Nauru - Net Fishing

I started diving when still young in Angola and I must be very close to clock over one thousand dives in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. In my dives I met all sorts of divers: sensible ones and crazy ones; brave and dead scared ones; highly knowledgeable and totally foolish. I am afraid but in that small island of Nauru I encountered all of those types in the six years that I lived over there.

The Pacific Islanders, which Nauruans are part of, are remarkable divers with natural ability and stamina equal to none. Scuba diving was introduced to the Nauruans by the Europeans and it provided, to an already extraordinarily gifted diver, the ability to defy the laws of physics and common sense in the diving area.

In the olden days I was told and shown how, Nauruans use to dive without any gear with the exception of a spear. They cupped a hand against the forehead just above the eyes and blew a few air bubbles into the cup creating a sort of "diving mask" that allowed clear vision underwater. They also empty their lungs and that allowed then to "walk" underwater. You can try these tricks next time you are in a swimming pool to see how difficult they are to master.

Nauruans embraced scuba diving with passion, specially when, due to over-fishing, the tasty red fish became scarce at depths that could be reached with snorkel gear.

When one studies the diving principles and the laws that determine the ability of humans to stay underwater, we learn that at one hundred meters the oxygen in the air reaches such a pressure that becomes poisonous and will kill a human being. Yves Cousteau and the earlier scuba divers (frogmen) discovered the problem of breathing oxygen under pressure. We also learned that after an extreme exposure dive (for example one that exceeds 70 meters deep), repetitive dives within 24 hours are not allowed. The other lesson we learnt is that fat tissue absorbs more nitrogen that lean tissue and therefore overweight people must take this in consideration when doing deep dives to avoid the bends.

I can see Diving Instructors crying in horror with the figures mentioned above. Yes, they are crazy and should not even be contemplated by sensible divers. It is playing with life but unfortunately this is what happens in the Island of Nauru. The number of diving accidents there are a testimony of the madness of the people.

Nauru is a coral formation siting like a pencil in 500 meters deep waters. The dive in Nauru is always a "wall dive" where one never sees the bottom of the ocean. These two characteristics of the Nauru reef create a dangerous cocktail that invites trouble through deep dives. Warm and clear waters make the perception of depth very difficult. At 50 meters one still can see the surface and photos without flash are still possible although with the obvious lack of some of the colours in the spectrum. Diving suits are never required as the water temperature even at 70 meters is around twenty eight degrees.

Well, in the next paragraph I am going to make some generalizations in regard to people, which is not the correct thing to do, but when referring to Nauruan divers unfortunately they are 99% correct.

Nauruans are in general overweight and dive with a blatant disregard for the diving tables. Diving tables are for the "Sissy Expatriate" divers some of them say.

Nauruans dive using twin-tanks, never bellow 50 meters and for as long air comes out of the regulator. This is the only rule that seems to be accepted by the majority of them. One hundred meters deep dives (on air) are nothing to write to the family about, amongst the Nauruans and many of them do it day after day in pursuit of red fish.

I dived with a group of Nauruans once and after passing 300 feet on the gauge (almost 100 meters), narcosis hit me like a tonne of bricks almost killing me... but my Nauruan diving buddies continued their merry chase of the red fish that lived in a wreck of a "pusher" barge, laying only a "few more feet down".

The other Islanders from Tuvalu and Kiribati are also very skilled in the water, but did not embraced scuba as the Nauruans did. They are more into fishing, netting and spear fishing using snorkel and little swimming goggles.

When one talks about netting we all think about throwing a net over a school of fish from shore or a boat. Well the Tuvaluans do this underwater and I have the photos to prove it. I went with a group of Tuvaluans to see them underwater netting. I followed them scuba diving and photographed the various phases of the operation which you can see in the next pages.