First full day on the reef (7/15)

Okay… THERE are the corals I need. Damn, it took a while snorkeling around to figure out where to find the coral reef. The reef around Fiji is a fringing reef. The fore reef is essentially exposed during low tide for ~1/4 mile. You can walk (in inches of water) all the way out to the wall – where the reef makes a dramatic vertical drop to 100’s of feet deep. Corals grow all along the wall, but you really need to SCUBA dive to see that part of the reef. When walking along the reef, you can follow a channel out to the wall. The channels are anywhere from 20 – 40 feet deep depending on the tide. They make for good snorkeling. It’s really cool when you’re walking though, because if you look to one side, you’re in a foot or more of water with small fish and coral heads – when you look the other way you see deep water with huge, mounding corals and big fish. Zach even saw a little white-tip shark today. I’m not crazy about snorkeling with sharks. SCUBA I don’t mind. But, sharks find snorkelers more interesting. I think we look more edible. White-tips aren’t bad, but the locals say big tigers and bulls are seen in the channels. That’s not good. Those sharks are more aggressive. I hope I can swim faster than Zach. (ha ha)

Zach did a night snorkel. I went with him, but I was tired and cold and didn’t feel like getting in the water. I sat on the shore to beacon him in when he was done, and sit helplessly if he got attacked by a shark. While waiting for him on the beach, I laid back and watched the night sky. I wonder why that’s so romantic? There were dozens of shooting stars, and the stars themselves seemed to be twinkling more than usual. It was nice. Then, someone put a spotlight on me and cried, “who’s there?” It was Lea, a woman from the village. Apparently Zach and I had scared them because they thought we were strangers fishing in the Tabu (pronounced Tambu) area, or the marine protected area. The villagers are very protective of the Tabu area, which is great for the reef. When they realized it was me, Lea, Kenny (Jim’s daughter) and a few other random people came down to keep me company on the reef while Zach was finishing up his swim.
We later realized that Zach’s night expedition was a very bad idea. It caused a lot of commotion in the village and has called for a special village meeting to discuss whether Zach can continue going out on the reef at night. It’s very hard to get any work done here.