På drift i Stilla havet

Saturday morning Sue and I went down early to the markets in Apia, beginning with the Fish market. I've been there before, but only later in the morning where most of the fish have been sold. Now the place was stuffed. 

 

 

 Yellowfin and skipjack tuna closest. Big yellowfin tuna slices, then a variety of fish.

I couldn't help but feeling a bit down. Some of the fish were huge, and it felt like an unworthy end to them to appear here. A man carried away a dolphinfish as long as he was tall, and some tunas must have been able to feed a whole village. But at least the fishing is done with better methods here than in the EU, and the fish is definitely fresh and there's no weird labeling as there's been with the European meat... So I bought the smallest possible slice of yellowfin tuna (still huge, probably like 700 g) for 10 tala (equivalent of 28 SEK). Not sure how much it would cost in Sweden, but I'm guessing about ten times more, and it would not have been alive an hour ago. 

 

Another reason to feel down was the species that you could buy that really shouldn't be for sale. Giant clams. Beautiful parrot fish, juvenile moray eels and a lot of tiny reef fish that can't possibly provide much food, and should be left to reproduce and bring income from divers and snorkelers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I felt more at home at the fruit and veggie market, and now that the fruit is recovering after the cyclone I can finally indulge in it. I bought some raw cocoa beans, so the evening was spent with experimenting in the kitchen; roasting my own cocoa beans and cooking fresh tuna curry (I am not used to having to remove vertebrae from my ingredients). Everything went well and was delicious however. I used some canned coconut milk for the first time since coming here, but it was made in Samoa and incredibly tasty. I could probably just drink the thing as it is. Such huge difference from the asian cans we buy in Sweden. 

From the last couple of weeks:

 

Coconut beach, where the currents are erratic.

 

 

 

 

 

The rail chicks looked like this a few weeks ago (always on the run).

 

 

 

 They have grown a lot now, but are still always on the run.

 

 

 

Or learning the right gait.

 

 

 

 Pacific black skink sunbathing:

 

 

 

Another one checking me out from a tree.

 

 

This one found a nice snack.

 

 

And this one is listening intensely for the clicking of my camera. From a distance of 5-6 meters it kept running closer to me as it heard the sound.

 

 

 

Polynesian starling eating dinner in the evening light.

 

 

 

Solar eclipse. Unfortunately we were a bit too far south to get the real show, but were able to see a partial eclipse. 

 

The last night at Savai'i I, Carlo, Pascale and her family stayed at some beach fales in Satiuatua. It was the most wonderful place, and even though I arrived just before 9 pm and you are supposed to order dinner in advance the staff cooked up a delicious Samoan meal for me. I got a whole 4-bed fale to myself and quickly fell asleep to the sound of the ocean once again. I woke up early in the morning when they lit the Sunday umu as some smoke travelled my way, but as I turned to the fresh sea breeze I soon fell asleep again to wake up at a more humane time (around 6 am. The Samoans are insane when waking up earlier than that to light the umu).

 

The fales were nested in beneath under the loveliest trees (although apparently they are invasive... Everything here seems to be invasive), in the softest sand.

 

 

 

 

 

Pascale who had arrived early the previous day told me that the snorkeling was the best so far, so I eagerly went out after breakfast. There was an area of massive, healthy coral and a lot of different fish.

 

 

 

After a while of snorkeling I turned around and noticed I was being followed. Not by one, but by hundreds of juvenile parrotfish. When I stopped they would circle around me, and kept on following me as I continued. A couple of times they would find a spot in the corals that apparently held something edible as they suddenly gathered there in their huge numbers reminding me of a wriggling snake pit. But more colorful. As I went outside the reef to the breaking surf they apparently thought that I was being to adventurous, but as I came back they soon joined me again.

 

 

A fraction of the young parrotfish that followed me. 

 

Even though the snorkeling was really good I actually got tired of it after one hour or so. I guess the turtle experiences from the day before and all the diving had decreased my appreciation for snorkeling that day.

 

 

 

 

After the snorkeling I soon set of with Pascale's family, towards the ferry but with a detour to some blowholes. It was amazing to see (and hear!), and I got a good dose of salt water sprayed over me. 

A video can be found here: Blowholes

 

And here are a few pics. 

