Around The World In 80 Waves

All trips out to sea from Waidroka start with a tentative cruise out through this shallow channel in the reef in front of the resort. The space around the boat at low tide is staggeringly small.

Today I am heading out to the break known as Pipe, but discover that I missed some entertainment on the boat that had gone out to Frigates when I was chilling out on shore the day before, because the waters around Fiji are home to a great number of sea snakes. A Banded Sea Krait which you see here is amphibious but likes to find a cosy spot to curl up and digest their food. 

Amusingly a favourite hideaway for them here is the life jacket locker on the boat, and one of the aussies got the fright of his life when retrieving the jackets to pad the boards for the journey out to sea, because he was met by two of them not pleased to see him.

These snakes are very docile and have small mouths, making it very difficult to bite the largeness that is a human being. However even a small amount of their venom contains neurotoxins & myotoxins that cause paralysis and muscle tissue breakdown that will drop a man dead in 6-12 hours, so they are no laughing matter. Despite this I am a little disappointed to have missed the mania which entailed some people trying to catch them by their tails and throw them overboard whilst everybody else scattered around the boat and attempted to climb up on the roof!

I am joined for the short boat ride out to Pipe by a group of Hawaiians who have arrived at the resort. Everybody checks under their seat before sitting down for the journey out to the local reef.

They are a good crowd and I have lots of fun chatting to them about their favourite breaks back home, many of which I have surfed earlier on this trip.

We have a few delays getting out to the reef, and the wind is really on the shoulder high waves rolling around it. This puts me off diving over the side with everybody else to get in amongst the swell.

I can’t really explain why, but I just wasn’t in the mood for a surf today. Despite that I still enjoyed being out on the water for a few hours watching some of the guys snag a few brief barrels and charge down the line.