It's very true. I did grow strong. I confess that living in Auckland gives me a feeling of....I don't want to say "superiority"....just a feeling that amongst these people that can't cope during a power cut, or panic with a paper cut, I will prevail no matter what adversity comes along. My 3 best mates here know me very well, but I'm a bit of an outsider generally.

I have a strange feeling that Zpete may know one of my mates. I'll ask him one day.

You've no idea how much I used to suffer up here before I found a decent baker.

Hehe.

That reminds me...we used to bake our own bread. We had to buy the flour, but everything else was produced on the farm, including the yeast.

I learnt to tap the nectar of the coconut flower to make toddy (arrack?). If left to ferment, you had yeast for bread, or a kind of sweet beer, or a stronger sour "wine".

The oven was simply a wooden box with no bottom or top, with a wire rack shelf in it. A small fire is left to smoulder down to charcoal, the box is place over the embers, the bread put on the shelf, then the box is covered. Nice enough bread, but I daresay that here and now I would turn my nose up to it. Anything tastes good when you're hungry or have nothing to compare it to.

Anything tastes good when you're hungry or have nothing to compare it to.

Funny but the first summer after I left school me and a bunch of mates went down to the Isle of Wight for a holiday. To keep things short I'll just say we had no camping gas so had to make do. We built a little stove on the beach from flat rocks and fired it on driftwood and cooked in one pan the best we could. One morning an old man passed by and surveyed our endeavours. He said "Boys, that will be the best breakfast you'll ever have in your lives". I don't know about the others but I still remember that moment and that breakfast with tears in my eyes.

sceadugenga, I have a feeling I have seen your photo of the wobbegong before. (many years ago)

Was it ever published in the papers?

No, old one, I posted it on this board... last year? I can't even remember what the topic was now.

My father took the photo with his slide camera in the early '60s and I had that and a few others put on CD three years ago.

Harcourt, I couldnt do what you do

and cant say Id want to, but I admire you for all that strength and courage. amazing! thanks for sharing

It was 25 years and more ago. I'm quite sure that if I ever went back, I'd have all the mod-cons and a boy or two to do the dirty work.

But I'm digressing from fishing.....

One fine day I was out futifuti. Not using a lure, but a strip of belly from a barracuda....it's shiny and wiggles and in some ways is better than a lure because it is bait with aroma and taste.

I had the line down, but had stopped jigging for some reason. I felt a nibble and then realised I'd caught a fish. Not a big one by the feel......when suddenly it turned into a huge fish by the feel. I had to play the line out. It kept on going, and although very deep (I was in about 30 fathoms), the canoe was being slowly pulled along as I was trying to let as little line out as possible.

This fight went on for 10 minutes at least, when as suddenly as it had got big, it went small again and became a fish that I could easily pull in.

Very strange. There was definitely a fish fighting, but it was in no way a fish that I would struggle with as I had been a few minutes before.

Usually, if a big fish turns into a small lifeless weight on the line, it means that a shark or barracuda has left you with only a fish head. But this was still alive and fighting.

I pulled it in. It was definitely an entire fish, and was quite alive.

It was a remora.

I can only gues that it had taken my bait and re-attached itself to the shark or whatever leviathan was it's host, and finally let go after the initial battle.

Another interesting story about remoras. There are several species that I'm aware of, some are quite small and will attach themselves to pelagics. There's one small remora with a white stripe. These are very annoying when you go diving because they will try and attach to you. If you are diving with friends, there's a funny game you can play; there is an odd trait of these little remoras: When it tries to stick to you, you can carefully brush it away and with the same hand point to your buddy. The little fish follows your arm, sees your buddy, and takes off towards him.

He then returns it to you, and you have this slow motion game of tennis. Eventually, it gets fed up and either goes away, or becomes tenacious with just one target, whereupon you have to get tough with it and whack it away.

Fijian legend says that if it sticks to you, a shark will soon turn up, but I don't credit this for a couple of reasons: I've never seen a shark with this type of remora, and I do not believe that there is collusion and communication between the fish.

Loving' the remora tennis!!

*Added to my personal bucket-list.

The Napoleon Wrasse is a HUGE fish that I think is vegetarian because I have never heard of one being caught on a line, only speared.....like reef parrot fish. I have never got a big one.