 

 

 

 

 

When I got back to the house after the ferry trip (and after Carlo showed me where to find pineapples) I soon herd something scrape on the door. There stood the little puppy I had been playing and scratching the other day (and that was so shy in the beginning, and when she got over that so happy to have her tummy scratched that her hind legs were kicking). When I walked out to her she was the pure picture of a happy puppy, and so exited that she peed a little. She started following me around everywhere, and just laying close to me as I sat down to read. When I went back into the house she ran in before I could stop her and went straight for my backpack. Curious about what she was so interested in I let her dig around until she got hold of one of the koko samoa-lumps I had bought in Samoa and happily trotted towards the door. Quite a heavy lump for such a small puppy to carry. She did not get to keep it for long though, as I didn't want her to get chocolate poisoned. Or me to lose my addictive source of delicious hot chocolate. 

 

As I stood talking to the neighbours a barn owl flew past us about ten metres away. Completely quiet, as a white goast in the evening. Ironic that I have to go to Samoa to see my first wild owl as we have several species back home. But you're always a bit closer to nature here. 

The next morning some people had already left to catch the early ferry back to Upolu when I woke up. The tide made it impossible to go out with the diving boat early in the morning, so the dive center was picking me up 10:45 Over breakfast I was talking to Alex, one of the outside consultants arranging the advance. He wanted to see turtles, so I told him to try just outside and lent him my gear. As he was preparing to go out we could see turtles coming up for air, but for some reason he went far away from where I had told him that he should try. Meanwhile I could see the turtles keep swimming up for air. At last I could point him to the right area, but by then he had already been out a long time and soon gave up without seeing one.

 

 

 

When he got up from the water I took my mask and snorkel, but left my fins behind as I had been swimming a lot with fins and diving equipment and wanted some more freedom. The plan was to take a short swim, but after 3-4 minutes I saw my first turtle. Good and clear, as it was a sunny day with ok visibility even in the sandy, shallow lagoon. after that they just kept showing up, as I pretty much swam in a line front of the veranda out a hundred meters and then back again. In total I saw 13 during maybe 40 minutes. They would react differently; some would dart away as soon as they saw me while others would slowly move away. I managed to get pretty close to even the most shy ones before they noticed me (the moment when they did was pretty obvious, as they would calmly graze and then suddenly look up and dart away), probably due to not having any fins (thus moving slowly and quietly), and also that I would stop swimming and just lay still in the water when I saw a turtle. 

 

The most amazing thing however was the ninth turtle. It didn't mind me at all, and just kept on grazing, so slowly I would advance to see what it was comfortable with. It really didn't mind me, so I would swim beside it at a distance of 1,5-2 meters as it kept grazing algae and in about 5-10 minute intervals swim up for air, in which cases I would give it a bit more space (as I thought it may feel more vulnerable at the surface) and swim up simultaneously so I could see the head above water (with the eyes slightly closed) and the body beneath it. Sometimes it would release the tiniest couple of bubbles of turtle breath while diving down. Damn that was cute.

 

Occasionally I would get even closer, due to him swimming closer or me being pushed by the waves. When that happened I would lay still since I didn't want to scare it by kicking or waving around with my arms. Several times I would drift towards the turtle and it would keep grazing at the same spot or move towards me. It was only when I was right above it (in shallow water, around 1,3 meters deep) that it would slowly move forward. I couldn't tell if it was due to me or just due to the grazing, as it would continuously keep moving while grazing. 

 

I kept swimming with it for over an hour, probably closer på 1,5 hours (I was really shocked by the time when I got back) and it was the most relaxing experience. Really soon I would automatically synchronize my swimming with the turtle's, without thinking about it. Moving only my arms simultaneously and in the same way as it moved its front flippers in a slow, steady pace. I had time to observe a lot, the beautiful pattern on the shell and on it's skin, counting the scales to be sure of the identification, the little dull claw on the front flippers. The little wrinkles on the back flippers. Its really cool eyes, the serrated jaw. The pattern it would follow when going up for air, the reaction when attacked by a 5 cm long fish that thought the turtle got too close to its burrow. The fish swam straight into the turtle's head, and the turtle looked really funny as it surprised retracted its head with half closed eyes before swimming on. Amazingly the fish that previously had been very shy (natural as they are being fished) didn't mind me when I was next to the turtle. The triggerfish kept on cleaning their burrows (by taking sand in their mouth, swimming away a bit from the burrow and spitting the sand out) instead of making themself ready to hide in them. 

