Scribbles Abroad

IF ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS SEE THE SURF PHOTOS, SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM.

After a few days in Western Samoa we knew we wanted to extend our stay.  Louise and I have learned that if we like a spot, its advantageous to extend it if possible.  But with so much to see in this world we are also marking our favorites for a return.  Samoa is up towards the top of our list and we extended our stay by an additional 10 days.  It wasn’t just the surf that fired us up, it was the culture that cemented Samoa as being one of those places that when people ask us, “where were your favorite places so far?” we reply with Western Saaaaaaamoa as one of them.

We were recommended to check out this place called Sina PJs by a friend of a friend.  With the realization earlier in our trip that certain types of  people travel in similar circles, a friend of a true friend is almost almost always reliable and ends up being a friend of your own.  That being said, a friend of Sams named Panapa pointed us in the direction of Sina PJs.  The fales (hale in Hawaiian, home in English) were in the village of Tafitoala on the Southern Shore of Upolu in Western Samoa.  As you can see in the map below they are right on the beach down a dirt road sitting right in front of a U shaped outer reef that provides great waves.

We’ve been getting a lot of feedback on our blog and overwhelmingly people have been stoked on the pics.  Thanks a ton for all the feedback, but in order to keep you interested and reading the blog, I’ve decided to start a new style of blog writing that pretty much entails just writing captions to the pics and video.  Less verbal ramblings and more funny stories relating to the pics themselves.  Let me know what you think.

Every surfer wonders where the Pigdog comes from.  For those non-surfers, a pigdog is when you grab your rail on your backhand while surfing in order to give you better balance usually while in the tube.  A lot of pigdogging was happening out in the water and when we were on land one afternoon we found the origin of the name.  Enjoy the movie.

Pig Dog

Dawn sessions, getting out before the winds pickup were key.  Usually the winds up by 10 am, but its still good after that.  You can also get a glass off session towards the end of the day.  We got really lucky and scored a whole week and a half with no winds.  But then it was hot as shit on land and you’d better have your mosquito repellent.  The boat was a bit problematic in the beginning but Peter the boat driver worked on it every day and got it into cherry top shape.  It was pretty funny though in the beginning because we’d have to line up in the water for a pick up because he couldn’t put the boat into neutral or it would die.  So he’d drive up and we’d have to sling our bodies up and try not to ding our boards.

We took the canoe out to do some fishing.  Had they not had food already cooked for dinner, we would have gone hungry.  We were much better at fishing from the land.

The Roxy model photoshoot featuring the chocolate starfish twins.  Ricky left, Kyle right.

My homies Kyle and Ricky from Nzed were able to get off of work and came with us.  This was their first surf trip, first time surfing in warm water, and first time surfing over reef.  Needless to say they were pretty tripped out and extremely stoked.

Vailima is the beer of Samoa, and when you could get it cold, it was the best.  Cheap too, a small one was about a dollar and a big one was two.  It tasted like a really good Steinlager, I’m thirsty just writing about it.  Its only 9:20AM here in Hawaii and now I’m gonna go get a beer, never to early, screw that noon rule.

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The food in Samoa was top notch.  Very similar to Hawaiian food.  I’ve never eaten so much Taro.  Every Sunday they prepared an umu (imu in Hawaiian) and cooked up a fat meal for after church.  Our favorite dish became the palu sami.  It was cocounut cream wrapped in taro leaf with a pinch of sea salt added and then cooked in the umu for about 8 hours.  It melted in your mouth.

We invented a new face called the HORSEFACE.  Make the Horse impersonation by puffing your lips and then blowing out.  Careful because you will get spit on your camera lens if too close.

This is Aska, if you are lucky, maybe the owners of the fales Naitina and Malae, will name a child after you.  Aska was named after a Japanese lady that stayed there.  Jiri, one of the boys was named after a euro, and William the youngest was named after an Aussie I think.  Aska was our favorite and was hanging out with us all the time.  She taught us the word pilo, which meant fart because the Samoan food made us pilo and she’d say, “you pilo yo undaweah!”