I was diving off a small island off Taveuni. This little vocanic island has a small reef around it and a deep deep lagoon....bottomless as far as I'm concerned. The hole is a sheer drop from the edge of the reef, straight down to an abyss. From 2 metres deep reef to black hole. I was following the edge of the reef. I had a very strange feeling that was akin to vertigo. A bit unpleasant. Anyway, out of the depths, slowly rose a huge shape. My heart stopped and I edged further above the shallow. As this looming shadow got closer, I saw that it was a dense school of small fish. I chided myself and carried on. Soon after that, I saw another big shape rising from the depths, straight up the cliff face. This time I stayed above it and watched it......no school of fry this time, but a Napoleon Wrasse that had to be a metre and a half. I didn't dare shoot it. It was as curious of me as I was of it and we eyeballed each other for a minute or two, only 3 metres apart. It seemed to me that it's eye was the size of a tennis ball. I could almost reach out and touch it. Then it slowly turned and drifted away and down.

The Fijian name for this fish is vara-ni-voce which means "scales of paddle"....you need a paddle to scale it, it's scales are so big. Vara-ni-voce. When I was still learning Fijian, I used to say the wrong word sometimes (as you do), or mispronounce words. Once when I had had varanivoce for a meal, and I was asked what I had had, I replied with an accidental spoonerism: voco-ni-vore vakalolo (in coconut cream). This was recieved with alot of laughter. Voco is an impolite way of saying rectum, and vore is a pig (ni = "of"). Pigs arsehol_e in coconut cream. Funny.

An interesting fishy.

I've heard of them on the Great Barrier Reef but never seen one personally.

Thanks Sceadugenga, that's the very same pic I found this morning looking for the western name of the fish!

Wow, that article you posted: US$100 per kilo!!!!!!!!! A small one at perhaps 30 kilos, one could pay for a diving holiday to the tropics!

I had no idea.

Twice a year, on a full moon, there is an event that the Fijians call balolo. There is balolo levu (big) which is usually in November, and balolo lailai (small), but I'm not sure when that occurs. Some Fijians know just when it will happen and be prepared. Balolo is some sort of spawning of a reef creature. A pale red or greeny slimey wormy mass rises to the surface and floats. We scoop it up and eat it. It usually occurs in the early hours before sunrise. A salty...mmmm hard to describe. Imagine pickled worms.

Anyway, fish eat the stuff too, and this is VERY important to note because after the balolo, many fish in the areas of the balolo spawning become poisonous. I would guess pelagic fish as the stuff is on the surface and reef fish seem to be ok.

My advice is to not catch pelagic fish in the week after balolo. Speaking from experience when, after eating a big barracuda, my entire family and the crew of my dad's boat became very ill. Hands, feet and faces were swollen, body aches, headaches, and nausea for a few days.

The head end of the fish is more poisonous than the tail end, so if in doubt, eat the tail and see how you feel after a few hours.

I have had fish poisoning a few times. It is not pleasant and it is not always consistant. Some fish are poisonous in some places or at certain times. Other fish are poisonous everywhere, any time.

There is one fish that only women and old men eat because it is reputed to cause impotence. I've never dared test the myth , but I've caught the fish many times: bait or for the wife.

There is a fish called bati. Travel East from Narewa for a day/day and a half and there is a small group of uninhabited islands where the fishing is phenomenal as it is too far for most people to go. Lots of bati, which get very big and are very easy to catch.....my brother caught two at once, trolling: one hooked and one tenaciously holding on to the swivel!! I kid you not.

Anyway, at home at Narewa, bati are fine to eat. Out at Nukusamanu, the bati are poisonous. Everyone except my brother suffered severe poisoning. Bro was the only one that didn't eat the bati. He had to be nurse, skipper, cook, and cleaner for two days while the crew and my dad were bunk-bound. These were tough men and they couldn't do a thing to help themselves.

I do not recommend eating poison fish.

This is reasonably common in Northern Australia.

Ciguatera

Ahhh. Thanks Sceadugenga. There's "palolo worms" mentioned in the article too. I daresay that is balolo.

As I have mentioned, the Kioa people are excellent fishermen. I gained all my knowledge of fishing from them.

There was a chap called Kenimalava. Broken toothed, straggly haired, rough looking man, a few years older than me. What a fisherman! One particular event comes to mind.

Keni was out fishing, futifuti style, as per usual. He started pulling in just fish heads. A shark was stealing his catch. Whatsmore, this shark got greedier and hung around just near his canoe, in sight. Every time Keni caught a fish (around 30 fathom below), the shark would sense it's ascent and meet it with open jaws.

