Today is Tuesday, December 18, 2012.  We have had a few very wild and scary days.  We had a category 2 Cyclone hit Upolo and it has been a mess.  When we get our pictures together I will blog about that.  Right now we are without power and have been since Thursday the 13th.  They are telling us it could be two to 5 weeks before they have power up and running.  Could be interesting.  We have a generator at our office so we are hurrying to touch base in case they shut that down.

We want to blog about two fun things we did the past couple of weeks and then later when we have power and pictures we'll tell you all about the Cyclone!

On Saturday, December 1, 2012 we drove to the south side of the island to find a beach called Old Hideaway Beach.  It took some looking but we found it.  Beautiful!  The beach was the best we've been on so far and the water was great.  It stayed shallow for a long way out and the snorkeling wasn't real great, however, to just swim and play in the water it was great.  We had a lot of rain but no thunder and lightening this time.  You are already wet in the ocean so the rain doesn't bother you.  We all got so sunburned.  We didn't think to put on sunscreen because of all the rain but we paid for that decision.  We found a lot of great seashells and quite a few sand dollars.  It was a very fun day.  We also found a black sand beach but it was not very good snorkeling or swimming there.

 

 

On Thursday, December 6, 2012 we got up at 4:00 a.m. and caught the 6:00 a.m. ferry to go to Savai'i for a little vacation.  We went with Elder and Sister Osborne and Elder and Sister Budgett met us at the ferry in Savai'i and drove us all around.  First stop Afu Aau Waterfall.  It was only 8:30 a.m. but Reed and Joe decided they were going to go swimming.  Not quite warm enough for the rest of us.

 

Reed and Joe never swim without their shirts but it was so early and mostly in the shade so they did this time so they had dry shirts to put on.

This is a fresh water pond and the waterfall depends on rainfall.  They said the water was quite cool but refreshing.

 

Then we headed to a black sand beach called Nuu.  It was a beautiful beach and the waves were very nice.  These men were taking sand to spread in their village.  That is something they do on all the Islands.

This man kept following us down the beach until Reed turned around and took his picture.  Then he just smiled and went back to digging up the sand.

 

 You can see Reed standing by the blow holes.  You could get right next to them if you wanted to.

 Then we headed to the Alofaaga blow holes.  It cost 10 Tala per couple to drive down there.  They were going off like crazy.  There were probably four of them you could walk up to and others you could see.  It was a lot of fun.

 

Jim was trying to throw a coconut into the hole so it would shoot it out.  If you pay a local guy 10 Tala he will do it but they had both seen it done before and we didn't want to pay this time.  Needless to say it didn't work real well for Jim!

We then headed for the Canopy Walk.  You can see the stairs we had to climb up and then we walked across the rope and netting bridge.  I was fine until Reed got on it behind me and started bouncing it.  That was a little scary.

Our son Kip would have loved this tree house.  It had numerous levels and just kept going up and up.  Once you got to the top you could see all over Savai'i and the ocean.  Beautiful.  It was a fun experience.  Very clean and very well taken care of it.  It cost 20 Tala a person to do this.  We then drove along the ocean and stopped and had a picnic lunch.  While we were eating we kept watching a porpoise jumping out in the ocean.  That was fun.  Then we drove around to the North side of the island to our resort the Le Logoto.  It was very nice.  We each had our own bungalow right on the beach.  They had a swimming pool about 20 feet from our bungalow and a 3 minute walk to the beach to snorkel.  Fabulous!  The snorkeling was the best we've had so far here in Samoa and swimming in the regular pool was very nice as well.

 

Elder and Sister Budgett, Osborne and Spencer having dinner in the dining fale.  It was beautifully done.  The food was good and we had a nice program with local singers and dances.  It was traditional Samoan food and they call this a fia fia (party, celebratition!)  The weather was very nice, not too hot!

 This is the swimming pool and the ocean is off to the right.  The bungalow closest to the pool, where you can see the lounge chair, was #2.  That is where Reed and Nada stayed.

The snorkeling was the best we've had.  There were lots and lots of fish.  There were a lot of schools of fish and just so much beautiful different coral.  It was a snorkelers (Reed's) dream come true.

There was this beautifu purple coral and the water was so clear.

 You can see the school of yellow and brown striped fish here.  They were all over.  We haven't seen very many of these any place else.

This is the beautiful sunset we watched from the dining room fale while the fia fia was going on.  Beautiful!!!

This is the front deck of our bungalow.  We watched and listened to the waves all during the night and day.  It was wonderful. 

On Friday morning December 7th we got up and went for a walk on the beach and then Reed went snorkeling for a short time.  We had a wonderful breakfast and then headed out to the Saleaula Lava Ruins.  They had a 1905 and 1911 Volcano eruption and the lava covered a lot of the island.

 

 

 The lava flowed through the back of the LMS (London Missionary Society) church and towards the front.  You can see that the lava is thicker in the back and more shallow towards the front.

 They call this the Virgin Grave.  The lava flowed all around this grave and if you look down inside you can see where the grave is.

 You can see the interesting patterns that the lava formed.  There is vegetation growing through cracks and holes all over the ruins.

We then went to swim with the turtles.  Reed was the only one that actually got in the water to swim.  Afterwards, Elder Osborne said he didn't swim because he was told the water wasn't cleaned often and you could get Salmonella from swimming in it.  Thanks a lot, Joe.  Reed has not been sick so he is glad he did it.

We fed the turtles papaya.  They kept swimming up to the surface so I fed them and touched their shells.  They felt a little bit like a slimy rock.  It was fun.

We then drove to Viola which is the church school on Savai'i.  They have a primary and a college (high school) with about 480 students total.  Elder and Sister Budgett are the ITEP missionaries there.  It was a very nice little campus.  It is almost like being in the mountains.  We had lunch at their home and then took the 4:00 p.m. ferry back to Upolu.  We had a great little vacation.

We hope you enjoyed taking this little vacation with us.  We had a great time and saw some very beautiful things.

We love you all.  Until next time,
Elder and Sister Spencer (Reed and Nada)