With the final check of the LEOS station complete my job in this part of the world was done. Now all I had to do was get back home.
The flight from Ta'u back to Pago Pago was on the smallest plane of the whole trip.
Hey! Where's the copilot!?
Below are the two major American Samoa islands that I didn't make it to on this trip. Ofu is on the left and Olosega on the right. They are connected by a small bridge. Ofu, with its beaches and reefs, is one of those places where you go to truly get away from the world. Unfortunately it is slowly being discovered by the world, so you'd better hurry, which, of course, totally negates the point of going there to relax and get away from it all.
The day of the flight from Pago Pago to Honolulu I checked out of the hotel at noon and then had about six hours to kill before I could check in at the airport, so I just drove around the west end of Tutuila and caught a couple of pictures that I missed getting in the previous four and a half weeks.
I took the picture of Pago Pago Harbor on the "Tutuila" web page while standing on the guard rail in the picture below. This place was called Afono Pass. If you continued over the pass you ended up in the village of Afono.
Alfono was down there on the coast somewhere in the picture below. This was the view in the other direction from the picture above. Most of the island away from the coast looked like this.
Along the road to Afono Pass. Yeah...that's about the right angle.
Afono Pass is the low point in the mountain ridge in the picture below. Mt. Piao (The Rainmaker) is the tall peak. From other angles it looked more like a wide shovel-like mountain, instead of a peak. It seemed to trap air currents blowing across the harbor from the left and squeeze the rain out of them, hence its name.
The twice-a-week plane left Pago at around midnight and got to Honolulu at about six in the morning. I took the picture below the following evening, because I got to spend ALL DAY sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Phoenix that took off at about 8pm. There wasn't much I could do. Since 9-11 the number of storage lockers at airports have kind of dried up, and there wasn't anything I could do with my luggage. At about 3pm the nice people at the Hawaiian Airlines counter let me turn my luggage over to them -- way early -- so I could get into the gate area and could, finally, get something to eat. There is no place to eat near the ticket counters.
So that's how projects go in the tropics. It was a hot, sweaty, mosquito-infested
four and a half weeks...but it was fun.
Thanks go out to a lot of folks on this one. Jeff Alwin and David Musick of the TV station in Pago for corralling our equipment for us before we arrived. Tisa, Candyman, Becky and Wilson of Tisa's Barefoot Bar for all of their hospitality. Mark Cunningham for his help, Lafaele and his helper, Tuiala, for their work at the Matatula site, and Alan Olsen, Matthew Puletasi, Bob Watanabe also of NOAA for their help. Everyone at the Tanu Beach Fales for keeping dinner for us all the times when we rolled in late. All of the nice people at the Samoan Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Meteorology in Apia, and their Assistant Chief Executive Officer Mr. Mulipola Ausetalia Titimaea, for their help and support on Savai'i and 'Upolu. Larry and Tito of the Samoan Forestry Division and all of their guys. Moki, Leoso, Stanley, Tina and their whole family. Shaun's mom and dad, brothers and crazy cousins. And, of course, the guys; Shaun, Veli, and Johnny.
Finally there is...gee...all of the other Samoans I met while in the islands. What a nice bunch of people! If you need to get a taste of the South Pacific, and relax for a while, go visit them some time.
THE END
2014-07-24