Keni persisted, and knowing the shark was there, tried pulling his catch in faster. This just made the shark get closer, and eventually started bumping the canoe. It's not a nice feeling having 2 cm of softwood the only thing seperating you and a BIG shark.

Keni reasoned that the only way to overcome this problem was to get power over the shark, so he baited his heavy trolling line and put it over the side.

As predicted, the shark took the bait and now Keni was "in control"......NOT! This was a beast of a fish. Keni was in big trouble, so he called out to the canoes in the vicinity.

Of course the other men responded.

Thinking back, I reckon Keni would have simply paddled away had he not had the reassurance of other fishermen nearby, but their proximity added to his boldness. It was a big shark. He was very bold nonetheless.

It took five men in their canoes to subdue the beast. I don't know how long it took. I don't know how they did it either; perhaps rafting some canoes together, and some canoes sateliting to assist with balance.

Anyway, they got it. Keni and 2 other men together towed the fish back to the village as it was too big to put on board.

I was in the village that day. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the shark while it was still whole as I was pigeon hunting in the jungle, but I did see it's head on the beach. Apparently, the three guys towing it had to get out of their canoes before reaching the sand as the dead shark was dragging on the sandy bottom and they could not paddle any more.

The shark was dragged ashore, and as is tradition when a big fish is caught, the entire village comes down to share in the bounty.

I don't know how big it was. I can say, without any exageration that the cross section of the head looked to me to be the same as a 44 gallon drum, ie, I could not get my arms completely around it. BIG!

Tiger shark, I think.

These people are sublime fishermen.

Sharks are plentifull in the tropics, as is well known. I think it's in the Solomons or Vanuatu that there is a village of shark "whisperers"...the people can swim with the sharks, unharmed.

Taveuni is where the paramount cheif of the province of Cakaudrove resides. The Kai Cakaudrove (the people of that area) have the shark as their totem. They say "shark god", but I think totem is more accurate....without getting into semantics: they do not "worship" the shark, but have an affinity with Him.

I'll start to relate in first person, now, because my father is Kai Cakaudrove, (specifically we are Ai Sokula, a sub-group), therefore I am too....

The deity's name is not mentioned by us, the Kai Cakaudrove, out of reverence. He shall remain unnamed by me in this forum.

We do not eat shark. We do not kill shark. If a shark is caught, the line is cut. (For those with knitted eyebrows after reading the previous tale....those were Tuvaluan inhabitants of Kioa, not Fijian, not Kai Cakaudrove.)

According to legend, since we do not harm sharks, sharks do not harm us. To the best of my knowledge, shark attack victims in the area are never Kai Cakaudrove, and there has never been a Kai Cakaudrove anywhere attacked, and if there was, he would have broken the taboo at some time.

I'm still here, and I couldn't count the number of times I've met sharks while out diving. Truthfully, I have never tested the legend and have remained cautious in their presence..... and I have no idea if the pact stretches to international waters

Since I'm making it this evening, I thought I'd post MY recipe for raw fish.

Fresh fish is best, but the freshest just-off-the-hook fish is better left chilled for a few hours to mellow/age.

Pelagic fish are great....trevally, barracuda, spanish mackeral, tuna..... ordinary mackeral even. Snapper is good, but probably would be more appreciated in your favourite way considering the cost of it. Salmon is excellent, but very rich with the coconut cream.

Amounts are optional....prepare this dish "by the seat of your pants". Just use common sense.

Skin and bone your fish and cut into 2cm cubes.

Place in a bowl and squeeze lime or lemon juice over the pieces....enough to cover every surface but not too much....and mix to coat.

Let the fish marinate for half an hour......more time for very fresh fish or for very firm fleshed fish.

Finely chop an onion (or some shallots), chillies, corriander leaves.

Dice some cucmber and tomatoes.

Pour the excess liquid off the marinating fish pieces and add your veges. Salt and pepper to taste.

Add coconut cream.....enough to have the fish and cucmber just swiming but not drowning.

Serve chilled. On hot days, ice cubes can be added just prior to serving but not too far in advance as you don't want the coconut cream to get too watery....or maybe you do; diet conscious people may want to dilute the coconut cream with water.

Sometimes I will add scallops and/or oysters. They have to be marinated in lime/lemon with the fish. Big scallops I would halve.

Sometimes these days I use nam bpla instead of salt.

Othere veges to try adding are par-cooked peas, bean sprouts, blanched broccoli, spring onions...... try the simple recipe and add your own ideas once you have the feeling for it.

This will keep in the fridge for a day or three. As with all seafood, hygiene during preparation will affect the shelf-life.

