CherryPopper

Back in my day Sunday's were a day of rest, shops & businesses were closed and people spent time with their family. Today in Samoa its.... oh still like that?

Roneil & Renu picked me up from my hotel to show me around the Island a little more. They decided to take me for a swim in a waterfall that was part of the inspiration for the book Treasure Garden (yeah i got no idea about it either). We drove up the mountain to the entrance only to find it closed, now being Samoa and a Sunday we weren't too surprised to find it closed except for the fact that on the sign it said it should be open. Even if we allowed for the Samoan time (3hrs either side of the time) it should have still been open. Well not much we could do about it as no one really worries about time in Samoa, their rules are something like this:

If something must be done then it might get done, most likely tomorrow. If something should get done then it will most likely be forgotten and never done.

So with our swim in the waterfall a no go we set off to the Palolo Deep Marine Reserve. We walked through the narrow opening in the trees to a very small beach but i was told its not the beach you come here for its what's in the water. We sat down for some lunch that Renu had made, a kinda beef curry with rice. It was nice but the thing that put me off a little was the fact that its traditional for Samoa's (and most other south pacific islands) to eat with their fingers. Now sure I've eaten plenty of food with my fingers but never a beef curry with rice. It wasn't so much the fingers that put me off but the fact that after a few minutes of eating Renu & Roneil's fingers were umm... brown from the curry. Not really the best look I've since found out.

After lunch we headed into the water for a swim. There were 4 other people in the water already & they had hired some snorkelling gear from the family that lives near the beach, it seemed we were a little slow as they had no flippers left just masks & snorkels. We took what we could get and headed in to see the wonders that lay below the turquoise blue water. The tide was slowly coming in when we headed into the water but WOW the fish were everywhere & so colourful, blues, reds, yellows and loads of stripes everywhere you looked.

I was told the best part was around 100m offshore to the left of a stick that could be seen from shore. So i started to head out there. With the tide coming in the water wasn't the deepest in some places and you had to contend with a strong current trying to push you back to shore, throw in me being a crap swimmer with no flippers and you soon start to look like easy prey to all the little fish. I finally got out to the stick and it quickly dropped off to around 5m deep. This is where the real colours come to life and even the coral starts to get some beautiful colours and the bigger fish start to appear. I was glad the tide was still coming in as i was tired from getting out there so just floated back to shore like the dead wood i felt like. We just lazed around on the beach for the rest of the afternoon as that night I finally had to do some work!!!!

We rocked up at 11pm to the ANZ bank site to fix the issue which was a failed disk. After trying to fix it remotely over the phone back in Australia the week before with the local staff it seemed it wouldn't be just a normal disk replacement. Lucky for me it was just the lack of knowledge of the local staff that was the issue & i was back in bed by 12:30am, just the way i wanted it.

Thanks for the free holiday ANZ Bank!!!

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