By Delphine
Ever since we arrived in French Polynesia, we have been extremely cautious about eating fish and potential exposure to ciguatera. We have been told a number of horror stories about cruisers getting ciguatera poisoning and they had to be hospitalised and were sick for months. There’re warning posters everywhere about ciguatera. We even printed out a document titled ‘Catalogue of marine fish and invertebrates with significant ciguatoxic risk in French Polynesia’. General rule of thumb – never eat barracuda, jack fish, grouper or reef fish, or for that matter any fish inside the atolls as we do not have local knowledge what is safe to eat.
Ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) is a foodborne illness affecting humans worldwide. Humans acquire this illness by eating reef fish containing the naturally occurring toxins, ciguatoxins which are found in macroalgae in coral reefs in tropical and subtropical climates. The toxin is transferred through the food web as the algae is consumed by herbivorous fish, which are consumed by carnivorous fish, which are in turn consumed by humans. Ciguatera Fish Poisoning commonly occurs in tropical and subtropical areas, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea. The onset of symptoms varies with the amount of toxin eaten from half an hour to up to two days. Feelings of weakness generally last a few days to several weeks. In severe or chronic cases, recovery can take weeks or months with some symptoms continuing for years. Mild Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, numbness in the extremities, tingling (paresthesias), abdominal pain and cramps, dizziness, vertigo. Severe Symptoms include profound exhaustion, muscle and joint pain, feelings of loose or painful teeth, visual disturbances (blurred vision), slow reflexes, itching, shortness of breath, reversal of hot/cold sensations, etc. (Excerpt from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579736/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera_fish_poisoning)
When we met Morton in Toau, we talked a lot about fishing and ciguatera. He’s an avid fisherman and his main diet is fish. He knows his atoll well and can tell which fish is sick or not. Whether or not a fish is good to eat depends not just on the species, but also the exact location or reef that it’s found. A parrotfish might be toxic at the pass, but totally safe at a particular reef inside the atoll. In fact many restaurants in the Tuamotus serve parrotfish on their menus.
Morton gave us some parrot fish and Grant also started spearfishing in the reefs. We were thrilled. My family loves eating fish and it’s just wonderful to eat fresh fish. We made congee with fish head for breakfast, steamed fish or fried fish for lunch and dinner. My mother especially loves eating fish heads. One evening Morton took us out on his boat to go fishing on a reef. He discarded many that he considered unsafe but kept over a dozen beautiful good size reef fish. The next evening we prepared a huge fish feast with three different types of fish cooked three ways. We invited Waterdogs, Morton and Louis over for the dinner, and our kids went to another boat for dinner. Everybody enjoyed the meal tremendously.
The next morning however I found my mother to be feeling rather sick. She couldn’t sleep at all as her legs were red and very sore as if they were poked by needles. We thought she got sunburnt on the beach. Elkie said she had diarrhoea in the night. The rest of us were fine. We didn’t suspect anything at first, but then I also started feeling weak and my legs felt so heavy that I could barely walk the stairs from my cabin to the saloon. I felt numbness and tingling on my fingers. Apple also got similar symptoms of muscle pain and general fatigue. Gavin, Val from Waterdogs and my dad were fine though. Two days later, Grant said he got some slight tingling sensations in the extremities. It took almost a week for me, Elkie, my mom and Apple to feel strong again. My mom definitely got the worst symptoms probably because she loves the fish head and the bones, and that’s where ciguatera is most concentrated.
When we met Morton and Louis again a week later, we told them what happened and they said it’s definitely ciguatera poisoning. Sometimes the ciguatera affect different people differently, and some got sick while others were fine. I think we just overate and the accumulation of the toxins kicked in and we got hit. Fortunately we only got relatively mild symptoms and didn’t get too sick.
Can’t say getting ciguatera is on our bucket list to do, but it’s certainly memorable. One thing for sure is that I’m not eating any more reef fish no matter what.