Brilliant. Copied and pasted.

Can you marinade the fish in the fridge?

It's like a pickling effect isn't it? In theory you could use vinegar.

Hmmm..... I wonder how those big freshwater shrimp we get up here would go? Might need to add a little extra salt...

Brilliant. Copied and pasted.

Can you marinade the fish in the fridge?

It's like a pickling effect isn't it? In theory you could use vinegar.

Hmmm..... I wonder how those big freshwater shrimp we get up here would go? Might need to add a little extra salt...

Yes, marinate in the fridge. I think half an hour is the bare minimum time but 6 hours is perhaps too long for delicate fish.

It is a pickling effect. The fish tastes cooked and looks cooked.

I was going to mention prawns. I love, LOVE! the Thai raw prawn and chillie dish (When the GF says it, it sounds like "baa goong"). I reckon you could use prawns or shrimp. I've added surimi crab meant to cheaply bulk it up, too.

I did a half hearted Google on that very dish yesterday. I had a girlfriend who held a management position in the entertainment industry in Bangkok who was very partial to it. I used to pick her up from work at 1am and we'd enjoy Bangkok's after hours night life until dawn then head back to where I was staying in time for breakfast and she would order the raw shrimp dish for us.

Used to claim it had invigorating powers for the next activity she had in mind.

I might put a query to the sages in the Thai food section of the board.

I was thinking, rather than peel a couple of kilo of raw shrimp I might experiment with the frozen packets available at Big C. I've had good results with them in rice soup.

Yeah, do that. I use the ready-peeled frozen tiger prawns.

A tip I posted on the food forum: when googling for a Thai recipe, I always get the gf to use Thai script because there's a wealth of Thai recipes that are absolutely authentic and not farangised on the net.

She's not here at the moment so I couldn't get a Thai site, but I found this, which looks to me to be on the money:

http://www.totalthaifood.com/shop/index.ph...e=4&f_id=74

Ika Vaitafe; Translated from Tuvalu it is Creek Fish. Apparently these fish spawn in the fresh water of creeks. Apparently. So I am told.

They do in fact share some simmilarity with salmon....the flesh is pinkish and they are silver/grey with dark spots. There the simmilarity ends.....these fish are huge. A metre and a half to 2 metres of solid fish, and they are caught in deep water....70 fathom.

One fine day, the FiL had come over from Kioa in his canoe and he said, "We're going fishing tonight, go and get some bait", so off I went and collected a load of hermit crabs.

Hermit crabs are excellent bait, and they can get quite big...(think fist-sized shells). I'm talking about the land-dwelling hermit crabs, not the sea hermit crabs that you can find in the water under rocks.

I had an 18 foot Hartley half-cabin trailer-sailer that had been converted from being a sail boat (center-board slot removed and fibreglassed over, transom reinforced, mast removed) with a 5 horse Seagull. It was slow but very sea-worthy. We only used it for transporting heavy loads or when I had to take the wife to Taveuni.

We set out that evening and started by catching a few reef fish with the hermit crabs. We then moved, and using the reef fish for bait, caught some barracuda. We then moved much further out, far from any reef. FiL was very particular about the spot...we spent some time with him lining up hills silhouetted in the star-light to get the exact triangulation.

It was deep. 70 fathom. We anchored at perhaps 10 pm, I guess. The fishing was slooooooooowwwwww. An occassional nibble, an occassional pakapaka (simmilar to orange roughy) pulled in. Pulling in a fish from 70 fathom takes a long time. It was boring, and I went to sleep.

At around 2 am he woke me and said the tide is right....wake up and be ready.

Well!!!! We started catching ika vaitafe. Big fish!

We'd caught 9 of them, and the bite went off....no more fish. Time to go, he said, they are gone now.

We didn't go home, we went to Natuvu, a settlement with a couple of shops and a copra trading station. As morning broke, we arrived and sold all of our fish. A bonanza! We bought a sacks of rice, sacks of flour, and sacks of sugar to share between me and him, plus cigarettes and incidentals.

What is amazing to me is that this guy, my FiL, would spend 2 weeks building a canoe for my neighbour for $50. If he could have fished like this every night, he would have.....but he knew that it was only on that night that these fish were there at that particular spot. Many times I asked him to go again....he always declined, saying that they are not there and we would waste our time. We went one more time, a year or two later, and it was the same bonanza.

I had marked the spot by lining up particular hills and peaks and went there a few times....never got more than a few pakapaka and ruby.

