socalnano24
Active Member
So I'm bored, thought I'd share a story.
I went to Rarotanga last year (Cook Islands) to visit a friend of mine from the US who had flown out to Raro to be a tropical fish collector.
I told him when I got out of school I'd get my scuba cert and go check out the island. Didn't know how much of an adventure I'd be getting myself into...
My buddy couldn't get off work for the week I was there so I had a week in the life of a wild collector.
Now the company he worked for (all 2 people)was the only one on all of the Cook Islands (so theres quite an abundance of fish compared with other tropical locations).
7 am.. the roosters are crowing and the geckos are chirping. Time to drink some coffee and ride our bikes to the dive shed.
8 am.. already loaded 10 3000 psi steel tanks into the 22 foot flat bottom boston whaler, along with a funnel (net shaped like a 3' funnel for fish collection), an underwater scooter(like a jet ski but underwater), several 40 gallon trash cans filled with 4 inch segments of pvc. 3 peoples dive gear, and enough water and food for the day.
9 am.. we rode to town sitting in the back of the boat, behind an 80s toyota truck passing mopeds and bicycles. (the wealthy on this island have nissan frontiers or an occasional fiat).
by 10 am were already on our first dive, a mile off shore in 120 feet of water. My buddy has just brought the funnel and two other nets down and set them up on the bottom. Today were collecting schools.
10:15. a 100 foot net and a 30 foot net are set up in a hyperbolic shape with the "funnel" in the middle connected to one of hte 40 gallon trash cans. My buddy and his dive partner go off on the reer with fiberglass sticks in their hands. They come back waving the sticks out to the side along with the most tiny schooling fish you've ever seen! The schools bank off until theres just one species, Today I think we were getting larai anthys. In a matter of a few minutes the trash can is full of about 100 fish. Put the lid on and grab another trash can. This cycle goes on until were running out of air 20 minutes later.
10:35 I've made my way to the boat anchor and have started working my way up the line to our decompression tank. My buddy and his dive partner are still down bringing the trash cans full of fish over to the float bouy (the fish need to be acclimated every 20 feet for four hours, to ensure proper decompression)
11:00 finishing decompressing and making our way up to the boat. I've now been on my first "fish collection". Apparantley my buddy got about $2.50-$6.00 for most fish.
On other dives of his I found out some more info on the ocean products.....
Full grown angels could be worth $12 a piece. Jefferjai (a rare deep water fire fish were worth 500 a piece to him). He also caught a few boyle eye. Worth up to a grand a piece if they had been special ordered. Some of these fish were collected as deep as 250 feet.
I was more interested in shallow dives to the tourist sites though. Here's some pictures of that.
I went to Rarotanga last year (Cook Islands) to visit a friend of mine from the US who had flown out to Raro to be a tropical fish collector.
I told him when I got out of school I'd get my scuba cert and go check out the island. Didn't know how much of an adventure I'd be getting myself into...
My buddy couldn't get off work for the week I was there so I had a week in the life of a wild collector.
Now the company he worked for (all 2 people)was the only one on all of the Cook Islands (so theres quite an abundance of fish compared with other tropical locations).
7 am.. the roosters are crowing and the geckos are chirping. Time to drink some coffee and ride our bikes to the dive shed.
8 am.. already loaded 10 3000 psi steel tanks into the 22 foot flat bottom boston whaler, along with a funnel (net shaped like a 3' funnel for fish collection), an underwater scooter(like a jet ski but underwater), several 40 gallon trash cans filled with 4 inch segments of pvc. 3 peoples dive gear, and enough water and food for the day.
9 am.. we rode to town sitting in the back of the boat, behind an 80s toyota truck passing mopeds and bicycles. (the wealthy on this island have nissan frontiers or an occasional fiat).
by 10 am were already on our first dive, a mile off shore in 120 feet of water. My buddy has just brought the funnel and two other nets down and set them up on the bottom. Today were collecting schools.
10:15. a 100 foot net and a 30 foot net are set up in a hyperbolic shape with the "funnel" in the middle connected to one of hte 40 gallon trash cans. My buddy and his dive partner go off on the reer with fiberglass sticks in their hands. They come back waving the sticks out to the side along with the most tiny schooling fish you've ever seen! The schools bank off until theres just one species, Today I think we were getting larai anthys. In a matter of a few minutes the trash can is full of about 100 fish. Put the lid on and grab another trash can. This cycle goes on until were running out of air 20 minutes later.
10:35 I've made my way to the boat anchor and have started working my way up the line to our decompression tank. My buddy and his dive partner are still down bringing the trash cans full of fish over to the float bouy (the fish need to be acclimated every 20 feet for four hours, to ensure proper decompression)
11:00 finishing decompressing and making our way up to the boat. I've now been on my first "fish collection". Apparantley my buddy got about $2.50-$6.00 for most fish.
On other dives of his I found out some more info on the ocean products.....
Full grown angels could be worth $12 a piece. Jefferjai (a rare deep water fire fish were worth 500 a piece to him). He also caught a few boyle eye. Worth up to a grand a piece if they had been special ordered. Some of these fish were collected as deep as 250 feet.
I was more interested in shallow dives to the tourist sites though. Here's some pictures of that.
