Manihi Motu Picnic

We recently took a trip. Not just any trip, but my #1 bucket list item: a trip to the South Pacific. We went with my parents to the islands of Huahine and Manihi. Aside from seeing the most beautiful sunsets and gorgeous blue/green water, shark feeding, and me scuba-diving for the first time, one of the more interesting days we had was a motu picnic. (A motu is pretty much a deserted mini-island) It's more than just one picture can dictate, so here's the day:

We started off by hand fishing (no reel, just a block of wood with string tied around it, a rock and a hook)

I caught mostly these pink ones-smaller, but tasty!

After catching enough fish to feed a small hotel:

We arrived at the motu:

Our boat and captain/fisherman:

We went snorkeling:

And our captain found an octopus:

Which most of us "tried on":

(not me though, I was..uh..busy being the photographer and videographer!)

After snorkeling, the captain/octopus catcher cleaned the fish and we fed birds:

Here's the fish we're eating for lunch-I'll explain where the big ones went later. ;)

Here's our captain/octopus catcher turned chef-notice the octopus on the grill???? Yep, that was the one that was on Mr. Lush's face not even an hour before!

Here's our lunch:

So if you've been keeping track, our captain/fisherman/octopus catcher/chef is pretty talented-we're pretty sure he'd win Survivor, that's for sure. Well it doesn't stop there....remember the big fish (grouper) we caught that didn't end up on our plates? Well, he tied a rope around them and caught this:

Yep, he's a shark catcher-and whisperer! We all posed with this "cuddly little sharkie":

No hook used, so we just let him back into the lagoon:

Then Mr Lush took a stab at it...and caught two! Now, in my defense, the camera battery was dying and my reaction time was off, due to my shock he caught not one but two AND one of them practically landed in my lap, so I was a little late on the record, but here's what I have:

Whew! That was a seriously jam packed day-we thought we'd get caught in a storm on the way back, but luckily our ponchos ended up being more of a fashion statement than utility:

Time for some more Hinanu!