Whilst out snorkelling our first day, we met up with a bunch of striped fish that came up very close and personal.
“Look at these super friendly and curious fish!” I said to my family.
That evening we attended a talk on reef fish put on by the resort. It was surprisingly poorly attended, the four of us made up 80% of the audience, the other 20% being a boy who looked around ten years old who was dropped off by his mum, grateful for a break from the constant questions of a curious child, I expect, as she then headed straight for the bar.
The talk was presented by a young Fijian woman who obviously had a great deal of experience snorkelling and diving in the local area. I was gutted when she said the fish who’d flocked around us were actually very territorial, and were probably more likely to be trying to pick a fight with us than make friends. Gutting.
This striped fish is not to be confused with another black and white striped fish know as the convict tang.
Of course you know where the name ‘convict’ comes from. We are all familiar with what prisoners look like:
Even though in actuality, most prison uniforms look like this:
No comment on the racial profiling here. This photo actually comes from a website called The Handcuff Shop. Not sure in what situation I’d ever need to buy a prisoners outfit, but I note that many shoppers also bought an anti spit hood at the same time. The internet is a wild place.
We also met one of these, another striped tropical fish, but you’re really better off steering clear of this one and it’s venomous spines . Pretty though.
