Coelacanth Recollections

The email that arrived in 2006, came from someone who had been in the Solomon Islands, but was not there at the time of writing. The writer said he had seen a fish, exactly like that on dinofish.com, caught at a village on a remote island. The email was only one sentence long. When I replied asking for details, the response was simply that I should contact the people there for confirmation. The writer said he would not be back in the Solomons. I tried to look up the location, but the village was not on Google maps. I had no way or information with which to make contact.

Eventually, when I had caught up with the other things of life, I set up a visit to the Solomons, where I had never been and knew little about. In the summmer of '07, I flew from New York City, via L.A. across the Pacific, bouncing off Brisbane, Australia and landing in Honiara, Solomon Islands at Henderson Airfield on Guadalcanal.

This was a strange new land for me. I was immediately impressed by remnants of the WWII Guadalcanal campaign almost everywhere, including a flight control tower left at the side of the airstrip. These became a fascinating diversion from the fish search.

I knew little about the people except that they had been ferocious cannibals. That afternoon, I hired an outboard, called by its shape a bannana boat, with a driver and helper and headed over to Florida Island with my fish comparison sheet. About an hour later the motor broke down behind Florida. The driver and helper could not restart it. We started drifting into shore, towards a village off the beach. I suggested we could spend the night there, but the driver and helper looked very worried, shaking their heads. At the village, I saw a pillar of smoke rising from the cooking area, like in a cannibal cartoon. The driver and helper tried to restart our engine, but in vain. As we drifted toward the beach two massively well built, bare chested young men with Afros started towards us across the beach. The driver and helper fell silent. I'm thinking, not good. Only one thing to do. I moved to the bow of the boat, held out my arm to shake hands as we began bumping the beach. "Hi, I'm Jerry!, I called out confidently. "I'm Frank!" said the first Islander. "And I'm Jimmy!" said the other. They fixed our engine and we were soon underway. Missionairies had been here before me. The Solomon islanders are very friendly.

No one at Florida recognized the coelacanth from the sheet, nor at Honiara, nor at Gizo, nor in the area of the Marovo Lagoon. Furthermore, the fish was not represented in the plentiful examples of traditional marine carvings. I visited fish markets and fishing villages, where possible. To reach the village mentioned in the email, I had to take flights in Twin Otters . At the grass airfields they weigh your luggage and you in order to balance the plane and see if will get off the ground.

SolAir Twin Otter. Very good at short takeoffs and landings.

When I reached the area of village in the email, reports were more positive. The possibility of coelacanths being caught and called by a different name was good in this remote area. The deep handline fishing technique using stone sinkers that were released on the bottom, was similar to that used in the Comoros.

He said he had caught this (coelcanth) fish recently!

They said the tail looked like a fan.

They said the tail looked like a club card!

The people seemed to know the writer of the email. They said he was a sailing yacht captain whose wife had been a teacher in a local school. (Years later, I concluded this was a misidentification.) There were confirmed reports of local catches, but no remaining physical evidence. I left information and a camera. It was a fascinating area and I planned to return at some future date. But I left empty handed.

Like the Terminator, "I'll be back!"