the ward and help clean or (b) go with a local hiking group to climb a mountain called “Rainmaker” (I know, awesome name huh). So…I went to the ward. I just figured I didn’t come here to go hiking, although I hope to find time for that too. 

Cleaning the bathroom, let’s just say except for an absence of graffiti it was about the same as a West Wendover truck stop. I did what I could with a spray bottle and paper towels, but what I needed was a water cannon, a large brush with metal bristles, and several gallons of undiluted Clorox bleach.

After cleaning, I was invited by some of the young men to play a pick-up game of basketball on the church’s outdoor court. We had a lot of fun. Considering I was in flip flops, I did alright. Hit a few jumpers, missed a few layups --pretty much what you would expect after not having played for a few years. Took a charging foul in the lane by a driving Samoan. The next time I just let him have the basket. 

After laundry and lunch, I went to the office to Skype with the family. They weren’t online, so I decided to head into town to get a new book from the library. Now, you wouldn’t think there would be traffic jams on an island with a speed limit of 25 mph and only one main road, but there was. Apparently, there was some sort of Olympics going on in town not to mention it being Father’s day tomorrow so everyone was out shopping. Anyway, I jettisoned the idea of the library half way into my journey and went to Carl’s Jr. for lunch. I've got to admit, I’ve never been a big Carl’s Jr. fan before, something about the cheese. But here in American Samoa it's good. I mean it’s really good. Maybe they get their cheese from a dairy farm in New Zealand instead of the Kraft wax factory, not sure. But whatever it is it makes a huge difference.

Back to the office to Skype with the family. Isn’t Skype amazing. How can something be so awesome and free? It’s like chocolate with no calories. Had a good visit with Helen and the kids. Seems like I've been gone forever. I’m glad we finally have their tickets lined up and they’ll be coming soon. After we finished Skyping, I decided to head home. Surprise! That’s my car sandwiched in behind all the others. Apparently, that nice singing that was come up through the vents while I was in my office was some sort of well attended religious meeting.

“How much longer?” I asked a guy who had stepped out of the meeting for a smoke.

“Maybe half hour.”

Okay. Back to the office. I heard laughing as I climbed the steps.

When I came back down an hour later the cars were gone. Phew.

By now it was about 4:30. Choice number 2. I could either (a) go home and eat some eggs, carrots, and bread for dinner or (b) try and find that awesome snorkeling spot I read about on other people’s blogs.

I still hadn’t made up my mind when I came to the street that I was guessing, based on cursory review of Google maps, was the turn off to the snorkeling location. What the heck, I turned down the road. This was the spontaneous decision.

After driving for a few minutes and one wrong turn I found it. Well, I say “it” – not the snorkeling location, but the trailhead that leads to the location. Here it is. Pretty nice, huh. Along the black rocks in the background you can see white plumes of water, shooting up in the air. More on that in a minute.

This is looking back on where the trail starts. There’s a convention center/resort thingy back there. Not really sure what it is, but they were getting ready for a wedding reception that evening. Pretty nice place for a reception.

After walking a short distance, the coast turned into black lava rock, carved by years of pounding waves. Here is a photo just before the waves hit.

This one is just after.

For the next quarter mile or so this is what you see. Even cooler is that in lots of places there are these holes in the rocks. The waves come rushing in, disappear under the rocks, you hear a distant, buried rushing sound and then – geyser time (of course, being an amateur photographer I didn’t get a good shot of the geysers blasting 100 feet into the air, but trust me, it was impressive). Here is the best shot I got.

(Yes I know I wrote "throught" but it's late and I'm too tired to go back into photoshop and fix it)

Basically, it is like Yellowstone national park only with a nice cool ocean breeze, no smell of sulfur, and no tourists wearing t-shirts with cartoon moose on them -- no tourists at all in fact. I was all alone. 

After the blow holes I came to a fork in the road. Hum. Go into the scary looking vegetation or take my chances with the waves along the coast?

Not feeling particularly Robert Frostian, I took the road that looked more traveled by (through the bushes) and, as it turned out, it made no difference. Both paths joined up and took me to the same place. Sorry Señor Frost, but it’s true.

Getting closer.

Last thing you see before you arrive at the snorkeling spot are these two “pill boxes.” 

These were built during World War II so soldiers could sit inside and defend the harbor from Japanese warships. You can see the hole in the nearest one for the guns. Now, for a war that ended in a nuclear blast, this means of defense seems to me a little, I don’t know – medieval. But, apparently it had a deterrent effect because the Japanese never attacked American Samoa. It was either that or the Japanese just couldn’t be bothered. Hum, guess we’ll never know.

After the pill boxes, I arrived.

Okay, why is this a primo snorkeling spot? First, if you look out in the distance you can see the waves breaking. Big waves. The kind that shoot 100 feet in the air when they go through blow holes.  But, because they break out so far, you have lots and lots of calm water for snorkeling. Second, crystal clear water.  Third, deep but not too deep. Fourth, what was the fourth thing? Oh yeah, its jam packed swarming full of brightly colored tropical fish. I knew there was something else.

Of course, the drawback to my spontaneous decision to come on this adventure was that I was completely unprepared – no snorkel, fins, mask - not even bathing suit. And not feeling spontaneous enough to go in naked, I called it a day and headed back.

   

When I got back to the trailhead, I happened on these guys. Yes, they are holding on to rope so that the waves don’t crash them into the obsidian rocks or wash them out to sea.