Another side of Paupau

Today I went to Paupau to do something special for a friend who lives in D.C. and is leaving the NOAA Coral Program to move on to greener pastures.


I wanted to take a picture of something in the water to remind her of what she will be missing when she vacates her job. She is the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force Outreach and Education Specialist for the International Year of the Reef. This is what I did for her:



My friends and I frequent Paupau Beach whenever we get the chance, during the weekends and sometimes weekdays. Whenever we're there, half of the group just sits on the beach and stare at the water, while the other half go swimming or wading for minutes at a time. As I was taking pictures, I thought it would be nice if my friends could see what was really in the water at Paupau. I think they would be amazed at the marine life that exists there, and they would appreciate it even more. It's definitely a prime snorkeling spot, one of my favorites, and rarely red flagged by my office, DEQ.

As I was perusing around in the water, I started snapping away my camera and I just couldn't stop. I missed taking underwater photos, they are such an art and really fun to look at afterwards.Here are a few shots that I took today. I've exceeded my limit for photos, so I send the rest on Picasa.

Yvonne

A couple of weeks ago, I met Yvonne from American Samoa, she’s Peter’s friend and they met in American Samoa through his good friend Craig. Yvonne was in Guam the week before attending a Sustainable Agricultural Resource and Education (SARE) meeting. Yvonne is farmer in American Samoa and she makes really good coconut jam.

From the moment I met Yvonne, I felt like I’ve known her for many years. She reminded me of one of my best friends, Sam.

Yvonne flew into Saipan at 3:00 a.m., without Peter knowing, he wasn’t expecting her until later on that day, and he made plans for us to hang out with Yvonne in the evening. However, she showed up early at DEQ looking for him. So he had to take her to his place to rest because she was really tired. At lunch time, we went up to Pete’s to have lunch with Yvonne that was when I first met her. My best friend Deb also came and had lunch with us. I had already decided earlier that I would take the afternoon off to relax since I had been feeling very overwhelmed and tired. I wanted to go to the beach and just sleep there. Peter asked me if I would take Yvonne with me and I said “yeah, of course.” After Peter left for work, Yvonne came down to my place to hangout while I was getting ready for the beach.

We were on our way to the beach and it was Yvonne’s first trip to Saipan, she was so appreciative of how beautiful and green the island is compared to Guam’s urbanization. When we got to the beach, Deb laid her mat and Yvonne laid her lava-lava down to relax. We had a cooler of drinks and the entire Paupau Beach to ourselves. Yvonne asked me if it was allowed to just go to the beach and relax with a cooler. I said, “yes, it’s open to anyone”, that really amazed her. In American Samoa, you can’t just walk to the beach and stake out a spot and go swimming, you must first ask permission at the village before you get your feet wet.

I started asking Yvonne about what she did at 3:00 a.m. when she came into Saipan. She said she asked people at the airport if there was public transport to the main town, the guy she spoke to, told her that we didn’t have any. So she started walking and until she got to a store that was open, she said she stayed there and talked to the “storekeepers”. She also said they were so nice to her, they even fed her. As the sun rose, she started walking again and she flagged down a guy in a car and asked if he knew where DEQ was, the guy said, “yes, I’ll take you there”.

Yvonne was in Saipan for 18 hours and she had a really great time hanging out at the beach, but she was really exhausted from her 3:00 a.m. arrival. She’s a very nice person and very positive and appreciative about everything in life. Whenever we say something to her, she would respond with “yeah, yeah”. She was very grateful to Deb and I for taking her out to the beach. We took her out to dinner and then I dropped her to the soccer field to hangout with Peter until it was time to take her to the airport. She actually didn’t hangout but just fell asleep.

After I dropped Yvonne, I was happy that I took the day off and got to spend some time with her during her whirlwind tour of Saipan. Yvonne flew back to Guam at 9:00 p.m. on the same day and then she heads back to American Samoa the following day.