Since the conservation DVD project deals mostly with water quality, a good look at the freshwater creeks, where it all starts, was necessary. One may think eels are boring but th eons we found in the creeks of Mbiche village and Kavolavata are rather interesting and easy to film.
Mbiche creek, eels live where women wash the dishes!
At Mbiche, in the middle of the village, the eels cohabitate with the women doing dishes, the pikininis playing and enjoy a fish gut cleaning session, as they get a good feed!
Men clean the fish...
and the eels jump out for a feed on fish guts!
The Mbiche mob has turned their kastom eels into a tourist attraction, so they feature in the tour that they offer to the lodge dwellers, but in Kavolavata, the eels peacefully rest under huge tree roots and curiously came out to eyeball the camera
The shade is good for them. Without true shelter, I noticed the eels at Mbiche all suffer from cataract:
Along with the eels a number of freswater prawns live in the crystal clear waters of the creek.
Where to find these characters?
Here is an overview of the lagoon
At the extreme SE end of the island of Ngatokae lay those two villages, with Peava anchorage in the middle
