Need Tribes Blessing to Spear Coral Reefs (Island Catch & Cook) #travel

That was a cool experience. Give respect, get respect. That's how it works. All right, cheers mate. Oh they're huge. Here you go Charles, here you go, you get them. We need to catch a wild pig at the back of this island. The reef we want to go and spear today, the traditional owners have asked no worries if we go and spear there and catch fish, but we need to take a wild pig live in the boat to the village before we can get access to this island. So fingers crossed I can catch one, but we're heading out the back into the scrub to try and get a little wild pig. Just up here on the edge of the scrub line there's a couple of smaller ones. We're going to try and just sneak up a bit closer. It's all going to happen pretty quick I'd say, but get them out into the clearing so I can run after one. I don't know what that'd be, 10 or 12 kilos. There's a little boar. The owner of the island estimates they're anywhere between one to 300 pigs, so pork's a staple diet here for this island and also for trade with other islands. This pig here is the access and the respect and the gift and the offering we need to be able to spear at the reef today. Sorry mate, but you'll come with us today. Using this vine, this is rope from a fig tree, which is really strong. They use it for bows and arrows, building construction, tying the legs up on your pig. Just come into this little bay here, there's a couple of hundred people living in. They're the traditional owners, the custodians of this reef and island we want to go spear at now. So we've got the pig tied up in the back, poor little fella. Do the handover, shake hands, do the deal and then we should be on our way. Just heading up into the village to see this gentleman's father, the chief. I'm a little bit intimidated, I need to ask permission to go to this reef today. Nice to meet you. Hello, nice to meet you. Good morning brother. Hey, good morning. Oh, sorry too much, we're sick now. It's okay, I understand. I pray for you to get better and get strong again. Well, we'd like to ask if possible if we could go and do some fishing on Reef Island. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, I'm Aaron. We'd like to help you with this if possible. Yeah, thank you very much. Okay. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, this village is absolutely stunning. They've got mango trees, breadfruit. It's kept in absolutely immaculate condition. We've got a beautiful home here, Cliff. It's very beautiful here. Ah, okay. Yeah, thank you. That was definitely a first. That was a cool experience. Give respect, get respect. That's how it works. Yeah, thank you. I only took about 45 minutes to go from the village out to this reef. It's just in the middle of the ocean. It probably stretches for like 800 meters and it's just a gradual drop-off. Really clean water and reef where you can see all these waves are breaking in front of me and then probably a mile or two that way is white sandy beach and coconut palms, like a low set idyllic island where we should be able to go over and, if we can spear something, which hopefully we have no issue, go over there and have some lunch with everyone in the boat. Nice blue spot coral trout. Oh my god, I'm stoked with that fish. Longnose emperor. It's a really nice fish. Good one? Number one, yeah. What, how do you say in language? The name. Redbone. Longnose. That's nice. Not too big, just a small one. Still good eating. The longnose from the last dive. I went and laid on the bottom and I didn't see anything from the top, but it looked like a fishy area. I covered myself in sand and after about 20 seconds I peered up over me. This longnose was just swimming like straight over my head, which is really rare because they're pretty like elusive and hard to shoot. So yeah, I'm stoked with that one. They're amazing chewing as well. I've just got the drone up and I'm getting a few photos and videos to be able to send back to the chief because they've never had like seen aerial footage of their islands, their reefs or their village. So yeah, I thought I'd get the drone up and get a few pictures for them. Be cool to be able to like print one out and frame one so they could have it and the whole village could see an eagle eye view of all their reef and their islands. Not a bad spot for lunch. We're going to cook up the longnose and Brett also shot a cuttlefish. So we've come up here to this really specky little beach. The boys are just grabbing a bit of firewood. We're going to get fire going, get some lunch. Show us your catch of the day there, mate. Nice sized cuttlefish. That is a massive cuttlefish. How do we cook him up? Right, I think we're going to slice him up into sections just into rings like calamari really. Grab rings of him and then we'll