Geocaching in American Samoa

Both of my brothers are addicted to geocaching and turned Emma onto it when she was in Michigan this past summer. For those of you not familiar with geocaching, it is basically modern day treasure hunting. People all around the world put "treasure chests" in hidden locations and instead of a treasure map, GPS coordinates are posted online. I was a bit skeptical, as it would seem to take some of the fun out of treasure hunting if you replace obscure instructions like "walk 10 paces towards the setting sun" with a satellite pinpointed location. But Emma was quite excited and any activity that keeps kids interested in geography and the outdoors seemed like a worthwhile adventure. We were pleasantly surprised to find that American Samoa has two geocaches set up. We loaded the coordinates into our GPS units, packed a picnic lunch, and headed out for a family day on Saturday. Both of the geocaches are located on the far east side of our island. Ona has rarely made it the ten miles to Pago Pago without crying (a 30-50 minute trip depending on the traffic) so we weren't sure how a day driving around the island would turn out. We took our chances and drove to the farthest cache location first. The whole way Emma was holding her GPS and giving Paul directions, as though he had any option other than continuing along our one road.

We arrived at our spot and saw that we were at a shipwreck that we had yet to closely inspect. Now we really felt like pirates looking for treasure with our very own shipwreck to explore! Although the ship looks like something from a long time ago, it is actually a Korean fishing vessel that was wrecked sometime in the last decade.

Emma and Paul searched high and low for the cache. Paul even braved the putrid water and searched for a while in the room of the ship pictured below. Ona had to get in on the action and tried to lend a hand with the GPS unit.A couple hours were spent picnicking and searching, but we came up empty-handed. We may go back and look again as there are lots of good hiding spots along the shore and in the ship. It is also quite possible that the cache is missing. I'm sure if someone found it by chance it would have been stolen. The second cache was located in a spot we often frequent. Unfortunately, it wasn't very hidden and the geocache was completely looted. Not a very successful day of geocaching, but we all had a good time. Emma requested that we make our own geocache so we plan to do that soon. We have a few locations in mind that will be off the beaten path so hopefully safe from looting. The other agenda for the day was a family photo. As many wonderful pictures as we have, this is our very first family photo since adding Ona to the Brown clan! Although we are all squinty-eyed, I love this picture of me and the girls. Have I mentioned that I am so happy to have two daughters?On the ride home I got a picture of one of my favorite buses... my precious, my precious. A Lord of the Rings-themed bus is pretty cool, but is not to be outdone by the Finding Nemo bus, the coral reef bus, or the fafafine jungle warrior bus.And finally, a floppy-haired Paul driving home with Rainmaker Mountain in the background (in the rain, of course).