The activity for the day was snorkelling with sharks, but it ended up being so much more!!
Morning is low tide. Api is at the fishing boat, preparing for our trip. The two Australian ladies and our family signed up for this adventure.We motored for a long while, heading for a reef.Api prepares his spear gun. He explained that first, he needed to catch some bait to lure the sharks. Good thing Lara and I wore our sea sickness bracelets because the bobbing was quite unpleasant (see a short snippet in the video below).Nolan went with Api. Like handline fishing, spear fishing is another traditional method of sustenance fishing in Fiji. With spear fishing, Api needs to have patience, be able to blend into the environment and understand fish behaviour. He’s got to be able to sneak up on his target.Success! Api returned with a parrot fish, and headed out again. Thanks to Nolan for this photo. The video below shows Api spearing the parrot fish.He speared two parrot fish. Parrot fish hang around in small schools of 8 to 15 fish, live amongst coral, and tend to be alert, so it’s not super easy to sneak up on them.Close-up of the distinctive “beak”, which they use to crush coral.After Api used his parrot fish as bait, we started seeing a variety of fish. In the water, we saw white tipped sharks and black tipped sharks, which are both reef sharks. On the way home, we sighted a large official looking boat heading towards us and we had to stop.It was the Fijian navy (their patrol boats were gifted by Australia). They had a fairly long conversation with Api (the rest of us didn’t understand anything). Afterwards, Api said that they were questioning if he had life jackets and if there were enough for everyone in the boat.
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3 thoughts on “Snorkelling with sharks”
Action, camera, fire. When in Fiji, do as the Fijians.
Action, camera, fire. When in Fiji, do as the Fijians.
Snorkeling on an outside reef is fun and scary at the same time! An alien environment. At least that’s my take!
Wow! The water looks beautiful. The colour of the fish is something else too! Great underwater shots!