Here's some words to go along with these pics from johnno russell's latest trip to Samoa at the end of October.......the trip started off with us getting in to Apia at about 11.30pm then followed this up with an hours drive to Mininoa Surf Camp. We were meant to be staying in these sweet lil' fales's but we all know the tsunami hit this area and washed everything away. So we ended up getting to bed at about 12.30am in these neat little apartments and got totally psyched about what the next day would hold for us in the water.
We woke up to total chaos. When we looked out over our balcony all you could see was the damage the tsunami had done. The picture i had in my head was a smaller version of what ground zero would have been like. Total devastation!Nothing was left standing and there was just debri,rubbish and anything else you can think of everywhere. The place was flattened.
So we headed down to the beach and found it was onshore and pretty small but apparently there would still be some fun waves going around a short boat trip away. All the waves are accessed by boat but could be paddled out to if you were keen enough.
The next 4/5 days we just got into a routine of waking up at about 6am and heading out on the boat.It got pretty annoying but as it was onshore the whole trip besides the last 2 days and never got over 4 foot. But you would still see all the setups going around and the place would be way too good if we had scored it.
After awhile we got over it and headed to hire out a car for a few days and go suss out the island.This was the best decision and we found some of the best shit ive ever seen.(see some of the pics)We went to all these massive swim thru caves under water and got to jump off heaps of insane waterfalls. it was easily the coolest stuff i've ever done.
We headed down south where the tsunami had struck the hardest. There was literally nothing left,everything had been flattened, except funnily enough the churches!what is that about??????Samoans are super religous anyway and then something like this happens where there are boats on top of houses and cars in trees,people have lost their lives BUT the churches stand unscathed!
We headed back to camp for a few more days to get some more waves as there was a swell due to come thru. We scored one day only about 4 foot but it was so shallow that it made it supr fun, just this sick little left over coral with a big ramp at the end.After that the swell dropped off really hard and we were left surfing the same joint but just not as good.
The whole time we were there about 15 or so Samoans had been working on rebuilding this new bar at the place we were staying. it took them just 10 days from when we had got there to have it up and running, so of course we had to help them celebrate the resurrection along with heaps of locals. needless to say sammy, alex and i all woke up feeling pretty sorry for ourselves the next day.nothing a surf couldn't fix though!
the last 4 days we just kept surfing that little left and when it finally came offshore we saw just how good the place could get, every where you looked would be some setup that looked like it would be so good if it had a bit more size to it.crazy.
finally time to pack up for home. we were all pretty keen to head home but also a little sad to leave because the people over there were just so nice it was incredible, i felt like i was leaving family behind. landed back in Perth friday night and was super tired and so cut as i knew that i would be back at tafe first thing Monday morning!