Lagoon Tuesdays

Thanks to the twelve-hours-a-week nature of the Language Assistant job, and some very considerate timetabling by my two schools, I have every Tuesday and Friday free. Fridays off, of course, lend themselves to the occasional weekend-long exploration of some other part of the island, and, failing that, I at least share this day off with one of my flatmates. Tuesdays, unfortunately, are not quite so easily made the most of, as none of the other assistants have this day off. However several do have the morning off. Cue Lagoon Tuesdays!

Saint Pierre has a great lagoon with all the facilities (showers, toilets, lifeguards, nearby snack bars) and I try and do it justice by heading down for a swim and a look at the fish most Tuesday mornings with one or two friends. Mornings are my favourite time to go - even if the beach isn't as empty as you'd think it would be, it's less busy than in the afternoons, and the water tends to be much calmer and the sky clear and bright, all of which makes it perfect for watching the fish. In fact, when it's sunny and the water is calm you don't even need a snorkel mask to see fish: there are so many and they are so unafraid of people that you can just walk into certain parts of the lagoon and look down into the water around you! Of course, if you haven't brought snorkelling equipment or even just a plain old pair of goggles, there are also other spectacles to behold: locals often walk out to the farthest edges of the lagoon on the coral to go fishing; and every Tuesday morning a group of middle-aged and older men and women enter the water, brightly-coloured noodle-shaped float in hand, and embark upon a strange series of exercises which I think is known as "Aquagym".

Aquagym in Saint Pierre lagoon

Surgeonfish

But back to the fish. So many fish, and every time I go I see ones I've never seen before! I wish I knew what more of them are called. Well, one of them is called "Jojo"...at least, by the elderly man who comes down to the lagoon every morning to feed the fish with shrimp! He is inevitably constantly surrounded by clouds of fish, and he kindly gave me and Aly some shrimp to feed them with today, which we did, although rather tentatively. "Jojo" seems to be his favourite fish - one of two beautiful surgeonfish which appear without fail for a free meal. They're the biggest fish I've seen in the lagoon, but by no means the most unusual. Two of my personal favourites in that category are the trumpetfish and a little box-shaped black fish with bright electric-blue spots, and the prettiest I think are the moorish idol and the butterflyfish. My least favourite fish at the moment has got to be the Picasso fish, or lagoon triggerfish, purely because one bit my toe this morning (they are apparently quite territorial and protective of their nests; I must've put my feet down a little too close to some baby Picassos) but at least they aren't venomous. For a long time I thought there was nothing venomous in the whole of Réunion, but then a neighbour uploaded onto Facebook some pictures of a lionfish he had encountered in the lagoon of Saint Pierre. This made me nervous of the lagoon for several days, but thanks to a pair of goggles I got over it.

Trumpetfish

Moorish Idol

Picasso fish

One other fish that I'm not so keen on meeting in the lagoon would be the moray eel. I used to think that these big, ugly eels live further out in reefs in deep ocean, but apparently there are quite a few in Saint Pierre. I have been reliably informed that there is a man who comes down to the lagoon regularly to feed the fish but, unlike the gentleman with the shrimp, he only feeds one particular moray eel and nothing else. What a strange choice of pet..!