skune
Premium Member
Rarotonga is the most populated of the Cook Islands, and is about halfway between Hawaii, and Australia. The closest landmass is New Zealand, about a 5 hour flight away, so most of the visitors we encountered were Kiwis on their holiday.
Raro is surrounded by a barrier reef, and there is a wide lagoon to explore safely and get up close and personal with the many fish species that call the lagoon their home.
There are a lot of wrasses in this area, and we found the banana wrasses to be one of the most prolific with harems of females with a few changing males, and some spectacular super-males. Other species we encountered included the three-spot wrasse, Hardwick wrasse, and the seldom seen twinspot wrasse. Smaller species like the circle-cheek, and nebulosus, and various cleaner wrasse species also were everywhere.
In terms of triggerfish, the Picasso is king of the lagoon. They are everywhere, and in all sizes. The Cook Island Picassos are very striking in color, and have more black than the ones we have seen elsewhere. Other triggers we saw were Lei triggers and Blueline triggers, and we encountered the adult version called blue triggers, and were amazed at how large they were. The swim sideways, and look like a turtle swimming.
Butterflies were also very numerous with many familiar species like Arriga, Racoon, and Longnose, as well as some of the rarer ones like Ornatissimus, and Chevrons and one we never saw before called Black-sided butterflies.
There are also a lot of moray eels around, and some really huge ones, so you have to be alert of spooking them in the shallow confines of the lagoon. Many think them as harmless, but I've seen closeup what those huge sharp teeth can do to a human hand. My son spernt a whole day in a Hawaii emergency room while a surgeon tried to reconstruct his hand after an eel locked onto it.
The first of my immersion videos from The Cooks, especially Rarotonga, and is now online to view here:
https://youtu.be/gGsLYujFkFA
Raro is surrounded by a barrier reef, and there is a wide lagoon to explore safely and get up close and personal with the many fish species that call the lagoon their home.
There are a lot of wrasses in this area, and we found the banana wrasses to be one of the most prolific with harems of females with a few changing males, and some spectacular super-males. Other species we encountered included the three-spot wrasse, Hardwick wrasse, and the seldom seen twinspot wrasse. Smaller species like the circle-cheek, and nebulosus, and various cleaner wrasse species also were everywhere.
In terms of triggerfish, the Picasso is king of the lagoon. They are everywhere, and in all sizes. The Cook Island Picassos are very striking in color, and have more black than the ones we have seen elsewhere. Other triggers we saw were Lei triggers and Blueline triggers, and we encountered the adult version called blue triggers, and were amazed at how large they were. The swim sideways, and look like a turtle swimming.
Butterflies were also very numerous with many familiar species like Arriga, Racoon, and Longnose, as well as some of the rarer ones like Ornatissimus, and Chevrons and one we never saw before called Black-sided butterflies.
There are also a lot of moray eels around, and some really huge ones, so you have to be alert of spooking them in the shallow confines of the lagoon. Many think them as harmless, but I've seen closeup what those huge sharp teeth can do to a human hand. My son spernt a whole day in a Hawaii emergency room while a surgeon tried to reconstruct his hand after an eel locked onto it.
The first of my immersion videos from The Cooks, especially Rarotonga, and is now online to view here:
https://youtu.be/gGsLYujFkFA
