Aunu'u

What is the most wonderful Saturday you can imagine?

That is exactly the Saturday that I just had. The usual group (which I am beginning to refer to fondly as 'the crew') Thanh, Jesse, John, Cynthia, Scott, Taylor and me headed to the far east side of the island to catch a little pontoon boat to head to the island of Aunu'u for the day.

Aunu'u is a tiny little island about a mile of the coast of Tutuilla that is home to about 500 people and zero cars. To get to Aunu'u we parked in a small parking lot and took a $1 ferry boat ride to the wharf on island. The water was a bit choppy so we had a fun roller-coaster like ride to the island which gave us an awesome view of Tutuilla.

Once on the island we 'oooh'ed and 'ahhh'ed over the general cuteness (and cleanness) of the village, and then began our walk to the back side of the island were Taylor and Scott knew of a nice place to swim with a cool cave to check out. As we arrived at the site the tide was very low which was perfect for us to check out the cave. To get inside you have yo lower yourself into a hole in the rock and crawl through about ten meters of tunnel with a little water at the bottom (hence going at low tide...) which is thankfully still lit from some cracks in the rocks. Once you make it inside the cavern it opens up to a pretty huge space in which the waves crash in at the other end making an awesome/terrifying noise. The cavern itself is spectacular with the waves crashing around your shins and the gap in the side up near the ceiling letting in light to show the cool rock formations. In the center of the opening is a rock form that juts up that you can climb out to to escape the waves and get a nice very of the entire cavern. I only wish that it wasn't so wet so that I could have taken in my camera and gotten pictures!

Soon after we got into the cavern the tide started coming in, which was our cue to get out. The area of the beach we were at had a nice pool area where we could relax in chest deep water and just relax and talk for a bit. After we had enjoyed the water we dried off in the sun and ate lunch which I digested with a little nap afterward. Feeling re-energized we hiked back to the village and some of us went to the other nice sandy beach, but me and some others decided to do some snorkeling at the wharf. Despite the decent current the snorkeling was pretty good and I had a nice time checking out some of the fish. I especially enjoyed myself swimming in the middle of a school of banded flagtails as they would school around me and get very close. I felt just like one of the gang.Once my legs were tired from swimming in the current we joined the others on the beach were we looked for shells and then we laid out our towels in the sand to relax until it was time to leave.

After another wicked sweet boat ride we brushed the sand off and piled back in the car. We stopped to drop off our friend Jess (who we picked up on the way as she lives on the east side about 10 min from the ferry stop) and she and her hubby Charlie graciously let us rinse off and admire their ocean view love nest. We said our goodbyes and packed back in the car for our hour long drive back to civilization, and decided on the way to get some dinner at Koko Bean. Due most likely to our brains frying in the sun all day we all had mad fits of the giggles all during dinner and our after dinner coffee which rounded off our fantastically fun day.

As we finally emerged from our hours long dinner, we decided to call it a night as we were all beat. After dropping of those closer to the central area I arrived back home and as I was falling asleep all I could think was that days like this were what I had hoped for when I decided to move here. Awesome.

Aunu'u

PS. The first few pics are from the JV championship football game, and from Thanhs expression you can see it didn't go well... When we left it was 42 - 0.