cook him up on the fire. It's one of the parrots for lunch, all prepped up. Where you just take them scale off and gut. That's it. Beauty. Honestly, everywhere you turn just looks like a postcard today. Feeling deeply grateful to be able to do this. I'm going to scale this longnose up, gut it and then we're going to prep it for the hot coals which the boys are working on now. I'm going to get scales all over you there. So what do we got? We got six of us for lunch. We've got Eddie, Jono, Bretto, you, Nikki and Charles. Charles was at the village that we gave the pig to and got permission this morning and he was just like, oh like can I come for a ride? But yeah sure, jump in. So Charles jumped in, literally all he brought was an old cap and a bush knife. That's it and I don't think he had any context to how long we'd be out here for but he doesn't stop smiling and laughing so he's a welcome asset to the team. I'm more than happy to shoot a couple extra fish for him as well. I think maybe they asked him to come out to just keep an eye on what we were doing. Making sure it was all above board but there was an amazing spear just in the water for probably an hour, hour and a half. So clean, so much fish and just took a handful to be able to have a feed now and for tonight. You boys are pretty quick hey, you already got it going. Eddie, this is the first time anyone ever gets coconuts for me. First time, normally me have to go up. Never once has anyone got coconuts for me so coconuts and seafood, it's a special time. I'm a massive fan of slow cooking the fish over the coals as opposed to throwing them directly onto the hot coals. Levering them up with these sticks is slow cooking it so it ends up being a little bit more tender. Depending on the size of the fish and what you're cooking is going to be different. We're constantly playing with the fire to move the heat around but fortunately we're in absolutely no rush so we'll give another 15-20 minutes and lunch will be on. So Charles who has jumped in with us for the day, he's the son of the chief of the village that gave us permission. He's come with us for a cruise and he said oh let's go for a walk up in through the island and see what else we can forage for lunch. Potentially namalau eggs which is a type of ground bird, bit of a scrub duck or a scrub hen so yeah we're gonna have a look for island crabs and these namalau eggs. Oh they're huge, here you go Charles, here you go, you get them. A good eating? Yes. That took Charles less than two minutes to find an entree of crabs here out the back of the coconut swamp. Have a go at its left nipper, like similar shape to that of a mud crab which I'm used to which is a hell of a lot longer and slimmer but I'd say just like the mud crab you don't want to put your finger in there at all. Keen to see how they taste. A couple of crabs? Yes. Well done Charles. Yes. Thanks for finding them brother. So they call this one white tooth in Pishlama or they call it tipara, very different looking to other crabs that I've eaten but I'm glad we took a little 15 minute pit stop waiting for this fish to cook to walk out the back into that coconut swamp, well worth it. Lunch is done. This is a feast for kings and queens. Get into a team. Pretty good, you get that smoky flavour mate, like cooking it over the ashes like that. We're also pretty hungry. Yeah it's been a while between a feed so. How is it Charles? Good, nice? It was nice. Thanks Charles, thank you Bella. That parrotfish actually tastes like bacon. Yeah right? Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon. Cuddle fish rings mate. As promised, thick, smoky calamari tubes. They're a lot tenderer than I thought they'd be. Yeah especially if they're being cooked over a fire like that, tenderising it. Out of all the seafoods, what's the winner? Maybe even the parrot, the humble parrot. It's pretty good, tastes like bacon. And anything that tastes like bacon? The skin, the skin on the parrot tastes like bacon. Crab's been on for about 15 minutes on the coals, a bit of meat in that one nipper. It's really tender, it's got a like a lighter flavour than that of a mud crab. And I reckon a little bit sweeter. Get some of the meat out of that nipper, really sweet. That was slightly hard work but worth it. It's pretty good. Cheers mate. We got that fish, that's a Maori sea perch. One of my favourite fish to eat, favourite fish to hunt. Because they're pretty hard to get, they pack up tight under caves. This one here was sitting really deep under this ledge. I got a shot and the shaft only went in about half an inch. Fortunately put it to sleep straight away but it's going to be a great feed. Stoked with that. There you go Charles. Thank you so much for today, we had a great day. Home sweet home. It was such a good day fellas, such a good day. Thank you.