# The Faofao Beach Fale Resort. Part II.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

That evening, we had a very pleasant meal together in the dining-room of the Faofao Beach Fale Resort, with all the family stretched out along both sides of a long table. There were only a few other diners eating at the other tables, and it seemed that we were the main occupants of the resort this day.
After finishing off our meal with coffee, cheese and crackers, our son, Robbie, and his girlfriend, Vikki, and our eldest daughter, Zyanya, and her boyfriend, Dave, sat at an outside table so they could enjoy a chat together along with their smoke. I was the last to finish my meal, as I preferred to take my time. I liked to chew my food properly to enjoy the flavour, and to aid my troubled digestion.
It was early to bed for most of them, having expended all their energy playing games in the water. I sat by the foot of my bed in my fale, happily sipping away at my cool bottle of Taula beer, while watching the waves breaking on the outer barrier reef... then gently lap on the prestige white coral sands below me.
Our middle daughter, Debut... named after my last ship... came and sat with me for a while, and we looked out upon this peaceful scene... almost in silence... as she lit up and smoked her last cigarette of the day. I was a very contented man when I went to bed that night... I can tell you!

Apart from a toilet-break in the middle of the night, I slept quite well, and well into the early morning. The noise of our grandchildren splashing about in the sea beneath my fale finally woke me, but I just lay there for a while taking it all in. With the cool breeze coming from the sea, I felt in no hurry to make a move in getting up that morning.
By the time I arose from the comfort of my double bed... by Mariana's call saying that they were all going to breakfast... it was gone nine o'clock in the morning. With my towel in one hand, and my toothbrush and paste in the other, I donned the pair of flip-flops that Mariana had leant me and made my way across the open road.
And I must admit that crossing that open and exposed public roadway first thing in the morning, with only a thin pair of shorts on to cover me, and a thin pair of flip-flops on my feet, was a strange experience for me... completely exposed to all and sundry on the open road.
I went back to my fale on completing my meal, and sat on the edge of the raised platform with my feet dangling in the air above the crystal-white sand, while watching the children playing in the water beneath me. Robbie and Vikki, and Zyanya and Dave joined them, and they all enjoyed playing ball together. Zyanya spent some private time with her son, Kieran, enjoying the rare times that they'd spent together, as she didn't see him very often.

The mother and her two grown-up daughters that I'd seen eating breakfast earlier in the dining-room had moved into the adjacent fale next to the group of fales that we occupied. Now dressed in swimming costumes, the mother sat on the sand with her feet being lapped by the small wavelets, while her two daughters donned snorkelling equipment and went swimming out towards the fringing outer reef.
I watched their heads as they swam out to the protected side of the reef, then they swam east, following the white row of breakers. Occasionally, one of them would dive down to the bottom to satisfy her curiosity, or even to inspect a sea-shell. There weren't too many dangerous sharks in the tropics... mainly tiger and hammerhead sharks, but I kept an eye on them all the same. 
During my lifetime as a commercial diver, I had come across them both on many occasions, but I'd never yet seen a bull shark... the most aggressive shark in the tropical waters... and related to the great white shark that inhabits temperate climates. After an hour or so slowly following the outer barrier reef, they turned towards the shore, heading in my direction.
Our adult children and grandchildren were having a great time, although Robbie and Dave had left the water by now to have a smoke together. Zyanya was still in the company with Kieran, and Debut was spending time with her two sons... Viggo and Junior. Mariana's son from her second marriage, David, was joining in where he could, but was quite happy to be by himself. As he'd had to remove his cochlear ear implant connection to swim in the sea, his world was in total silence anyway.

It was getting near lunchtime, and was now time for us to leave the Faofao Fale Beach Resort. There was the busy industrious collecting of all our belongings... all suitably impregnated with salty-sand by now... and the collection of wet swimming costumes scattered about the fales and on the sandy beach in front of them.
I checked around my own fale one more time, and found several items that the bathers had put on the wooden deck of my fale. I didn't know who they belonged to, so just gathered everything up with my things, stuffing them in my raffia carrier-bag. One by one, they later asked if anyone had seen this or that item, and I was there to hand these back to their owners.
With my carry-on flight-bag full of my prescription medication, and my carrier-bag full of damp and wet clothing, plus my crate of empty Taula beer bottles, I made my way up to the parked cars by the road and placed my things in the foot-well of the S.U.V. that I'd rented with Mariana. With a fresh bottle of cold Taula beer in my hand, we set off in company back towards Mariana's house at Vaitele-Sou, on the outskirts of Apia. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks .


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

Pt II... another nice little tale, Dick, to take me into the land of sweet dreams, when I hit the sack, shortly!(Night)

Cheers

Taff


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## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

*For tsell.*

G'day, Taff, good to hear from you, and that you enjoyed the second part of my short story, 'The Faofao Beach Fale Resort. Enjoy your kip, all the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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