Father’s Day Weekend

Well, last weekend here was Father’s Day, and that meant Monday off and a long weekend for us – yes, Mother’s Day and Fathers’ Day are public holidays here!! We decided to take Tuesday off too and make a real long weekend of it.

We booked to stay Sunday and Monday nights at Namua Island, which is a small island less than 1 km off the coast at the eastern end of ‘the mainland’. The island is uninhabited, apart from 10 beach fales and the family that runs them, and has no power, TVs etc. We had heard about the place from some friends that have stayed there, and the photos we saw looked great – tropical island with fales on a white-sand beach front, palm trees and clear, blue water. As the island is not too far off the coast we decided we would paddle our kayak across instead of being picked up by their boat.

So, on Sunday morning we packed up our kayak, snorkelling gear and togs and headed off towards the island. The drive around the coast is very picturesque – lots of palms trees and clear, blue water. We managed to spot the island ok, and find the spot to park the car. The lady there seem to be a bit surprised that we didn’t want here to call the boat to come and pick us up, but we explained that we were going to paddle ourselves over. So we pumped up the kayak and launched it. Then we loaded it up with all of our gear. This is the first time that we have taken any ‘cargo’ in the kayak, and we quickly found out that there isn’t a lot of spare room in the boat! Luckily Angela was travelling light and we didn’t have to carry much food with us. Anyway, we squeezed all of our gear in, then somehow got ourselves in too and set off for our tropical island. We didn’t know how well the kayak would handle the extra weight, but it seemed to be ok. A bit of a breeze had picked up by the time we were ready to go, and of course it was a head wind. Still, with both of us paddling we seemed to get along quite well. The highlight of the trip across was spotting 3 turtles.

After about 20 minutes we landed on Namua Island, a little bit wet but with all our gear still on board. Before we could be shown to our fale and familiar voice called out to us and we surprised to see one of the few people we know in Samoa was also staying on ‘our’ deserted island. Helen, Will and their family and a few friends were also taking advantage of the long weekend to have a night away. We were shown to our fale and unpacked our kayak. The fales are very basic, but surprisingly inviting and comfortable. Our fale was kitted out with mattresses, brightly coloured sheets and a mosquito net. For privacy, woven panels are lowered to form the walls, or can be raised to let the breeze through. As we were settling in we were informed that there were some leftovers from lunch for us. They had cooked up a big traditional Samoan Sunday lunch – pork, chicken, fish, crabs, breadfruit, taro, pulasami etc. most of it cooked in the umu. After all our exercise paddling across we both had worked up an appetite tucked into this feast. It was all delicious.

At lunch we also got to met Musty – the 1 month old piglet that is a real character. This piglet is tiny, like a small puppy, and runs around the place like a dog. He is always looking for food and as soon as he hears the kitchen door open will come running from wherever he is as fast as his little piggy legs will carry him. He is so small and cute – for a pig! He seems to be best friends with the only dog on the island. The two of them are usually not far apart. The dog (sorry – didn’t get the dog’s name, but he is one of the best looked after and best behaved dogs in all of Samoa) tolerates the little pig climbing all over him and playing.

So, having arrived, eaten and settled in I thought it would be time to sit back and relax on the beach. But anyone that knows Angela will know that she doesn’t like sitting still for long! Next up it was out with the snorkelling gear and into the water. It is so nice to be able to go swimming without worrying about getting cold or having to wear a wetsuit! Just off the beach there a number of coral outcrops and huge array of colourful tropical fish. We had a great time snorkelling and exploring the area around our bay. Finally we found some time to relax and lie in the sun reading our books!

Then we decided to check out the shower block and clean ourselves up for dinner, before it went dark. The showers have no roof, so you can work on your tan while you have a wash! The concrete walls are decorated with clam shells and pieces of coral. The water supply is cold – no power or solar hot water system on the island – and low pressure. In fact, if the person at the hand basin next to you turns on their tap there is a good chance that you will get no water at your shower!

After our showers we joined Helen, Will and their friends around their fire on the beach before dinner. Time for a quick Jack Daniels – yes there was room for some JD and coke in the kayak! Then, when we heard the beating of the drums, we knew it was time to go to the main dinning area for dinner. Another spread of Samoan food, looked a lot like the remaining leftovers from lunch, but very yummy. By this stage the sun had gone down and it was getting dark. Somewhere along the way someone had distributed lit kerosene lanterns to each of our fales so that we could find our way in the dark. By a combination of lantern light and torch light we read our books for a while, but this was definitely our earliest night since we have been in Samoa.

