Position: 19 degrees, 47 minutes south; 174 degrees, 21 minutes west
I thought this was a Wahoo....
...until I saw these teeth.
We had a great overnight sail from the Vava’u Group to the Ha’apai Group. All in Tonga, but Vava’u is the northern set of islands and Ha’apai is the central set. We’re now comfortably anchored in a little bay in Lifuka cooking dinner. Oh, what’s for dinner you ask? We caught a nice barracuda in about 300 feet of water just a few miles off the island group. At first I thought it was a wahoo, but once I gaffed him and pulled him up, I realized those big (huge actually) teeth could belong to only one fish; the barracuda.
Some barracuda harbor ciguatera, so we hailed some local fishermen who came over to look at our catch and they said, “No problem”. They were also very impressed with the size. This is the biggest barracuda I’ve ever seen. About 4 feet long. Even once he was dead, I still used pliers to pull the hook out of his mouth given the set of teeth in there. We’re cooking fillets in chipotle, black bean, corn and butter sauce, all wrapped in foil and baked.
OK, dinner is over and I can say- It. Was. Delicious! Wow, I didn’t know a fish that looks like a barracuda could be so delicious. Hopefully our lips won’t start to go numb and our feet fall off, or whatever the symptoms of ciguatera are. For what it’s worth, we’ve read that only Atlantic barracuda have ciguatera.
Anyway, last night’s sail was delightful. A nice 15 knot breeze on the beam, stars and shooting stars galore. We each got a couple hours of sleep, so we’re not completely trashed today, although right now (at 2100) we’re starting to fade.
A last note on last night’s sail. We staged out of an island that was close to the western side of Vava’u, but we still had to navigate through a couple reefs, miss some rocks and an island that is about 10 mile outside the main group of islands. We had to navigate all that in the dark, since we left at 2300 (or that was the plan anyway). Just before it was time to go, I realized that I hadn’t checked the radar or confirmed that the GPS was accurate in the island group we were staging out of. Dumb! So I fired up the radar expecting to just get confirmation that all was right in the universe. Not. Turns out we had stored some canned powdered milk near the flux-gate compass and gave some away to friends during the day. Oops. The tins were magnetic enough that they influenced the compass. That was fine because we did a magnetic deviation calibration a couple weeks ago. The problem now was that we disturbed the magnetic field by giving away/using some of the tins. The flux-gate compass was flummoxed and so were we. The radar which relies on this digital compass flipped out and was at least 30 degrees off of reality. So, I was left with a disagreement between the radar and GPS. No bueno. I was ready to cancel the night time departure when I realized we had a solid radar hit on a charted object-a lighthouse. So I calibrated the radar on the lighthouse and now we had a picture of what was really out there-and it aligned with the GPS. OK, trip back on. I still have to recalibrate the whole thing now that we’ve moved all the tins, but at least it worked long enough for us to use it for reef avoidance. Yay! Lesson learned? No more metallic objects within 3 feet of the flux-gate compass. Duh.
Back in the States, you watch Stupid Pet Tricks. Out here we have Bob’s Stupid Tonga Tricks.
signs of Ciguatera:
Hallmark symptoms of ciguatera in humans include gastrointestinal and neurological effects.[5][6] Gastrointestinal symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, usually followed by neurological symptoms such as headaches, muscle aches, paresthesia, numbness, ataxia, vertigo, and hallucinations.[1][6] Severe cases of ciguatera can also result in cold allodynia, which is a burning sensation on contact with cold (commonly incorrectly referred to as reversal of hot/cold temperature sensation).[5] Doctors are often at a loss to explain these symptoms and ciguatera poisoning is frequently misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis.[7]
Dyspareunia and other ciguatera symptoms have developed in otherwise healthy males and females following sexual intercourse with partners suffering ciguatera poisoning, signifying that the toxin may be sexually transmitted.[8] Diarrhea and facial rashes have been reported in breastfed infants of poisoned mothers, suggesting that ciguatera toxins migrate into breast milk.[9]
The symptoms can last from weeks to years, and in extreme cases as long as 20 years, often leading to long-term disability.[10] Most people do recover slowly over time.[11] Often patients recover, but symptoms then reappear. Such relapses can be triggered by consumption of nuts, seeds, alcohol, fish or fish-containing products, chicken or eggs, or by exposure to fumes such as those of bleach and other chemicals. Exercise is also a possible trigger.[1] Filipino and Chinese people may possibly be more susceptible.
Possible Detection Methods:
Scientific detection
Currently, multiple laboratory methods are available to detect ciguatoxins, including liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS), receptor binding assays, and neuroblastoma assays). Although testing is possible, in most cases, LCMS is insufficient to detect clinically relevant concentrations of ciguatoxin in crude extracts of fish.
Folk detection
In Northern Australia, where ciguatera is a common problem, two different folk science methods are widely believed to detect whether fish harbor significant ciguatoxin. The first method is that flies will not land on contaminated fish. The second is that cats display symptoms after eating contaminated fish. A third, less common testing method involves putting a silver coin under the scales of the suspect fish. Only if the coin turns black, is it contaminated. It is not known whether any of these tests produce accurate results.
Folk remedies
Various Caribbean naturopathic and ritualistic treatments originated in Cuba and nearby islands. The most common old-time remedy involves bed rest subsequent to a guanabana juice enema.[citation needed] Other folk treatments range from directly porting and bleeding the gastrointestinal tract to “cleansing” the diseased with a dove during a SanterĂa ritual[citation needed]. In Puerto Rico, natives drink a tea made from mangrove buttons, purportedly high in B Vitamins, to flush the toxic symptoms from the system[citation needed]. The efficacy of these treatments has never been studied or substantiated.
An account of ciguatera poisoning from a linguistics researcher living on Malakula island, Vanuatu, indicates the local treatment: “We had to go with what local people told us: avoid salt and any seafood. Eat sugary foods. And they gave us a tea made from the roots of ferns growing on tree trunks. I don’t know if any of that helped, but after a few weeks, the symptoms faded away.”
Don’t Die đŸ™‚ Glad ya’ll are having fun!
There was a magnitude 5.2 earthquake in the ocean about 200 miles due west of you, Tuesday around 8am your time. Did you feel it?