 

 

It ended with me swimming with the turtle to the reef and saying goodbye as it continued out to the ocean. I would have followed it a bit further to see where it went if I had had my fins, but I didn't want to tackle the possible currents on my own without fins and nobody watching out for me on the beach (by now I realized that the SPREPies would be on the way to the ferry). Instead I went back, checked the time and realized that I had been out for 2,5 hours on my little "short swim". And I had 15 minutes to pack all my stuff before getting picked up by the diving center. Sh*t.   

 

 

 

 

Somehow I managed, and soon jumped in the water again but in my diving gear (without really drying up in between). After a few minutes we found a hawksbill turtle (the ones I saw while snorkeling were green turtles), swimming into openings in the reef, apparently looking for a place to sleep as he soon settled right above the reef where he lay with closed eyes swaying back and forth with the waves. At the second dive I saw yet another one. In total, the visibility was great, as was the marine life, and the dives were fantastic. These were my two last dives in the course, and I was now a certified PADI Open Water Diver. Yay!

 

 

 

After the diving I went to the south coast of Savai'i, to Satuiatua. After a lot of speculating whether the bus would actually show up or not, it finally did. And so began my 3 hour drive on a bus so full that people were sitting on each other laps (not uncommon here). Unfortunately that meant a lot of time for different Samoan boys to try to convince me to merry them. And I may say that their pick-up lines are not smooth, so soon I was really angry and ruder to a guy than I have ever been. But he deserved it, since he wouldn't leave me alone after my first rant of telling him that I wasn't interested and didn't want to talk to him. He kept insisting that he loved me (a couple of minutes after meeting me) and pleading (as if that has ever worked for anyone) that I should become his girlfriend. His English was really terrible, so he kept on talking, making no sense at all, and I had to perform a couple of rants of "NO, leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you, go away" before he finally gave up. After a while some other guys started... It was a long journey in many ways, with a guy telling me that it was 12 minutes left when there actually was more than an hour, and then again that it was 7 minutes. I insisted that it couldn't be (I had located us on a map), but he said "Oh, yes, only seven minutes!". 40 minutes later we arrived at the resort, and I was so happy to see Carlo and Pascal with family. I got a four bed fale all to myself and slept like a rock. 

Of course I meant that I forgot the lizard at David's place after showing the fascinating thing to him...

Esther just found a dried up lizard in my cubicle. I left it by David's office place. 

I arrived well timed for the SPREP advance, their team-building get away to Samoa's big island, Savai'i. They were kind enough to let me come with them, and even kinder to let me use the time to take my diving certificate as one of Samoas two dive operators is located 5 minutes from the resort we were staying at. 

 

So three days before we would be going to Savai'i I started taking the PADI Open Water e-course. It was straight forward and logical, so I didn't have to go back and review anything, but it still took some time to go through all the slides and do all the quizzes at the same time I was working on my project and doing an assignment for school. I stayed at the office until 20:20 one night to use the internet there, and of course I wasn't the last one there. The JICA-people don't really know when to go home. 

 

Anyway, I finished the course and could relax on the way over to the other island. On the ferry I and Gianluca stood watching for living things as Tony in my office had said that he usually sees turtles in that area, and someone else had seen a tiger shark. All we saw was seabirds (although pretty cool) and one flying fish. Last time I was on this ferry I had at least seen a little school of flying fish. I said that it's probably because I was onboard as I usually never see turtles at places where you are supposed to see them.

 

The relaxing stopped we got on the buses that were supposed to take us from the ferry to the resort. I don't mind wooden buses, and I don't mind the bus driver playing music. But the first bus driver I had played some absolutely horrible music that could only be explained as an attempt to make people even more motion sick or at least give them a headache. So when we stopped for lunch I made sure to get on the other bus afterwards. That bus on the other hand sounded as if it was struggling to move forward even slowly and also as if it would break in half any second. The bus driver would slow down to crawling speed when approaching the low speed bumps that are found in the streets, and still the bus squeaked like crazy when going over them. I hoped he would fail to notice one speed bump just so I could have my theory tested that the bus would brake into splinters. He didn't. Instead he almost rammed a meeting car while driving around some road constructors without slowing down noticeably. I was sitting in the front seat and had a great view of how close we were to be united with that car.

 

We did manage to survive however. Even the part when the bus driver decided that he absolutely must park at the resorts little parking spot, even though that includes going through a small passage which had him drive back and forth at least 5 times to get through it. I could not understand why he didn't just drop us off by the side of the road. I fled the bus as soon as possible, just as the other bus was starting to go through the same procedure. There wasn't even room for two buses at the parking spot. How they ever managed to get out is a mystery to me.

