Suwarrow Atoll
20 August 2011
Our first day was a whirlwind of social events. 19 other boats are anchored here, so we had quite a few visitors, all raving about how much they have enjoyed it. We cleared in with John and James, the park wardens and only residents. The entire atoll is a reserve so there are many rules, one being take all food scraps ashore. We could see why as soon as we put the anchor down amongst a welcoming party of several black tipped reef sharks. Each evening, James takes the fishy bits over to the outside reef and tosses them out, in an effort to train the big toothy ones to expect food there and not inside the lagoon. As he came down the beach, he called them with a sound not unlike a shell horn, and you could see tails thrashing as they raced each other inshore. Standing in knee-deep water, he tossed out fish carcasses, with the water boiling around him in a frenzy of fins. One large gray reef shark (12') circled in behind and while the beach crowd gasped and called warnings, James calmly whacked it on the nose with the fish bucket when it got too close to his ankles. For many it was their last night, so John and Jamaes hosted a potluck, making for a great evening.
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