Almost everyone owns a machete and on some days, the children bring their machetes to school to cut grass and other bushes around the school.

Read this book if you hate working or want to do what we are doing.

Early evening fishing out in front of the fale.

Louise made us a lucky fishing hat, seemed like as soon as you put it on you’d land a good size fish.  Kyle and I caught large maka’ele’ele and Ricky caught bait.  We were eating the bigger fish within a half hour of catching them and Ricky made up for his meager catch with this Perch.

We made good friends with these Aussies in their cute matching shirts.  Chris, Louise, Chris, Me, and Tate (or as we called him Taint).  Down below its PJ, Jiri, and Aska.  Look at Tates leg, he gashed it hard at the waterfall and after cleaning it up I performed my first super glue surgery.  I didn’t tell him it was my first till after.  Now look at the Chris in the middles leg.  He passed out owlboss (drunk as) with his leg in the fire and burnt a bunch of it.  Naitina the owner pulled him from the fire.  He didn’t remember the next day but the burnt skin and the pain reminded him.

The To Sua Trench is on the South Side near Salanis Surf Resort.  Its a collapsed lava tube that connects to the ocean.  You can jump of the ladder and you can swim out to the ocean through a hole.

We spent one afternoon up on the Village plantation checking out the Taro fields, eating coconut, and hanging out with Ula.  Ula was classic, guy spoke very little english but you don’t need to when you can speak with body language and laughs.  He caught this boa in the plantation and brought it back to the fales to scare everyone.  His coconut tree climbing was new to us, he’d tie a t-shirt in a loop and then put it around his feet to give him friction as he climbe up the tree like a catepillar.  He’d then climb up into the canopy and start tossing the cocounuts down.

Basket weaving lessons with Malae.

This is Fotu, he’s the man down there.

Local Fisherman, everyday they go out and spear tons of fish.  At night they go out at low tide and score even bigger catches.  Its easy when the fish are sleepin.

Check out the balls and wiener on this thing.  What do they feed this thing?  I was guessing viagra salt licks.

This is Togitagitoa Waterfalls (I spelt it wrong sorry).  You had to jumop out over a couple of feet of rock and then you try to land right near the whitewash from the waterfall.  We took some fun shots with the camera in the waterhousing.  This nice local girl offered me fruit from a tree up the way.  We played water rugby with the kids and hung out there for the whole afternoon.  Its a perfect break from the heat.

The boys.

Looks like Kyle is just floating in space in this one.

These pics are from the sliding rocks.  Overtime the stream smoothed out the lava rock and created natural slides and pools.

The pigs have the life here,…………… till they get eaten.  Malae and Ula kill them by luring them with food, then Malae would throw a coconut at the pigs head.  It usually knocked it out, then they would carry it to the water and drown it.

Louise is a legend at peeling coconuts.  The village eats a couple hundered a day.  The pigs get fed 30 a day.  We ate about 4 a day.

SURFING PHOTOS

We surfed three different waves while here.  The place where we stayed was at the end of the road and the U created in the reef created the three different waves we surfed.  The left (Salas, named after the bartender and owner of Lupes next to Coconuts) is on the far right and the two rights (suckups and Malaes) are across from it.  All the pics were from Salas because it was easy to take pics from the channel and the boat.  The other spots were more difficult to take photos from.  The right out the back called Malaes was my favorite wave.  It was extremely strong and gave me whiplash from wiping out.  Salas was a powerful left that honed in my pigdog skills.  Suckups was a wave that was dry reef on low tide and super sucky on high.  It came out of nowhere and just jacked up.  You stood up and just got barreled for about 30 yards and then dropped off in the deep channel again.

kahi

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louise

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Thanks for checking out our blog and do us a favor, tell your buddies and family about it.  If you’re really ambitious, go ahead and write a comment!  We are back in Hawaii now and off to Central America in a few days.