To this day, I don't know how he knew the spot or the timing.

I just thought this was appropriate.

Great song, great album.

I like it.

I've decided I like The Waterboys.....but somehow I feel that I need to be grasping a pint of scrumpy or Kilkenny Ale while I tap my feet.

Kioa has an interesting history from a Western ex-pat's point of view.

I've done a bit of a google to fill the gaps in what I know already.

The island was up for sale in the early 1940's. My grandfather nearly bought it but decided against it as he only had the one son, my dad, and he already had a large estate to bequeath him.

At 22 square km, and me only having one brother....I doubt that I'd be here, and poor now. But then again, I wouldn't have my wonderful daughter either....so maybe it was for the best.

Anyway, a chap by the name of Donald Kennedy convinced the people of Vaitupu in Tuvalu to buy the island with money they had saved from working for American forces in WW2.

12 or 13 families pooled their resources and bought the island for 3000 pounds.

They sailed to Kioa and began a new life.....but here's the interesting bit:

Kennedy soon showed his true colours. He had envisaged his own little kingdom on this island paradise.

He initially was respected and followed because he had been instrumental in the islanders emmigration. (Vaitupu is just an atoll with almost no water......Kioa had mountains and running streams and forests.... a paradise to the Tuvaluans). They were grateful and beholden to him.

He organised the people to build their village and plant crops. There is still coffee growing, now over-run by jungle.

But he got a bit too bossy and had too many expectations, particularly of the young women.

Eventually, they chased him away. I would say lucky to escape with his life. There is a place on the island called Tuli Palagi, which means "Chase the Farang" where they banished him from.

But he nearly succeeded in becoming King of Kioa. Just one too many virgins plucked.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like to have inherited such a valuable piece of real estate.

I wonder if this is the same guy, or his son.

Population transfer proposal

In February 2006, at a climate refugee forum in Melbourne, Don Kennedy, a retired Tuvalu-born Australian scientist, suggested the entire population of Tuvalu should move to the island, to preserve Tuvaluan culture as their homeland becomes uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. "A mass relocation would ensure the Tuvaluan language and culture is preserved instead of being scattered to the four corners of the earth," the Fiji Live news service quoted him as saying. Tuvalu's nine islands stand an average height of just 3 meters above sea level.

He is negotiating with Tuvalu's Prime Minister Maatia Toafa to move the population before Tuvalu becomes submerged, which he predicts will happen within the next 50 years.

Fiji's political parties were cautious in their response to Kennedy's proposal. United Peoples Party President Mick Beddoes said that moving the 9000 Tuvaluans would put a great strain on Kioa's resources and economy. He said that Pacific Island nations should share the cost of such a move, with most of the finance coming from "the major polluting nations." National Alliance Party President Ratu Epeli Ganilau (who hails from the neighbouring island of Taveuni) said that the proper procedures would have to be followed, while National Federation Party President Raman Pratap Singh said that the proposal was a good one in principle, but that proper arrangements would have to be made, and compensation would have to be paid to the landowners.

Tuvalu's Prime Minister Toafa said on 21 February 2006 that relocation to Kioa was under consideration, but was not a priority. Buying land in Australia or New Zealand was also an option, he said. If they were to move to Kioa, they would need finance to develop the island, Fiji Live quoted him as saying.

I would guess it's the son.....or just a very very odd coincidence.

I would guess that the proposal would be met by Fijians and Kioans alike with diplomatic unenthusiasm.

Anyway...the island is freehold and belongs to the current occupiers. Tuvaluans have got no claim.....A pretty penny indeed would be needed to purchase enough sections to accomodate 9000. Although many, if not all, of the islanders probably couldn't concieve of that amount of money and may be tempted...I think though poor, they value their paradise lifestyle.

My prediction would be that they agree to a smaller contingent of immigrants, less than 500. Politically, the newcomers would outnumber the oldtimers.

Good stories, Harcourt. Keep them coming. I don't often come to the Bedlam forum, but I can see it has its uses. In most other forums on thaivisa you are retricted to talking about Thailand. As I spend 7 months of year in Canada I can't always have something up to date to say about Thailand. British Columbia is very similar to New Zealand in many ways, but a little less tropical than northern New Zealand.

After university in Vancouver I spent my early years logging on the coast of British Columbia. I did it for the express reason in that it put me near all the wilderness rivers that were teaming with steelhead, trout and salmon. And, the hunting for big game was superb.

Here are a couple photos of me logging as a youngster (in my twenties)

I even had hair in those days.