The next morning (Monday) was another nice, fine day. After a leisurely breakfast, which included some of the usual fare of toast, eggs, bacon etc, along with some more unusual options like fried eggplant and cocoa rice, finished off with fresh papaya, we decided to walk around the island. It was low tide in the morning and we had been told that it was possible to walk all the way around the island in about an hour. We had also been warned that the rocks around the back of the island could be very slippery. The back of the island faces out to the ocean and it was quite spectacular watching the big swells crashing into the rocks. The wet rocks were very slippery, but we had been warned and were wearing out trusty aqua-socks. One of the other guys had done the walk in his jandals and had taken a bit of a fall. No major damage done fortunately. There were plenty of rock pools to investigate, and Angela was havingfun picking through all of the shells and pieces of coral on the little beaches, looking for ‘interesting’ pieces to take home. I think she was a bit disappointed when I noticed that the tide was starting to come in and suggested that we better hurry up before we got stranded. We made it back around to the fales in time to see Helen, Will and co packing up and heading home.

All of a sudden our island was not so busy, just us 1 kiwi guy and a Japanese girl. Time for some more relaxing on the beach – until the Samoan day trippers turned up. Being Father’s Day holiday many Samoans were having a day at the beach, and a few groups had decided to come across to the island for the day. They must have been having a good time as they didn’t stop singing, playing and laughing all day. It was tiring just watching and listening to them!

We eventually summonsed enough energy to take the kayak out again for a bit more turtle spotting. We didn’t have so much luck this time; it was starting to get a bit windy, especially once we got away from the shelter of the island. So, after stopping for a few photos and checking out where the good coral was we decided to head back to the beach for some more relaxing.

Of course, Angela can’t stay still for very long, so pretty soon it was time to get back in the water for some more snorkelling, then a quick shower before dinner. After our showers we had a bit of time before dinner and we had heard that there was a short (but steep) track up to the top of the island. I was keen to go up to check out the views, so off we went. The track up was certainly steep, and not very short! After climbing straight up for 10 minutes we were at the top and were rewarded with great views across to a nearby island and the mainland. There was also another track the carried on along the ridge giving some better views out to see and some other islands. We followed this track for a while and it started to head down and loop back towards the fales. We were told that the track was supposed to be a loop, but everyone else had just gone up and returned the way they came. We thought we would be smart and continue on and do the loop. Well, after a while the track got harder and harder to see, and rougher to follow. Although it felt like we were almost back to the fales it got the point where we decided we had to turn back. That meant climbing all the way back to the top and back along the way we came. By now it was starting to get dark and we had no torch with us. We made it back ok and still in plenty of time for dinner – after all, we still hadn’t heard the drums. We were both quite dirty and sweaty by the time we got back, so thought we would have a quick shower before it got too dark. As we were heading towards the showers we were told that we had missed dinner, but that they had saved a plate each for us. So the two of us had our dinner, alone by lantern light. We then tried to have showers by moonlight and lantern light, before heading back to our fale and another early night.

I slept like a log, but during the night the wind got up and it started raining heavily. It woke Angela, and she got up and brought in our togs, towels, snorkelling gear etc before it all blew away. Eventually I woke up (or was woken up) and we found that the kayak was starting to blow around, so we went out and moved it under the fale. By this stage it was getting very stormy outside, but we were dry and cosy in our fale. By morning the weather hadn’t really improved much, and the wind that earlier was blowing back towards shore and would have been a tailwind for our trip home had become a headwind. Over breakfast we were all discussing the chances of us paddling back to shore in that weather. The consensus seemed to be that we wouldn’t (shouldn’t) do it and instead should pack up the kayak and get the boat to take us back. A great feature of the inflatable kayak is that you can deflate it and pack it up if you need to. After sitting around the breakfast table waiting for the weather to improve we decided that we better start packing up our gear. By the time we had pack everything but the kayak it seemed like the weather might have been easing, the rain certainly wasn’t as steady but it was still windy. After standing on the beach for a while trying to decide what to do we thought that it would be too much like giving up if we packed up the kayak and to the boat home. So, much to everyone’s surprise we loaded up the kayak, put our lifejackets on (yes Mums, we always wear our lifejackets!) and headed off. I figured that the worst that was likely to happen was that we would struggle to make progress directly into the wind and would end up on the beach a kilometre downwind of where the car was parked and one of us could walk back to the car if we had to. As it turned out our trusty kayak handled the conditions well and we made good progress back. Apart from being rather wet we made it back to the car OK. I am impressed with our TradeMe kayak, we have given it a good test now – its first interisland crossing!

Once we got back on dry land and packed everything up we headed around the coast to Lalomanu Beach. This is one of the best spots in Samoa – nice sandy beaches, excellent snorkelling and heaps of beach fales. But we weren’t too interested in getting back in the water, instead we enjoyed a few Vailimas over lunch with some friends from NZ. Actually, we had not met Tina and Greg before but had been put in touch with them by some mutual friends. They are lucky enough to spend a month enjoying the sun, sea and sand at Lalomanu every year and have done so for a few years now. They are well known to all of the staff and locals, in fact I think they are probably considered locals by now. They even had their wedding there by the beach! Unfortunately for them it was almost the end of their holiday and they were having to start thinking about packing up and heading back to the New Zealand winter.

So, that was our adventure packed long weekend.