Fishing guide South Pacific

[Hoosierdoc]

May as well read about scombroid too

[owly]

Originally Posted by Hoosierdoc

May as well read about scombroid too

That's a far different issue. It is one of storage. It's controllable. Ciguatera is caused by certain dinoflagellates that are ingested by the fish resulting in a cumulative toxin. Scombroid is your fault.... ciguatera is the luck of the draw. Perfectly healthy fish caught and eaten fresh can be deadly.



I'm not fear mongering. This is a serious risk in certain areas. It's undetectable except with an expensive test kit that isn't 100% reliable. It's a neurotoxin with long term effects. It doesn't just make you sick for a day or two. I suggest that you read about it and take it seriously.



If you are not inclined to read.... go on Utube and search for ciguatera there are many videos discussing it. It is the most common of all fish related poisonings or illnesses.


Here is a link to the page with those Utube videos. There are literally dozens of them.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ciguatera



H.W.

[gjordan]

Be wary of the old adage of asking the locals about ciguatera. When I was in the Marquesas , a friend on another boat (he was a doctor) was invited to dine with the local Dr. The local Dr said that his hospital was usually full of locals with fish poisoning. We made it our policy to only eat palegic fish. In the Carribean some friends got ciguatera and were sick for months and their nerve endings were so sensitive that they could not come out of their boat during the day time without pain. It is something to take very seriously. You dont want to ruin a cruise. Just my2 cents worth. ____Grant. (Not the icthyologist Grant )

[owly]

Originally Posted by gjordan

Be wary of the old adage of asking the locals about ciguatera. When I was in the Marquesas , a friend on another boat (he was a doctor) was invited to dine with the local Dr. The local Dr said that his hospital was usually full of locals with fish poisoning. We made it our policy to only eat palegic fish. In the Carribean some friends got ciguatera and were sick for months and their nerve endings were so sensitive that they could not come out of their boat during the day time without pain. It is something to take very seriously. You dont want to ruin a cruise. Just my2 cents worth. ____Grant. (Not the icthyologist Grant )

Some cruisers have carried a "sacrificial cat" to test for this..... Personally I really like cats, but I still would probably consider this. Cats are easily available in most places, though they are not welcome in some countries due to the fact that they are such accomplished killing machines. Feral cats are said to often eat as many as a thousand birds a day, small animals, reptiles, etc, are all prey. It's a major problem in Oz... I don't know about the islands. Never let them ashore...



H.W.

[DefinitelyMe]

Yea ciguatera is a real risk but very manageable. It is particularly prevalent in the Gambier Islands, but there are still enough species that are edible and because so many are not the snorkelling is amazing.

There is a theory that ciguatera may have been one of the driving forces behind the great Pacific migrations that were undertaken by the Polynesians to settle all those island groups in the first place. Seems like a reasonable possibility to me.

The really scary thing is that the Chinese are buying the rights to a lot of Polynesian produce, from areas that are definitely not safe. In Hao, for example, when the locals complained to the French that their soil was contaminated with radioactive fallout from all their nuclear testing, the French responded by saying "oh! Sorry about that. We'll fix it". They 'fixed' it by removing all of the top soil and dumping it into the sea. So now the people have no top soil to grow anything and the ocean sediment is radioactive. What choices do they have to sustain themselves? Well, fortunately the Chinese are happy to set up fish farming in the lagoon and then export the fish back to China.

Sorry....... I'm way off topic here!

[drewm3i]

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that ciguatera is only present on healthy reefs. On degraded reefs like in Florida it is basically non-existent. On remote atolls, beware of big reef fish.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by drewm3i

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that ciguatera is only present on healthy reefs. On degraded reefs like in Florida it is basically non-existent. On remote atolls, beware of big reef fish.

Err...no.

I used to live in FL. Ciguatera is wide spread there and in Bahamas.


http://www.floridahealth.gov/environ...poisoning.html