{"id":649,"date":"2011-12-04T16:09:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T07:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=649"},"modified":"2013-06-17T18:13:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T18:13:10","slug":"another-day-in-paradise-pago-pago-11232011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=649","title":{"rendered":"Another Day In Paradise \u2013 Pago Pago \u2013 [11\/23\/2011]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0The first thing you notice about Pago Pago (formally known as Pango Pango, which my Gran used to randomly mention when I was little and which I was sure didn\u2019t actually exist) is that it looks like you think a tropical island should look \u2013 at least one with a city on it. Such as it is, it\u2019s not a city in the sense that we would normally think of \u2013 more of a large town. There\u2019s only one street, one direction leads to the main square (the largest highlight of which is a garishly colored McDonald\u2019s where all the teenagers apparently hang out) the other leads around the coast to the various beaches.<\/p>\n

The main \u201cfree\u201d beach may be only 15 minutes away by walk, but I challenge you to walk further than 10 minutes in the ever present heat! It\u2019s not as humid as china, which means it\u2019s at least bearable however the water definitely feels lovely at the end of it! Anyway, right when we were about to decide we couldn\u2019t walk anymore, we came to a little private beach resort, $5 got you an all day wrist band for beach access, and they had snorkel gear. Also, since it was a private beach, they guaranteed sand, a nice perk, since a lot of the beaches in the area are very rocky.<\/p>\n

Most of you either already knew, or by now have figured out, that I\u2019m a complete water childe. The only thing I could be said to dislike<\/em> about my actual hometown is that the water there is always way too cold to swim in (though over the years I\u2019ve become acclimatized to the point where I can at least go wading in it). I\u2019ve always felt that it sounds horrifically superficial, considering all the amazing historical and cultural sights I\u2019ve been lucky enough to visit since I started my career on ships \u2013 but some of my favourite ports are in the tropics. Not because I\u2019m a sun-worshipper (er\u2026with my pale skin? Sun worshipping isn\u2019t really an option), but because of the chance to swim in the ocean.<\/p>\n

Despite the number of times I\u2019ve dived headlong into salt water \u2013 I\u2019d never actually gone snorkeling until today. Being in possession of an underwater camera is a definite perk when one is going snorkeling, especially when one is without one\u2019s glasses. Sometimes the only way you can tell what you\u2019ve seen in that case is when you look back at the pictures! But at any rate, it was an amazing experience. Most of the fish darted away of course, easily startled, but they flashed all different colours, including some that were electric blue that I wish I could have caught a picture of.<\/p>\n

The only downside of the day, which is a risk in any tropical port, was the sunburn. I\u2019m extremely pale-skinned (it\u2019s the Irish blood), all it takes is one instance of forgetting to get someone to put sunscreen on my back and I basically do an imitation of a lobster\u2026I\u2019m normally quite paranoid about it, which is why I haven\u2019t been sunburned (beyond the occasional sunburned nose) in about a year..today though, I forgot\u2026<\/p>\n

Good thing we have aloe vera on board\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The first thing you notice about Pago Pago (formally known as Pango Pango, which my Gran used to randomly mention when I was little and which I was sure didn\u2019t actually exist) is that it looks like you think a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-asiaaustralia-2011","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-at","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2157,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions\/2157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}