Rapturous!

A fish bit me today. I was replacing a chafed line on Velocirapture intent on tying a perfect, tiny bowline when this torpedo shot out from under the dinghy and attacked my finger. I think it was as shocked as I was since it thought my fiddling fingers were other fish. I don't know about it but I jerked and banged the back of my hand against a protruding bolt giving myself one more ugly bruise. Poor fish. Did it hit its head on the propeller?

This is a magical place where a close encounter with a fish is not exceptional. We are anchored facing East behind a strip of white coral-sand beach backed by a dense forest of coconut palms, nonni trees and iron wood. Two small houses of plywood and corrugated iron peek through the thicket while 8 or 9 cruiser yachts are anchored offshore. The sea teams with fish. Schools of 2 inch long turquoise minnows glide just below the surface scattering and jumping when large yellow predators come shooting up from the bottom. Our boat has become a shelter for the minnows and ambush site for the hunters. Large remoras with patches on their heads that look like solar panels hang out just below our keel darting out at anything that looks like food (like fingers). More intimidating are the 5 or 6 feet reef sharks that cruise around. They are quite timid and do not consider humans food. When we swim off the boat, they leave us alone, although it takes some self-control not to panic at the sight of them.

Near us is a healthy, thriving reef. I've never seen an undamaged reef. There is so much to look at that you don't need to fin. The diversity of coral and fish makes a PBS Nature documentary look photo shopped. There are very few places left in the world that haven't experienced bleaching from the rising sea temperatures. The population on this atoll is small so pollution is minimized. There are only a few rustic resorts with small cabins of woven palm leaf walls. Cruisers are a welcome source of income but can be a problem especially as their numbers increase.

It is inspiring to see how obviously less impact there is when people use less, have less. On these islands, everything manufactured has to be shipped in or out so people are very conscious of what they use. Cruisers have limited space and tend to avoid single-use containers. Metal and glass are degradable so they can be dropped in the ocean, but not in the lagoon. Only plastic is saved as garbage. At dive shops and stores there are posters in English and French promoting conservation. The town collects from cruisers 500 francs per person per day ($5.00) to help provide infrastructure like mooring balls and garbage collection. It's not enough. The moorings are not well maintained and we, at least, prefer to trust our own anchor. We've seen almost no litter on the beaches or in the sea but almost every night there are fires ashore burning, hopefully, organic matter. Somehow, this little piece of paradise must be preserved so it can seed a recovering ocean, one day when/if the world gets its act together.