Klepper Dreams

The call came a little before 7am Saturday morning. Barely conscious, I managed to grab the phone- it was Keith, a fellow scuba diver-he was taking his company's boat out and wanted me to join them. Only problem being the 5 hours of sleep i received after working the midnight shift in the ER. Putting reason aside, after taking a quick shower and throwing my gear in the car, I was speeding toward a beachside resort on the west of the island. The plan was for me to swim out through the breakers and rendezvous with the boat. A few mishaps later and I was clambering aboard the boat, with Keith stating that he's never seen any one swim through that side of the channel.

The boat anchored over a magnificent coral bed and off we went. The visibility was excellent, coral quality was high, and schools of fish were everywhere. This was definitively the nicest dive site I've seen in American Samoa. Following the dive, we set out fishing lines and caught a good size yellow fin tuna on our way around Anu'u island. Flying fish, dolphins, and a deep blue sky rounded out the morning.

Keith dropped me back by our house in Pago, were Michelle and I headed back to the western side via my scooter to complete the shuttle. The only road in Samoa parallels the sea in a snakewise fashion, providing vista after vista. After returning home, we decided that the time was right to christen our new klepper tandem folding kayak. We gently tied down the kayak on top of the taurus and 5 minutes later pulled up to the yacht club for the beach launch. As the sun sank upon the horizon we slowly paddled across pago bay, feeling lucky to be alive.