The table was set with breakfast and, of course, champagne.
It was a beautiful sunrise and an early start to a very eventful day.
We returned from the horse ride in time for another breakfast. Over breakfast, we were convinced by Arthur to join him on a neighboring island mud flats to dig clams. What a hoot. We were all (two other couples joined us) covered in mud looking for clams. There is a small village on the island and the children were on holiday so they joined us on the mud flats. We filled a five gallon bucket with clams and headed around the point to Butterfly reef to snorkel. WOW is all we can say. The fish and coral are beyond description. I would post pictures but it appears that I failed to properly seal the camera. No more underwater photos on this trip. We will try the disposable film cameras and use the cell phone camera. I left the camera in a bag of rice overnight but no luck. Anyway, back to Butterfly reef. We had been snorkeling for about fifteen minutes, I'd gathered several good pectens and Paula was fully immersed in drifting over the multi-colored coral and fish when Arthur found a large octopus in a hole of a coral head. We swooped in to see the purple octopus and were amazed by the size and color. It was much larger than the one on Farthing reef. Arthur quickly dove down and returned with two large brown sea cucumbers. Sea cucumbers will put an octopus to sleep. Arthur shoved the cucumbers into the cave with the octopus. As you would expect, the octopus was quick to return the unwanted gift. Arthur continued to force the sea cucumbers deeper into the opening until he decided the octopus must be asleep. He reached into the coral head and the battle was on for the next 30 minutes. We finally called the boat over, they were hand line fishing nearby, and were able to hook two large hand line hooks in the monster. We shoved additional sea cucumbers into the cave with the boat pulling but we were still unable to dislodge the brute. About this time, he decided to release ink. It looked like a volcano or a smoker in the mid-Atlantic rift. Unbelievable amount of ink. Four separate eruptions but the fight continued. The octopus was large enough that if he was able to wrap his tentacles around you, he could drowned a person. Arthur was taking the brunt of the battle and even employed a kayak paddle. The octopus would wrap his tentacles around the paddle we would pull, along with the boat. Finally, after more than thirty minutes, Arthur, with both hands in the cave exploded out with the creature wrapped around him. We returned home that evening with a bucket of clams, four rock fish and the octopus. Appetizers for our evening meal.
Lunch was fun while we regaled our friends with the exploits of the morning. Paula and I were considering a float in the lagoon but convinced Felipe to take us on a tour of the islands in his boat. We took our bure mama Laite and Felipe's brother Bill along on our three hour cruise. It was fun. We were in an eighteen foot John boat with a 9 horse Eveninrude. We putted around our island and the neighboring islands while Laite, Felipe, and Ben pointed out their villages. The whole while we were sight seeing we had two hand lines out. We quickly hooked a two trevalys and lost them beside the boat. We did land a spanish mackerel which the locals call a rainbow fish.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Fiji
What was tragic?
ReplyDelete-Alan