Samoa day 5

Our second day in Apia.
After breakfast I went snorkeling, swam right out to the fringing reef before predictably chickening out and swimming right back. The open sea lures me but I was too sensible and/or cowardly to follow through with it today. The snorkeling is pretty good inside the reef anyway, the water being warm and clear. There is more seaweed than coral but there are plenty of colourful fish, similar to what you see around any tropical island. And I saw three turtles.
After that we drove out into town to have a look at the flea market, which was mostly dresses and cheap shell jewellery, before heading back inland to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum. RLS moved to Samoa in his late 30s, in the late 1880s, with his new wife, for the sake of his health. He only survived a few more years after that, dying of TB (maybe? Something respiratory anyway) at the age of 44. He was originally from Scotland, and his three most famous books were Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Despite only living here such a short time, he was an important figure in Samoan society, and was fluent in the language. The museum is the house he and his family had built for themselves while they lived here.
A slow afternoon of book reading and napping. Need to make sure we finish having dinner this evening before karaoke night begins at 8pm.
This is the view from our unit last night, gorgeous apart from the strange man in a green shirt with a camera.

I’ve mentioned the islands abundance of dogs before, but forgot to say a friend of ours comes out with a group of vets from NZ every year to round up and desex as many of them as they can find. This is a terrific service to the community. She calls these her Spaycations.