Manu'a Flag Day

Yesterday was Manu'a Flag day. Flag day is when American Samoa and Manu'a islands officially became a US territory. Samoa is made up of several island chains, similar to the Philippines (just not as many islands). You can think of the chains in 3 parts. American Samoa (Tutuila island), Manu'a Islands, and Western Samoa (aka: Samoa). American Samoa and Manu'a islands are the only islands out of the chain that are US territories. Western Samoa is considered a completely different country, even though its only 30 mins away by flight. Crazy right??

In honor of Manua's Flag Day, all ASG (AS Government) employees receive the day off! Jameson and I got to sleep in and enjoy the day. We started the morning off by snorkeling in Faga'alu again. We love that spot! Jamie and I like to snorkel side by side so we can point to cool things we see. All the sudden, I feel Jamie tug on my fin really hard! He frantically motions to me underwater that there is something spectacular just a few feet away. I can't understand him so I surface the water. He surfaces too and yanks his snorkel out screaming, "Turtles!! Turtles!! There are 2 of them! Come on!" I quickly put my mask on and swim with him to check it out. Sure enough, two large green sea turtles are swimming carelessly through the reef. I start swimming right towards it but I can tell it was frightened by my arms thrusting the water. So I tuck my hands behind my back and just use my fins to propel me. This totally worked. The giant green sea turtle let me get just inches away from her! I swam right next to her for a few minutes. I couldn't believe how close she let me get. I literally swam with a giant sea turtle!! My heart was pounding the entire time. I just remember thinking to myself to cherish this moment. I stared at every part of her, admired her giant shell, her huge beautiful eyes, even tried to memorize the dents and bruises of her rough cratered skin and shell. She was absolutely breathtaking. After a few minutes of swimming next to each other, she decided she was done with me and swam away with just a few hard strokes of her massive fins. I couldn't believe what had just happened! I was so happy and instantly regretted not bringing a camera! Haha! I whipped around to see if anyone had witnessed what I just did and sure enough, Jameson was right there with me the entire time! I surfaced to the air and yelled, "Did you just see that!?!!" He laughed and said, "Yup, I watched you the whole time!" We hugged and kissed, laughed and swam. What a beautiful memory to have with my husband. Even though I have no pictures to post today, I'll never forget this moment. ❤❤