What a fabulous holiday this has been. Just what the doctor ordered.
A perfectly fine and sunny day, no excuse for Simon not to go on a run this morning and for once, his alarm didn’t wake me up so I had a nice sleep in. Did you think I was going to say: ‘and for once, I decided to join him…’ Never!
Over breakfast we had a difference of opinion over tide tables. He found one that said it was going to be low tide around 2 pm, and I said that was impossible since it was low tide at 3:20 pm just a few days ago when we hired my snorkelling gear. He is a country boy you see, unlike me who grew up around the sea. Or rather, I went on holidays by the sea. In any event, he then found another tide table that agreed with me and that was the end of that. I must say, it is very difficult to find out tides on the internet, I’m not sure why? Don’t the Google bosses all have yachts?
After breakfast we set out to find the lava caves again. Things didn’t start out well when Google wanted to send us inland at a different place to the sign for the Dwarfs Caves I had seen yesterday. In the end we followed the physical sign, since Google had been so unreliable the day before. After a short while we came across another sign so things seemed on track. A man in a car coming the other way said we must find the guide up ahead and pay them 20 tala, which we promised to do. We then set off. Our research had said the road was a bit rough so at first we weren’t too concerned. But after several hundred metres, when Simon had to manhandle a horse off the track – where a childhood exercising polo ponies came in handy – things started to look a lot more off-roady, and we both started to get nervous. To make matters worse, we were running out of petrol – it’s no simple thing, finding a petrol station in Samoa. There a quite a few buildings that look the part but don’t seem to function for some reason. Eventually, Simon bit the bullet and we turned the car around. It seemed we had failed again. Shortly after that, we found a boy skulking in the bushes – not sure what was going on there – and he told us the cave was further back down the track towards the main road. Somehow we had missed it. Sure enough, a little further on we found a man on the side of the road who waved us down. He’d seen us disappearing up the track a short while before but hadn’t been able to catch us. What he hadn’t said but I figured out was that they don’t want to signpost the place too closely to stop people trying to go in by themselves. Not only would it do them out of 20 tala, it would also be quite risky.
The cave entrance was only a short distance away, a simple hole in the ground. We followed him as he clambered down. All my rock hopping skills were required as we climbed very steeply down over slimy volcanic rocks. After about twenty metres, we reached the floor of the cave in the midst of a tunnel. We went in one direction as far as the first pool. Simon found a picture on the internet of people walking through this pool, chest deep in water, but we were not tempted. The path just turned into a chute that you could have just slid over into the darkness if you so desired. We did not. We turned around and went back. Our guide Siosi said there wasn’t anything interesting to see along the other end of the tunnel, so it was with some relief we returned back above ground after only about half an hour of exploring. The website Simon found said you could spend all day in there but I think you’d have to be a serious caver to want to do that.
After that eventually successful trip, I went on another big snorkel. Simon very nervously dropped me at a beach about a kilometre away from our resort, saying I was free to change my mind and come back anytime. However, I forged ahead. The waves at this new beach were a bit more forceful than I liked, and the water was quite murky to start with, but within five minutes it had cleared, got deeper and I saw my first turtle of the day. It took me just over an hour (and three turtles) to make it back to our fale. These could be the best and certainly the most accessible snorkelling conditions I have come across anywhere, ever.
A lovely fish salad for lunch, and an abortive attempt at a nap which did give me the opportunity to finish Master of Ballantrae which did grow on me as a novel but not enough to recommend it. Now I’m writing this drinking a Sweet Dreams cocktail – triple sec, Galliano, OJ and fresh coconut cream. This I would recommend.
….
Just watching the sunset from in front of our fale writing the above, watching people swimming in the warm sea in front of us when I suddenly decided to join them. I chucked on my togs and jumped in. It was warm and lovely as we watched the sun go down. And I saw the legendary green flash! For only the second time in my life! What a day.