Beachin'

Last Monday, Abby and I spent our day off from school (President's Day) at Airport Beach. I had visited this beach twice before - once during the day, the other on that cold, dreary, late night for a failed attempt at Palolo hunting. We all remember that post about those sea worms that Samoans eat, right? 

As great as beachin' it is, Airport Beach is kind of a hassle. For one, it's not even that far away from Leone but due to the bus routes, you have to take two buses , walk down a really long road, and then hike a boring, hot hike for half an hour to get there. Two, Airport Beach is stifling. There is absolutely no shade and well, the beach itself is uber tiny and more dead coral-y than sandy. 

With all negatives aside, what makes the beach less of a hassle is that it's quiet, pretty, and the snorkeling is fantastic! To solve all our problems, Abby and I did the following.

Step One: Take a Leone bus (aka stand in the driveway of our neighbors and wave it down as it goes by) to the "Y" (aka a road about 7 minutes from here). Get off at the "Y."

Step Two: Walk from the "Y" until we can catch a Tafuna Bus. [Sidenote: Step Two never really happened. We never saw a Tafuna bus and by the time we did, we just decided that walking the rest of the way would be alright.]

Step Three: Going along with the above sidenote, continue to walk until you get to the village of Fogagogo. Yeah, try saying that one. Holy vowels. F-oh-ng-oh-ng-oh-go. Whew. Anyways, turn onto that road and keep walking. You'll pass the airport. You'll pass some fancy houses. You'll sweat. An airplane might pass over you. Wave if you feel like it.

Step Four: As you approach step five, you'll want to grab some rocks or a stick. There are some bad dogs at a house right before you get to the ocean. Throw the rocks, Halu, keep walking. Curse the dogs, as always.

Step Five: Step on the tire and follow the trail. The trail will take you right along the ocean for the first part, and you will continue to follow the airport fence the rest of the way. Watch out for blowholes, big waves, and rocks. Try not to trip, it will probably hurt.

Step Six: You will reach Airport Beach when you can't go any further. Put on another layer of sunscreen on every inch of your skin that will be touched by the sun. Unfortunately, you will still get burned.

Step Seven: Snorkel, take a nap, swim, don't step on the coral, soak in the views, enjoy!



We got there and it was low tide and very calm. Still pretty blue out there, though.

Yes, that's a cruise ship. It changed directions about five million times. I'm convinced that it was headed toward New Zealand, but I really don't know. And yes, that's a Samoan standing out there, fishing. He's probably standing on the coral. Sad. We can only hope that he's standing on rocks!

While we basked in the hot sun, Leone was getting beaten down by torrential rain. Isn't it funny how an island so small can have completely different weather all at once? Weird.

The airport fence and the beautiful background of American Samoa. Sigh. It's just so pretty. Sometimes it overwhelms me.

Abby and I could only take so much sun. After we had both napped, snorkeled, and eaten lunch (my peanut butter and jelly sandwich was melted - that's how hot it was), we packed up and started the long hike back to civilization. We were lucky to get picked up by one of our fellow teachers once we passed the dog house so we didn't have to walk the entire way. Seki a!