Just a few paddles away...

...just a few paddles away.......there is an unspoiled beach...

Knowing that this island is like a moving boat on the ocean floor is very fascinating (to me and a few more), but I bet you are more interested in island life…

Friday was the 29^th of the month, which means GNOCCHI. This time I was inspired to cook something different and, with the help of my fairies, I add two Italian style lasagnas (with fresh egg-pasta, fresh béchamel, ragu’ and very little cheese) and a nice polenta on a bed of spinach topped with spicy tomato sauce with pine nuts… and chocolate salami for dessert, just like my grandma used to do! yummy!
About 20 people showed up and we manage to have enough people to feed everybody. There was a guy sitting next to me, he was so silent and absorbed and I asked him if everything was all right. He replied: “this is just so good, I never ate anything like this…” Soon after he refilled his dish. He really made my day. I love cooking, but what I really love it is to see people enjoying my food. I guess I am just not used to live without anybody to feed, but at least, once a month, with gnocchi night, I can finally satisfy my needs. Marsik took a lot of pics, my camera is still down… as soon as I get them, I will post some (it may be never…)…

Saturday I had a deserved lazy morning sleeping (and cleaning), and in the afternoon I had a nice kayaking break.
Although I paddled a lot since I moved here, I never tried kayaking, which proved to be great only for the fact that it is so easy to load the kayaks on your car and launch from anywhere.Liz and I went to Afono village, a remote village on the north coast of the island pass Pago Pago.

As we paddling farther away from the coast, the sea became rougher and rougher, and it also got very windy. It is easy to fell how small and lost in the middle of the ocean this island is (just try to buy a plane ticket to leave this place!!!), but when you are out in the open ocean with big waves by yourself sitting on a tiny plastic kayak, you fell even more insignificant.
It is inspiring how easy it is to move away from village life (which residents would consider quite advanced, and which visitors would consider quite adventurous), to a total untouched wild nature. Just a few paddles away.

Being out in the sea was great, I looked around in the hope of spotting a whale or two; we took some pictures, and I had another realization: “F*!k! I forgot it again, I get seasick!”. It is amazing how seasick I get all the time, and how, regularly, I forget about it.
Every time I have an opportunity to get out in the sea I always jump on head first, to then remember how sea sick I usually get. A clear example of human selective memory: forget the bad staff, remember the good one.
But the view of pristine watersheds with their isolated white sand beaches fingered with palms is just priceless, and I feel glad I live in a place where heaven is just a few paddles away. It was even be better if you had Adam with you (which make me think of this: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=rU30H0rkymY ), but… oh well, can’t have it all from life, can you?

Paddling and being seasick made me think of a day in Thailand with Paul. We had the bright idea to paddle to an island we could see from the beach.

Before I continue with this story, let me point out that you can see Corsica and sometimes even Sardinia from the coast in Tuscany when it is clear and that does not mean it is near. But magically, when you are in holiday, suddenly everything must be good and must be reachable. So we start paddling, paddling… and paddling and paddling… after few hours (not 1 or 2, but more like 3 or 4) we finally landed on the island. I touched the ground Robinson Crusoe’s style, and felt asleep few meters away beneath a palm. I do not know what Paul did, probably explored around until he came to wake me up… time to paddle back… to food, water…Again, we paddle, and paddle and paddle. The sea grow bigger and bigger, and a fog was obscuring any sight of land. In the same time I also realized how many sharks there were in these waters. I remind the reader that I am from Rome. I don’t remember last time I was so sick and pissed in my life. And all I could do was to keep on paddling.

Paddling in Afono yesterday was definitely much more fun. I believe women in general have a much higher survival instinct. As soon as I started feeling seasick, Liz decided to land in once of those beautiful beaches we just passed, to practice our primordial gathering skills instead.

The beach we landed was about 30 meters long so, half of it protected by a high vertical cliff, and with a little tropical forest on the other side. We found a hole in the bush, and with it a path that penetrated the forest. I love this kind of exploring, particularly when it happens that, unexpectedly, you end up in an amazing long beach, just as we did…

I though Larson Cove was my favorite beach on island, but this beach is much better!

We collected few shells, explored some more, and followed an eel for a bit.

As we were paddling back to the village, 5 kids stranded on a rock regularly hit by the waves caught my attention. They were about 6-8 years old, far away from the village, weaving at us.
“How did they ever got there?????” I guessed they must have walked on the reef at low tide (during high tide the waves and the currents are too strong to walk there), as the cliffs that separated the rock from the village were way too vertical and high to be passed.
I asked if they needed help, but they were laughing and playing. As Liz noted, they did look like characters animated from “The lord of the flies” book. Could they eat me if I got too close?
Now this may not sound nice, but they were not interested in our help, so we just left them there (stranded?). I kept looking at the cliffs and the wood above it… no way there is a path there… and how would they get down there? Are they Spiderman’s sons?
Next low tide won’t happen until midnight… Were they bad kids sent on the rock as punishment by the parents? Being a young kid on a small island must really be hard…

With some guilty feelings, I surfed a couple of waves as I passed the reef, and them carrying me back to the Afono's beach...