Sa'oloto Agaga: A Little Island in the Distance... Aunu'u

Little island in the distance

Out at sea, your existence

Stuck between the moon and tide

Nature's fury forced to ride

Daytime sun shines so bright

Beautiful sunsets bring on night

Stars above to explore

Laying peacefully on your shore

Sadly I cannot stay

Perhaps I'll return another day

Saturday we took a little outing to the Amouli side of the island and then boarded a small boat out to the island of Aunu'u. According to what I read this small island is a total of 3 sq kilometers (just slightly over 1 sq mile) with a population of 475 people. It was the location where the Mormon missionaries first arrived when coming to Samoa.

This is our boat captain Joshua along with his

fearless crew manning the ropes in the back of the boat.

I am not really sure a description could do the water color around Aunu'u justice,

but I think the term Azure Blue Sea must have come from here!

We found some local kids playing quarters against the store wall, and hired ourselves a guide to show us around the island. Meet Cruz, "as in Tom Cruz" he tells me. Cruz is 14 years old, and takes the boat each day to go to high school on the "big island." I guess "Big" is all in what you are comparing it to.

For such a small island, we saw two very big churches!

Gorgeous woodworking inside this first one which is owned by the First Congregational Church. Not sure who owns the other one.

Look at that ceiling. Gorgeous!!

Our fearless guide took us on a 30 minute walk to the "end of the island" where the lake was, to see all the quiksand. He explained that we needed to follow where he walked when we got to the lake because he knew all the safe places. His father had shown him when he was a young boy, and his grandfather had shown his father. He was very proud of his island and his heritage. I asked him what he wanted to do when he got out of school. He told me that he either wants to join the Coast Guard so he could protect his island from terrorists, or maybe become a police officer. He is not positive yet, but either way he wants to go to school off island, then return to Aunu'u. I didn't tell him that I think his island is likely not a high profile terrorism target, or that I thought with a population of 475 a police man there he might lose his mind with boredom. I didn't want to pop his bubble. At least in Provo the bored police entertain themselves by writing parking tickets. On Aunu'u there are no cars, what exactly would one do all day?