In case you were wondering about our radio silence yesterday, we unexpectedly took (most of) the day off. We had an appointment to walk the Vunikura distribution line, but woke up to pouring rain. The Mission campus was very quiet due to their Seventh Day Adventist sabbath, and we spent the morning quietly catching up on paperwork. At mid-day we took a quick trip to Loa to collect tap samples to check turbidity during a rainstorm. After lunch we luxuriously lounged around the Mission. When the sun came out in the afternoon, we took the opportunity to kayak across the bay. On the other side of the bay we happened upon a school of huge purple jellyfish, and quickly hightailed it back home as fast as our paddles could take us. Other than that, it was a quiet and relaxing day.This morning we started off our day with more relaxation! We asked Dr. A and Nani about snorkeling, and they arranged to have their employee Moses take us out beyond the bay to a good coral reef nearby (where we were told there would be no jellyfish!) And it was amazing! We saw blue, pink, and yellow coral of all shapes and sizes. In between the beautiful coral were schools and schools of little tropical fish scurrying around – florescent blue, black and white, and of course the famous clown fish. After we had our fill of fish, Justin got back in the boat while Deborah swam a bit more… until she saw one of those huge purple jellyfish, at which point she hopped back into the boat so fast, she impressed the group with her new-found arm strength.
When our local friends heard we were going to Buca in the afternoon, everyone and their wife wanted a ride. We piled as many as we could into our truck – including Siwa (formerly spelled Seewah in our blog) and his brother (and our new friend) Masaki and made the bumpy ride to the other side of the bay. Once there, we met the Tironi Ni Koro (Headman) Asaeli, his son Pene, and along with Siwa began our hike up to the Buca source. And oh boy what a hike it was! It took about an hour of trekking through deep, thick mud to reach the source. We were slipping and sliding and squishing and squooshing all the way to the top. Luckily there were no falls and our guides helped us across the river crossings and up the last slippery climb. It was quite the jungle trek!
Once there, we were happy to find a well-kept catch basin at the spring source. The only problem with the system seems to be a need for a smaller screen for catchment and perhaps a larger trash rack for the rainy season. After measuring, photographing and sampling, we trekked back down to the tank, observing the by-passed slow sand filter (SSF) and storage tank. As mentioned in a previous blog, Asaeli plans to move this tank closer to the village to be used for drinking water only. We plan to discuss this with Roger’s son Nik and his wife Laura who installed the SSF and live in Napa, California. 
The hike also gave us an opportunity to chat with Asaeli, ask him more questions about his village and their water system, and get to know him better in general. He seems like a very attentive headman, who tries hard to help his village and has a good understanding of the technical aspects of their water system. On the way back we stopped so Justin could play a quick pickup volleyball game with the local young men (20 and 30 year olds), and Justin was invited to join them the next night as well. There’s a big tournament coming up next week and all the local villages are vying to have Justin on their team. Meanwhile, Deborah made friends with the other spectators – including the young mothers and their cute children.
Tired from our long hike, we made our way back to the Mission for dinner and water quality testing of Buca’s source, tank, and SSF samples. (Even though the SSF is bypassed, they fill it every month when they clean the tank and therefore there was water for us to sample). 
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