 

 

 

 

Right after I had been shown the fale I shared with three other women (we got a fale right by the sea! Yes!) I took my snorkeling gear and headed out in the water. David and Stuart quickly told me to not go out to the reef because of the currents. That felt kind of overprotective as I had already been out to this particular reef one week before. But I didn't want to be a party pooper by, well, getting pulled out to sea and die, so I stayed within the reef and thought that I would just watch the triggerfish. However the visibility was terrible. There was practically sand in the water column, so after 10 minutes I was ready to give up and just thought that I wouldn't see anything, when suddenly a big turtle sweeps past me at 1,5 meters distance from absolutely nowhere (and honestly scares the hell out of me), then turns around in a wider and wider circle until I can't see it anymore. It was so cool!

I kept swimming around trying to find it again but eventually gave up and instead ran around euphoriously telling everyone I had been discussing turtles with that I finally had seen my first wild sea turtle.

 

As I was talking to Gianluca we saw one come up for air and decided to get in the water again. I managed to get 4 more sightings of it (or them) under water, even if 3 of them where mostly flippers turning and heading off when they, probably as surprised as we were due to the bad visibility, realized how close we were. I even managed to point Gianluca to one so he got to see it as well, even though he has seen countless of turtles in Samoa.

 

Very happy with my day I went to bed early and fell asleep right away to the sound of the breaking waves.  

 

 

 

 

I woke up to Tony's crazy morning aerobics that starts at 5:45. As I had already slept past half of it and still felt half asleep I instead took my camera for a walk before heading for breakfast. The breakfast was fantastic, a lot of fresh fruit, a koko samoa (the Samoan cocoa powder which tastes like roasted chocolate) and pawpaw/papaya kind of slurry which was really nice. And some eggs and toast as well, but you could have that anywhere. 

 

The diving center picked me up at 9 and I got to do a little quiz and try out equipment before heading out to shallow water to learn all the techniques that are used while diving. It was a long session, but a lot of fishes would swim up right to me and look me in the eyes while we were under the water, so it was a lot more fun than having to do it in a pool. And it was really nice to have an instructor all to myself. Everything went relatively smoothly, although they had a lot of divers that specific day, so I got a BCD that was to big for me and kept swirling around which made balancing very difficult. After switching with the instructor that got better however, and I managed all the tests and the seemed happy with me. 

 

Back at the resort (after a delicious pizza next to the diving center with a couple of Austrian divers) I relaxed for a bit while the others were teambuilding by exploring the area. I found a small fresh water river that led to the ocean. The water was unbelievable cold and I found a little freshwater eel hanging around as well as shrimps what would be totally hyonotized if you held your finger above them and would try to reach it and tickle it with their antennas and legs. There were also bigger shrimp that looked really creepy but that are supposed to be delicious, and also freshwater crabs and some fish. 

 

Later on I swam out with three of the guys beyond the reef. It was amazing! Unfortunately it had begun to get dark, so the colours were getting duller as we were out, but there were so many different fishes and corals in amazing formations. Apparently someone saw a ray shark, but I missed it. We even managed to get back, there was a bit of a current heading out, but it was possible to just swim right against it.  

 

I could definitely feel the swimming of the day in my legs, and I fell asleep even quicker and earlier than yesterday.

 

 

 

The next morning I woke up and was really exited for my first dives out in the open water. 

 

 

 

The breakfast was even better this morning, with a koko samoa, coconut cream and rice dish which was delicious. And more fruit!

 

Anyway, the dive center picked me up, and I was happy to find that a guy who was a SPREP-intern for three weeks was already in the minibus, together with the Austrian divers I met the day before. We were all going to the same dive location but I was staying at a lower depth. The first dive was really cool. My instructor showed me a soft coral that will change colour when something touches it (as the polyps retracts into the coral). There were also a lot of wonderful fishes.

 

The second dive was even better though. We dove at a 130 year old shipwreck, and there I saw three hawksbills turtles up close, feeding and getting cleaned by fish as well as a huge Napoleon wrasse, a lot of Christmas tree worms, trumpet fishes and a lot of other cool animals hanging around the wreck. 

 

Very happy and very tired I actually stayed on land at the resort and just hung out with the SPREPies when their teambuilding for the day was over. As this was their last day however many of them stayed up the whole night. I went to bed in reasonable time, but woke up a few hours later to the sound of drunken male what-I-think-was-supposed-to-be-singing.