Pohnpei Traveler: shark bait: pakin style

Instead of Spring break in Pohnpei, we have Easter break. I’m going to go on a quick aside here. I am always surprised to see this semantic mixing of church and state when I’m so used to living in a country reigned in by political correctness at every opportunity. I went to the Post Office (it was closed, as is the case whenever I need to do something) and the sign on the door read: “The U.S. Post Office will be closed Thursday and Friday for reflection on the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We will reopen on Monday.” And you better believe that our break between semesters was called “Christmas Break” and not “Holiday Break” or yet, “Winter Break.” I’m all for including everybody, but you gotta love that honesty.

Back to the story. For Easter break, we had plans to visit Pakin, an atoll about 20 miles West of Pohnpei with less than 100 inhabitants. For just $30 each, we reserved a round-trip vacation to the atoll via a small 20-foot open fishing boat. After about ninety minutes of generally gentle seas, we arrived at the entrance to the lagoon that I’m assuming was blasted through the coral many years ago. Pakin is composed of several small islands, some inhabited and some not, that surround the most crystal clear, light blue, warm water, that I’ve been lucky enough to experience. Looking over the side of the boat, you can easily see 30 or 40 feet to the sandy bottom of the lagoon. We camped out in one of the three rooms of the elementary school there due to the generosity of the lone Peace Corps volunteer in Pakin. Our days were spent relaxing, swimming, and one day was spent exploring each of the small islands composing the atoll.

A view from our boat as we entered the lagoon for the first time - the islands in the distance are inhabited by just a handful of people. The color change of the water shows the relatively shallow rim of the lagoon quickly sloping into the deeper innermost water.

Basketball/volleyball court created entirely from grant money won by the Peace Corps member working there. The school is at right, to the left is a nahs where some of us spent the night, and in front of that are solar panels powering the lights for the court at night.

Naturally, I brought my speargun with me in hopes of taking advantage of the beautiful and well-maintained coral structures there. I asked around and on our second to last day, a young man agreed to take me out to where the good fishing is. We swam for about a half an hour just to reach the beginning of the coral on the Western side of the main island. Even at Ant Atoll, I’ve never seen coral of such variety and richness of colors. I saw blue, red, yellow, and even purple coral that harbored large and small fish of equally dizzying diversity. Floating lazily along the easy outward current, we each speared several fish which we deposited in a floating gasoline bucket for about an hour or so. At a point, the man turned to me and asked if it was okay if we went outside the reef. Up until this point, anytime someone talked about fishing, especially fishing outside the reef, they mentioned sharks. “Pakin has many many sharks, maybe be careful when you go there…” Such is Pohnpeian advice, “maybe” be careful. Not wanting to disappoint my new friend, and unwilling to make my way back alone, I agreed to come along.

We soared through a fast moving channel and I soon saw the vast royal blue wall of the Pacific Ocean coming into view up ahead. The channel opened up quickly into an enormous coral canyon that surrounded me on three sides in an overwhelming semi-circle. The staggering coral cliffs on either side of us sloped off at 90 degree angles into the deep blue nothingness of the unknown beneath. I felt that at any moment gravity would overcome buoyancy and I would freefall to the deep, succumbing to the complete power of the ocean. It took a while to get a grip of myself and start searching for fish again. As soon as I did, I realized that the rumors about Pakin were completely true. There were sharks everywhere. Most were medium to small sized and only mildly curious at best. It took some time for me to gain the confidence to spear a fish without worrying about the thieving aquatic predators. In fact I only speared one outside the reef because I was so worried about losing my spear to the deep water and my semi-subconscious desire to be done fishing. As soon as I did, I grabbed the fish and quickly swam to our catch bucket with my fish held high out of the water. For all my fears though, none of the sharks were that interested. Only one ever came less than ten feet from me, but I kept my gun pointed at him the whole time and I quickly overcame the opposing current to get out of his territory. Getting back to the island after we were done was the worst part. Tide was low and outgoing, so we had to swim around a maze of coral heads, pulling ourselves forward against the strong current one handhold and kick at a time. In the end, our swim ended up being over four tiring hours long, but dinner was well worth it.

The next day, I was still exhausted, but I wanted to get one last swim in before we left. I grabbed my mask and headed over to the pearl farm right down the beach from the school. Pakin makes thousands of dollars a year from pearl farming and I wanted to catch a glimpse of this prosperous industry. The farm consisted of buoys holding up long ropes that extended deep into the water where there are large oysters attached. The oysters had just been harvested so the ropes were empty, but I swam 30 or 40 feet down to the sandy bottom where there was one lone coral head. As I made my way down, I noticed an enormous school of fish trying to escape from me, or as I like to think, leading me down to the bottom. When I arrived, they all clustered around the coral in a shimmering metallic blue cloud, undulating with the shifting water. With every movement I made, they hid deeper and deeper into the cavities and crevasses of the coral head. But when I pushed my feet off the bottom and shot upward, thousands of fish exploded from the coral in a dizzying display of underwater fireworks. I went back down several times and each submersion produced the same incredible effect. Never before have I seen such an awesome, Awesome with a capital A, natural occurrence.

Pakin understandably left me feeling energized, relaxed, and exhausted at the same time, and I can’t wait until the day I am lucky enough to return.

Pretty much the front yard of the school. I can imagine it would be hard to get work done here. If it were a clearer day, you would be able to see Pohnpei looming behind the islands on the other side of the lagoon. This picture was taken facing East.