Today we were stationed on the east side of Aunu’u Island. Woke up, went to the weather deck to a beautiful view of the island where we were close enough to see details of waterfalls and the jungle covering the mountain. No houses or signs of “civilization.” Waves colliding on black volcanic rocks, while to the south you could see Tutuila hit by a huge rainsquall. “Ah” this is what I like about the job. I go to the bow (front of the ship for landlubbers) to exercise the bell on the sound powered phone, the bridge shields me from the noise of the engines blowing up fumes from the stacks. I hear the bow wakes below my feet and the wind echoes around my ears. It is invigorating to see this island where civilization has a minimal presence and definition of the 21st century of what we envision in the west has a different angle here. This is another reason I enjoy sailing this ship. The nature of our mission always has us close to an island and during operations I know I can go out to the weather deck and see an island or atoll.
I was on the Ka’imimoana last month and although I sailed on her for four years, when we reached our first station at 8 North and 155 West, the location was so remote. I wrote about that on my blog that day. The ship had stopped to recover and deploy a buoy. I went outside and saw that we were surrounded by endless ocean with no land in sight! During my four years on the KA, I never gave it a thought about the remoteness of where she works. Speaking of the KA, I look at the calendar and it is astonishing it has already been a month I was at the party the CO threw for us at Aggie Grey’s Resort.
As the day wore, we were off the northern tip of Aunu’u and I could see a village with a large building that may be a church. Further north from that village was another one and it was obvious that their large white building was a church. Smoke from cooking was rising from small fale’s and another peaceful evening was about to descend on this small South Pacific village.
My day was not as peaceful as the scenery on the island. It was not a bad day but a day full of discoveries. This is not the forum to be discussing what was discovered but let’s say what was planned in board meetings ashore (in this case Washington DC) does not necessarily function in the real world afloat. All I could do was sit back, shake my head and let my 33 years of professional wisdom enlighten me.
I have some projects to continue and new items are always rising. Tomorrow brings another day full of challenges at which I am prepared to face. I have one camera that decided to be a renegade and does not tilt, pan or zoom. I applied power resets several times and unstuck it. Now it does what it well pleases against my commands.
The writing portion of my evening is done. I would love to put up photos of the waterfalls seen from the ship. Unfortunately, by the time I get it to the size acceptable by the blog template, it would just be a patch of green rising up out of the water. So these will have to do for another day.
Next is the hot shower (still catching up from Samoa) and then read a chapter from a book. I bid you manuia-po from American Samoa.
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